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PREFACE.
PREFACE.
With the exception of the unhealthy summer months, I spent the greater part of the year following the close of the Rebellion, in traveling through the late Rebel States, passing first around their entire coast line; and, on subsequent trips, crossing by various routes through the interior. I have sought, in the following pages, to show something of the condition in which the war left the South, the feelings of the late insurgents, the situation and capacities of the liberated slaves, and the ope
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CHAPTER I. Why, and How the Trip was Made.
CHAPTER I. Why, and How the Trip was Made.
The most interesting records of the great revolution just ending have seemed to me to be those portraying the spirit and bearing of the people throughout the South, just before and at the outbreak of the war. Stories of battles, and sieges, and retreats, are kaleidoscopic repetitions of deeds with which all history is crowded; but with what temper great communities plunged into this war, which has overwhelmed them, for what fancied causes, to what end, in what boundless self-confidence and overw
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CHAPTER II. A School of Unadulterated Negroes—An Ancient Virginia Town under the Dispensation of Sutlers.
CHAPTER II. A School of Unadulterated Negroes—An Ancient Virginia Town under the Dispensation of Sutlers.
Our steamer for the voyage was to be the revenue cutter “Wayanda,” a trim, beautifully-modeled, ocean-going propeller, carrying six guns, and manned with a capital crew. While Captain Merryman was making his final preparation for a cruise, much longer than he had expected when the telegraph hurried his vessel around from New York, we retained the little “Northerner” for a trip up to Norfolk—only delaying long enough at the Fortress to drive out and see a great negro school, established by Genera
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CHAPTER III. “Beauties of the Sea”—First Views of Cracker Unionism.
CHAPTER III. “Beauties of the Sea”—First Views of Cracker Unionism.
On our return to the Fortress, the “Wayanda” was ready; there was a hurried transhipment in the dark; not a little dismay at the straitened proportions of the cabin; an assignment of state-rooms, which gave me the D. D. of the party as chum; and so—amid the Doctor’s loud groans and lamentations over confining a rational human being in a straight jacket of a bed like that—to sleep. There was a very hasty toilette next morning, and a very undignified rush for the fresh air on deck. We had started
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CHAPTER IV. Newbern and Beaufort—Black and White.
CHAPTER IV. Newbern and Beaufort—Black and White.
Shortly after our arrival in the harbor, the military authorities had provided a special train for us—that is to say, a train composed of a wheezy little locomotive and an old mail agent’s car, with all the windows smashed out and half the seats gone. By this means we were enabled, an hour after our visit to Beaufort, to be whirling over the military railroad from the little collection of Government warehouses on the opposite side of the harbor, called Morehead City, to Newbern. The whole way le
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CHAPTER V. Fort Fisher.
CHAPTER V. Fort Fisher.
On the morning of the 8th of May we came in sight of a long, low line of sand banks, dotted with curious hillocks, between which the black muzzles of heavy guns could be made out, and fringed with a perfect naval chevaux-de-frise of wrecked blockade runners, whose broken hulls and protruding machinery gave an ill-omened look to the whole coast. As we were closely studying the bleak aspect of this entrance to the great smuggling entrepôt of the Southern Confederacy, the glasses began to reveal an
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CHAPTER VI. Wilmington—Unionism—Blockade Running—Destitution—Negro Talk—Land Sales.
CHAPTER VI. Wilmington—Unionism—Blockade Running—Destitution—Negro Talk—Land Sales.
General Hawley, commanding at Wilmington, had come down to Fort Fisher, on hearing of the arrival of our party, accompanied by General Abbott, General Dodge, and a number of prominent citizens of North Carolina. They were all transferred to our vessel, and, with the tide in her favor, and under sail, the “Wayanda” astonished us all by steaming up the river at the rate of fourteen knots an hour. Captain Merryman, however, insisted she could do as much any time, only it wasn’t always convenient to
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CHAPTER VII. Charleston Harbor—Could Sumter have been Stormed—Negroes and Poor Whites.
CHAPTER VII. Charleston Harbor—Could Sumter have been Stormed—Negroes and Poor Whites.
We steamed into Charleston Harbor early in the morning; and one by one, Sumter, Moultrie, Pinkney, and at last the City of Desolation itself rose from the smooth expanse of water, as the masts of ships rise from the ocean when you approach them. Where, four years ago, before the fatal attack on this now shapeless heap of sand and mortar, the flags of all nations fluttered, and the wharves were crowded with a commerce that successfully rivaled Savannah, Mobile and every other Southern city save N
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CHAPTER VIII. Charleston, Now and Four Years Ago.
CHAPTER VIII. Charleston, Now and Four Years Ago.
In the afternoon, the General commanding the post was waiting with carriages for the party, at the wharf, when Admiral Dahlgren set us ashore. The wheels cut deep into the sand, throwing it into our faces and filling the carriage with it, till we began to realize what it meant to have taken up the pavements to get stone for the fortifications. “Shall we go first to the statue of Calhoun?” asked the General. “It is scarcely necessary—here is his monument,” said some one (in imitation of the old e
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CHAPTER IX. “Unionism”—Black and White, in Charleston and Through South Carolina.
CHAPTER IX. “Unionism”—Black and White, in Charleston and Through South Carolina.
A very few Union men could be seen. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say, a few could be found less treasonable than the majority of South Carolinians. “To be frank with you,” said one of these men, a sallow-faced country lawyer, from the mountain district, “to be frank with you, we were all Rebels. The North has never understood, and I doubt if it ever will understand, the absolute unanimity with which, after the war was begun, we all supported it. While there was any use in it, we resisted
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CHAPTER X. Port Royal and Beaufort.
CHAPTER X. Port Royal and Beaufort.
At daylight we were steaming into the broad sheet of water which Dupont first made famous, and which our sailors have since come to consider the finest harbor on the Southern coast. Admiral Dahlgren had evidently prepared the naval authorities for our arrival. Within a few moments, the numerous vessels were dressed in all their colors, the sailors manned the yards, and a salute was fired from all the men of war in the harbor. A few minutes later a deluge of naval officers set in, till the quarte
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CHAPTER XI. Among the Sea Islanders.
CHAPTER XI. Among the Sea Islanders.
The most degraded slaves in the South, it has been commonly testified by Southerners themselves, were to be found in South Carolina and on the sugar plantations of the South-west. Of the South Carolina slaves, the most ignorant and debased, beyond all question, were those on the sea islands about Port Royal. Engaged in unhealthy work, to which none but the coarsest of fiber were likely to be subjected, and steeped in the normal ignorance of the rice swamp and the cotton field, they were likewise
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CHAPTER XII. Business, Speculation and Progress Among the Sea Island Negroes.
CHAPTER XII. Business, Speculation and Progress Among the Sea Island Negroes.
Whatever may be the end of the wars for the “great city,” which everybody assures us is to be built hereabouts—at Hilton Head, or at Bay Point, or up the river, at Beaufort—it is certain that, thus far, Hilton Head has the start in business. Wading through the sand here, one finds, at the distance of a square or two from the landing, a row of ambitious-fronted one and two-story frame houses, blooming out in the most extravagant display of fancy-lettered signs. The sutlers and keepers of trade st
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CHAPTER XIII. Pulaski—Savannah—Bonaventure.
CHAPTER XIII. Pulaski—Savannah—Bonaventure.
From Hilton Head to Savannah, an inner passage among the Sea Islands is practicable for all vessels of light draught. General Gillmore, who accompanied us to Savannah with his staff, took our whole party on board his headquarters boat, a spacious side-wheel river steamer; and, about the middle of the afternoon we pushed off from the Hilton Head wharf, and were soon steaming rapidly along Scull Creek. On either side was the lush vegetation and low, flat scenery of the islands. Cultivated plantati
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CHAPTER XIV. White and Black Georgians—The Savannah Standard of Unionism.
CHAPTER XIV. White and Black Georgians—The Savannah Standard of Unionism.
The difference between Savannah and Port Royal negroes is the difference between the child and the man. Young men, fresh from Massachusetts common schools, do not surpass raw Cornish miners more; average Yankees do not surpass average Mexicans as much. Naturally, in listening to the negro delegations that called on Mr. Chase and General Gillmore, I heard the best talkers they have; but there is a general air of intelligence and independence among them, here, which comes only of education and kno
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CHAPTER XV. Florida Towns and Country—A Florida Senator.
CHAPTER XV. Florida Towns and Country—A Florida Senator.
On our return from Savannah to Hilton Head, a few hours were spent in sending letters home, and preparing finally to cut loose from any Northern communications till we should reach New Orleans. General Gillmore decided to accompany the party through the whole of his Department. There was a final plunge in the bracing surf; a good-bye to the Dominie, who declared he couldn’t stay longer away from his congregation, and so went back on the “Arago;” a parting dinner, at which we were regaled with th
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CHAPTER XVI. Orange Groves and an Ancient Village—The Oldest Town and Fort in the United States—Northern Speculations.
CHAPTER XVI. Orange Groves and an Ancient Village—The Oldest Town and Fort in the United States—Northern Speculations.
From Jacksonville, we steamed down the coast to St. Augustine. “The oldest town in the United States,” managed, in the good old times, to secure handsome gratuities from the national authorities. A long granite wall, splendidly built, by Government contractors, lines the whole water face of the village, and gives wharfage for a place of twenty, instead of a paltry two thousand inhabitants. Toward the upper end of the harbor stands the quaint Spanish fort, the oldest fortification on our sea-coas
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CHAPTER XVII. Dungeness, and the “Greatest of the Lees”—Cultivation of the Olive—Criminations of the Officers.
CHAPTER XVII. Dungeness, and the “Greatest of the Lees”—Cultivation of the Olive—Criminations of the Officers.
When Nathaniel Greene, one of the best and most trusted of Washington’s Generals, retired to civil life, it was with an estate seriously embarrassed by his patriotic sacrifices. During his brilliant campaign in the Southern Department, the battles of the Cowpens, Guilford Court-House and Eutaw Springs, destroyed the British power in Georgia and the Carolinas. At its close there was only left to Washington the easier task of concentrating all his forces upon Cornwallis in Virginia, and so ending
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CHAPTER XVIII. The Southern “Ultima Thule” of the United States.
CHAPTER XVIII. The Southern “Ultima Thule” of the United States.
Along the Florida coast there were occasional glimpses of solitary light-houses and barren beaches; once we got aground where there ought to have been deep water, and were pleasantly assured that, if we had to take to the land, we would be among the everglades, with no chance of finding any inhabitants but moccasin snakes, and possibly a stray Seminole; for the rest, we had schools of porpoises plunging about our feet, the superb phosphorescence of the waters, and fine fishing—each haul of a dol
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CHAPTER XIX. A Remarkable Negro Story—One of the Strange Possibilities of Slavery.
CHAPTER XIX. A Remarkable Negro Story—One of the Strange Possibilities of Slavery.
The story of “Uncle Sandie,” given in the preceding Chapter, seemed to me one of the most remarkable exhibitions ever made public of the results which inhere, as possibilities, in the system of slavery. On a subsequent visit to Key West, Sandie was persuaded to repeat his account of his self-mutilation at length, and the following phonographic report of it was taken down from his lips. I have endeavored to preserve throughout his exact language. It is only needful to add that Sandie is at once o
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CHAPTER XX. Among the Cubans—The Impending Downfall of Cuban Slavery.
CHAPTER XX. Among the Cubans—The Impending Downfall of Cuban Slavery.
The absence of certain officers compelled the officials of our party to make a delay of nearly a week at Key West, which we improved by steaming across to Cuba. Looking back now over the delightful days spent in the “Ever Faithful Isle,” I recall, out of all the pleasant memories, one or two only of which it seems needful here to speak. The bull fight in Havana, with which the pious Spaniards closed their celebration of Ascension Day; the witchery of dark-browned, liquid-eyed Senoritas; the fash
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CHAPTER XXI. Scenes in Mobile—The Cotton Swindles.
CHAPTER XXI. Scenes in Mobile—The Cotton Swindles.
Spring had ripened into fervid summer, as, after days of exquisite sailing on the Gulf, we steamed past the forts where Farragut added the latest laurels to our navy. Our pilot proposed taking us directly up the river, but presently the Wayanda’s keel plowed deep into the oozy mud of the channel, and admonished us that Mobile is an inland city, to which ocean-going vessels may not always venture to ascend. A boat’s crew was sent forward, and even it had a perilous passage among the torpedoes whi
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CHAPTER XXII. Mobile Loyalists and Reconstructionists—Black and White.
CHAPTER XXII. Mobile Loyalists and Reconstructionists—Black and White.
The political situation in Mobile, in the early days of June, might be briefly summed up. They were anxious for a re-establishment of civil government that would release them from suspense about confiscation. They expected severe punishment for their rebellion, as far as civil rights were concerned, but were disposed to put the best face possible upon affairs, ask for a good deal, and take whatever they could get. One day the Mayor called, together with his city council—a group of fine-looking g
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CHAPTER XXIII. New Orleans and New Orleans Notabilities.
CHAPTER XXIII. New Orleans and New Orleans Notabilities.
Crossing from Mobile to New Orleans was going from the past of the South to its present. Till within a few weeks, Mobile had been among the latest strongholds of the rebellion; for some years New Orleans had been held by the national authorities, and had been changing under the operation of Northern influences. Mobile showed us the last of the old South; New Orleans the first of the new. Before the Wayanda had reached the old battleground where what we would now call a sharp skirmish added the 8
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CHAPTER XXIV. The Beginning Reaction—Northern Emigrants and New Orleans Natives.
CHAPTER XXIV. The Beginning Reaction—Northern Emigrants and New Orleans Natives.
To be waked up in the morning by a negro, pushing your musquito-bar aside to hand you a cup of coffee in bed; to have him presently return with a glass of iced Congress water, an orange, and the morning papers, and to be notified that he’ll come back after awhile to tell you when it is time to get up, are traces of the old style of living in New Orleans, to which our host scrupulously adhered. Slavery was doubtless very bad; but it did one thing we shall never have so well done again—it trained
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CHAPTER XXV. Among the Negro Schools.
CHAPTER XXV. Among the Negro Schools.
In the good old times, before the advent of Farragut and Butler, the statutes of Louisiana declared teaching slaves to read and write a “crime, having a tendency to excite insubordination among the servile class, and punishable by imprisonment at hard labor for not more than twenty-one years, or by death, at the discretion of the court.” When asked, therefore, to visit the negro schools of New Orleans, I was not unduly sanguine in my expectations. Reverend and Lieutenant Wheelock, a keen, practi
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CHAPTER XXVI. Talks with the Citizens, White and Black.
CHAPTER XXVI. Talks with the Citizens, White and Black.
One morning we were interrupted at lunch by a message that Mr. Durant had called with the party for whom he had made the engagement yesterday. Remembering that Mr. Durant had promised to bring around some of the “ancient freedmen,” as they were called—that, is the free negroes of French descent—I went out a few moments afterward to witness the interview. A group of gentlemen stood about Mr. Chase in the library, and one, a bald-headed, gray-bearded, vivacious, youngish-old man was making an anim
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CHAPTER XXVII. A Free-labor Sugar Plantation.
CHAPTER XXVII. A Free-labor Sugar Plantation.
At last came the inevitable hour which forever clouds our pleasantest experiences of travel—the hour for parting. It was once or twice postponed, but the advancing summer admonished us to make no more delays. Mr. May insisted that we should not cease to be his guests till he had shown us his sugar plantation, and so a pleasant party was made up to accompany us. Among them was Mr. B. F. Flanders, a gentleman who, as the candidate of the Radical Free-State men for Governor against the Banks ticket
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CHAPTER XXVIII. The “Jeff. Davis Cotton Plantation.”
CHAPTER XXVIII. The “Jeff. Davis Cotton Plantation.”
A few negro soldiers were standing guard on the river bank, one day, as our steamer touched to land our party at the lower side of the great bend below Vicksburg, for a visit to the adjacent cotton plantations. The officers sent off for ambulances for us. While we were awaiting their arrival, the relief guard came up, marching with a precision and erect, soldierly bearing that spoke well for their drill sergeants, and proved no small source of astonishment to the party of paroled rebels we had o
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CHAPTER XXIX. Vicksburg to Louisville.
CHAPTER XXIX. Vicksburg to Louisville.
Davis’s Bend presented no more striking illustration of the changes of the war than a conversation on our boat, after our return. A brother of General Wade Hampton, the South Carolina Hotspur, was on board. He saw no great objection to negro suffrage, so far as the whites were concerned; and for himself, South Carolinian and secessionist though he was, he was quite willing to accept it. He only dreaded its effect on the blacks themselves. Hitherto they had, in the main, been modest and respectfu
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CHAPTER XXX. General Aspects of the South at the Close of the War.
CHAPTER XXX. General Aspects of the South at the Close of the War.
The months of May and June were the chaotic period of the returning Rebel States. All men were overwhelmed and prostrated under the sudden stroke of a calamity which the fewest number had anticipated. Many had believed the war hopeless, but nearly all had thought their armies strong enough, and their statesmen skillful enough, to extort from the North terms that would soften away, if not conceal, the rugged features of utter defeat. They expected the necessity of a return to the Union, but they
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CHAPTER XXXI. Mid-summer at the Capitol.
CHAPTER XXXI. Mid-summer at the Capitol.
No party ever made a graver mistake than did the one that had elected the Administration during the summer after the assassination of Mr. Lincoln and the surrender of the Rebel armies. Representatives, senators, leading men of the party in other official stations or in private life, abandoned their new President before he was lost. Dissatisfied with the North Carolina proclamation, they made little effort to convince the President of the justice of their dissatisfaction. Whispering to one anothe
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CHAPTER XXXII. Richmond, after Six Months of Yankee Rule.
CHAPTER XXXII. Richmond, after Six Months of Yankee Rule.
In my first visit to the Southern States, beginning in the spring of 1865, and ending in mid-summer, there were peculiar circumstances to be taken into account, in drawing conclusions as to any of the questions which the loyal portion of the nation was asking about the South. Our party was constantly surrounded by men desirous of impressing their own views. Southern politicians were endeavoring to convince the Chief-Justice of the returning loyalty of their people. Naturally, they suppressed unf
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CHAPTER XXXIII. Lynchburg—The Interior of Virginia.
CHAPTER XXXIII. Lynchburg—The Interior of Virginia.
The direct road from Richmond to Lynchburg was not yet in running order again. “One of our fool Generals burnt a big bridge near Lynchburg,” explained a citizen, “when there wasn’t the slightest use for it, and the bridge has not been rebuilt. Some of our Generals thought if they couldn’t have everything their own way, they must ruin everything. They hadn’t sense enough to see that it was their own friends they were ruining.” The trains from Richmond to Gordonsville, however, and thence to Lynch
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CHAPTER XXXIV. Knoxville and the Mountaineers—Glimpses of Southern Ideas.
CHAPTER XXXIV. Knoxville and the Mountaineers—Glimpses of Southern Ideas.
It was only the first week in November, but the morning air was keen and frosty, as I made my hurried preparations for leaving Lynchburg, on the East Tennessee Railroad. The “hotel” served up tough beefsteaks and gluey, blueish hot bread for breakfast. Everything was astir, and the little city wore as cheerful an air as though war had not been near its borders. A crowd of passengers pressed into the gloomy-looking depot. But three cars were provided, of which the last was occupied by negroes and
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CHAPTER XXXV. Atlanta—Georgia Phases of Rebel and Union Talk.
CHAPTER XXXV. Atlanta—Georgia Phases of Rebel and Union Talk.
From Knoxville I went direct to Atlanta, Georgia, the key of the great campaigns in the West, the memorable surrender of which re-elected President Lincoln, and proved the beginning of the end. The city was adapting itself, with remarkable rapidity, to the new order of things. “Sherman, his mark,” was still written too plainly to be soon effaced, in gaping windows and roofless houses, heaps of ruins on the principal corners and traces of unsparing destruction everywhere. The burnt district of Ri
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CHAPTER XXXVI. Montgomery—The Lowest Phase of Negro Character—Politics and Business.
CHAPTER XXXVI. Montgomery—The Lowest Phase of Negro Character—Politics and Business.
From Atlanta I took the railway for Montgomery, Alabama. We had been traveling, thus far, in third-class passenger cars. Now we came down to box freight cars, around the sides of which a board bench was placed for the accommodation of such passengers as cared to sit down. “’Ere’s your Cincinnati and Nashville papers, Gazette, Commercial, Press, and Times! All about the execution of Champ Ferguson!” “Yes, and I wish it was all about the execution of the scoundrels that tried him.” The scene was a
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CHAPTER XXXVII. Selma—Government Armories—Talks among the Negroes.
CHAPTER XXXVII. Selma—Government Armories—Talks among the Negroes.
From Montgomery I went down the River to Selma, Alabama. Colonel McGee, of Illinois, commanding the post there, had cut down a small oak which interfered with his hanging out the large garrison flag in front of his headquarters. The inhabitants complained bitterly about the sacrifice of the oak. “I tell you, gentlemen,” responded the Colonel, “not only trees but many brave men have been cut down that that flag may float!” Silenced, but not convinced, they took their revenge in mutterings; and th
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CHAPTER XXXVIII. Mississippi Tavern Talks on National Politics—Scenes in the Interior.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. Mississippi Tavern Talks on National Politics—Scenes in the Interior.
From Selma to Mobile the best route is by the way of Meridian, Mississippi. Meridian boasts numerous hotels. Lusty porters, clad in Nature’s black and Rebellion’s gray, lustily chant their respective praises. “If a gemmen wants a gemmen’s accommodation he goes to de Henrie House.” “’Ere ye are for de Snagsby House; only place in town for a gemmen.” “All de gemmen in town go to de Jones House.” I went, at a venture, to the Snagsby. I am therefore well prepared to recommend any of the others to su
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CHAPTER XXXIX. Mobile Temper and Trade—Inducements of Alabama to Emigrants.
CHAPTER XXXIX. Mobile Temper and Trade—Inducements of Alabama to Emigrants.
Between Meridian and Mobile, the railroad passes only very small tracts of land that appear at all inviting to Northern eyes. Much of the country is grown up in pine. Possibly lumbermen might find it a good location, but planters are likely to keep away from it. All in all, however, Alabama offers better inducements to the Northern emigrant than almost any of the other Southern States. The feeling against Northerners is not so bitter as through most of the South. The climate of the northern half
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CHAPTER XL. Phases of Public Sentiment in New Orleans before Congress met.
CHAPTER XL. Phases of Public Sentiment in New Orleans before Congress met.
“Memphis is a more disloyal town than New Orleans,” said some one, during the winter, to General Butler. The cock-eye twinkled as the General answered: “I’m afraid, then, they never had the gospel preached to them in its purity, in Memphis!” That General Butler’s gospel was preached with all plainness of speech and freedom of utterance, in New Orleans, was a fact to which the whole city testified; but still, if Memphis was worse, it was bad indeed. “What about the Union party here?” I asked of a
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CHAPTER XLI. Cotton Speculations—Temper of the Mississippians.
CHAPTER XLI. Cotton Speculations—Temper of the Mississippians.
Western men, seeking Southern speculations, mainly centered in New Orleans during the winter. Competition had already put up prices enormously. An army officer had recently leased a cotton plantation, above Miliken’s Bend, for seven dollars an acre! A few months earlier he might have bought such plantations at a similar figure; but in November he was able to sell out his lease at an advance of three dollars an acre! Within another month rents advanced to twelve and fourteen dollars an acre, for
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CHAPTER XLII. Memphis—Out from the Reconstructed.
CHAPTER XLII. Memphis—Out from the Reconstructed.
Of the trip between Jackson, Mississippi, and Grand Junction, Tennessee, I only remember a dismal night of thumpings over broken rails, and lurches and contortions of the cars, as if we were really trying in our motion to imitate the course of the rails the Yankee raiders had twisted. At one point all were waked up, hurried out into the mud of a forlorn little village, and informed that, some way or another, they must get over the burnt bridge to the train half a mile on the other side. Clamberi
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CHAPTER XLIII Congress Takes Charge of Reconstruction.
CHAPTER XLIII Congress Takes Charge of Reconstruction.
The Capital had been full of exciting rumors for a fortnight, on the subject of the admission or the rejection of the Southern Representatives and Senators; and, finally, the action of the House Union Caucus had been announced; but, still the Southern aspirants hoped against hope. At last came the decisive day. Floor and galleries, lobbies, reception-rooms, passage-ways, and all manner of approaches were crowded. The Diplomatic Gallery—so called, because diplomats are never in it—beamed with man
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CHAPTER XLIV. Southern Feeling after the Meeting of Congress.
CHAPTER XLIV. Southern Feeling after the Meeting of Congress.
December broke the earliest hope of the revived Southern temper. The preponderating Rebel element, which reorganized the State Governments under Mr. Johnson’s proclamations, first expected to take Congress by a coup de main , organize the House through a coalition with the Northern Democracy, and, having thus attained the mastery of the situation, repeal the war legislation and arrange matters to suit themselves. Defeated in this by the incorruptible firmness of Mr. McPherson, the Clerk, they ne
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CHAPTER XLV. Political and Business Complications in the South-west.
CHAPTER XLV. Political and Business Complications in the South-west.
New Orleans in January was a very different city from New Orleans in November. Trade had swelled to its old volume; the city was crowded beyond its capacity; balls, theaters, the opera, crowded upon one another, and all were insufficient to satisfy the wants of this amusement-loving community. But these changes were nothing, compared with that in the tone of political affairs. Governor Wells had accomplished another revolution on his axis. Lifted into power by the Banks régime , he had congenial
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CHAPTER XLVI. The Sugar and Rice Culture in Louisiana—Profits and Obstacles.
CHAPTER XLVI. The Sugar and Rice Culture in Louisiana—Profits and Obstacles.
A New Orleans friend of mine had recently purchased a fine sugar plantation, twenty-seven miles up the river from the city. He was going up to see how the season’s work was beginning, and I accepted his invitation to spend a day or too looking into the details of sugar culture. Steaming up the lower Mississippi is about the dreariest form of traveling. Within is the same round of novel-reading, card-playing, eating ill-cooked meals, and swilling bad liquors at the bar, under penalty of offending
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CHAPTER XLVII. A Cotton Plantation—Work, Workmen, Wages, Expenses and Returns.
CHAPTER XLVII. A Cotton Plantation—Work, Workmen, Wages, Expenses and Returns.
A few days afterward I embarked again upon a Mississippi packet, at New Orleans, to make a visit to some noted cotton plantations near Natchez. A good steamboat should make the trip in about thirty hours; but the packets lengthen the time one-half by their frequent stoppages. Every few miles we ran into shore, the gang-plank was thrown out, and half-a-dozen barrels of pork, or double as many of flour, or a few bales of hay were rolled off. So wedded are most of the old residents to their old way
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CHAPTER XLVIII. Among the Cotton Plantations—Rations and Ways of Work.
CHAPTER XLVIII. Among the Cotton Plantations—Rations and Ways of Work.
A day or two after my visit to the plantations just described, I started on a little horseback trip down the river. I was furnished with letters to a planter, nineteen or twenty miles down, and I supposed that the distance might be easily made in three hours. I left Natchez at two; but the delays at the ferry made it three before I reached the Louisiana side of the river. The February frosts had been keen, but the afternoon was oppressively warm. For miles along the bank of the river the horizon
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CHAPTER XLIX. Plantation Negroes—Incidents and Characteristics.
CHAPTER XLIX. Plantation Negroes—Incidents and Characteristics.
The months of February and March, with a portion of April, I spent mainly on Louisiana and Mississippi plantations, seeking to gain some insight into the workings of the free-labor system on these large estates, and especially to study the various developments of the plantation negro character. It has been popularly supposed that the negroes in the cotton-growing regions of the South-west were, from their isolation in the swamps and their rarer contact with the whites, the most ignorant, degrade
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CHAPTER LII. Labor Experiments and Prospects.
CHAPTER LII. Labor Experiments and Prospects.
The officers of a negro regiment at Natchez spent the month of March in mustering it out of the service. First the muster-out rolls gave interminable delays; then every body waited for the mustering officer; then on the paymaster; and, meantime, the camp was inundated by a flood of planters and speculators seeking to contract for hands. One Surgeon Dayton, late of our volunteer service, son of the late United States Minister to France, had leased a plantation over on Black River. He wanted hands
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CHAPTER LIII. Concluding Suggestions.
CHAPTER LIII. Concluding Suggestions.
The President’s vetoes of the Freedman’s Bureau Bill and the Civil Rights Bill, with his Twenty-second of February speech and subsequent utterances, were received throughout the South-Western Cotton States with an exultation which drove the newspapers [84] to sad straits. To do justice to the occasion, the leading journal of New Orleans was forced to this: “In the midst of a storm of passion, beating angrily and furiously against the bulwark of States’ rights, when the ambitious and interested p
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A.
A.
[The following is the speech made by Chief-Justice Chase to the negroes at Charleston, under the circumstances narrated on page 83 :] My Friends —In compliance with the request of General Saxton, your friend and mine, I will say a few words. He has kindly introduced me as a friend of freedom; and such, since I have taken a man’s part in life, I have always been. It has ever been my earnest desire to see every man, of every race and every color, fully secured in the enjoyment of all natural right
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B.
B.
[The following is a letter from Rev. Richard Fuller, D. D., of Baltimore, whose visit to his former slaves on St. Helena Island has been described. Dr. Fuller’s high position in the Baptist Church, and his prominence in former times as a defender of the divinity of slavery, in the discussions with President Wayland, give weight to his indorsement of the substantial accuracy of what has been said, in the foregoing pages, as to the condition and prospects of the Sea Island negroes. A few sentences
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C.
C.
Gentlemen —I should hardly feel at liberty to decline the invitation you have tendered me, in behalf of the loyal colored Americans of New Orleans, to speak to them on the subject of their rights and duties as citizens, if I had not quite recently expressed my views at Charleston, in an address, reported with substantial accuracy, and already published in one of the most widely circulated journals of this city. But it seems superfluous to repeat them before another audience. It is proper to say,
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D.
D.
The Captain-General of Cuba, in a conversation with Chief-Justice Chase, expressed the belief that Coolie labor would be gradually substituted for slave labor, and that slavery itself would come to an end in Cuba within ten years. AFTER THE WAR; Down the Coast and Up the Mississippi. By [“Agate”] Whitelaw Reid , Special Correspondent of the Cincinnati Gazette . 1 handsome volume, 12mo., of about 600 pages. Illustrated. When the tour of inspection to the cities of the Southern Coast was decided o
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