Fort Valley, November 15, 1865

Fort Valley, November 15, 1865

 THIS is a pleasant little town of some sixteen hundred to two thousand inhabitants, situated thirty miles below Macon and about one hundred miles above the Florida line. It is the principal place in Houston County, though not the county seat, and is the junction of the Muscogee and the Southwestern Railroads. It is not a point for the cotton trade, but does a large retail business with the surrounding country.

The section of the State below here, of which Albany may be called the centre, constituting Southwestern Georgia, is one of the finest cotton-growing regions of the South. It was not much traversed by either army, had no chance at running the blockade, and could get very little shipment on the railroads; consequently the surrender of the Southern army found in the country about all the cotton that had been raised in five years. Various gentlemen whom I met in the Carolinas from time to time told me there was probably more cotton in Georgia at the close of the war than in any other Southern State; and many gentlemen of this State tell me that the great bulk of the amount was in the southwestern section. The estimates of the amount in forty counties of this quarter average about two hundred thousand bales. The estimates of the amount made this year in the same counties average near ten thousand bales.

The men who did the fighting are everywhere the men who most readily accept the issues of the war. "I can whip any three Yankees in town," blustered an ex-Rebel officer at Americus the other day; but when I inquired about his record
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in the army I found that he was generally "seriously unwell" on the day of battle. So, too, one of the most malignant men I met at Milledgeville served during the war in the home guard, and, afterwards, as the commandant of a prison.

The late Rebel privates of this section are, generally, doing quite well. They mourn over the defeat of their armies, and are very fond of showing that but for this little mistake, or that little accident, or that other little blunder, the Confederacy would now be a great nation; but they appear, on the whole, to accept the issue of the war in good faith and with a determination to do their duties hereafter as orderly citizens. I should add, however, that there are more exceptions to this general fact than I found in South Carolina.

However strongly the Carolinian clings to his State-rights doctrine, he knows and feels that his State has been punished as a criminal for promulgating and upholding that dogma. The people of this section hold to the old faith on the abstract question, and do not seem to recognize that they have been beaten in the contest; and hence there is much scolding at what is termed "Presidential interference in the affairs of the State." Most noticeable as this is, there are very few who desire any further war on the subject. "I am as good a Calhoun man to-day as ever I was," said a gentleman to me at Smithville, "but you Yankees are too strong for us; and now I propose to keep my opinions to myself and do my duty as a good citizen."

An Americus merchant told me he was a hot Secessionist all through 1860, and, though sixty years of age, shouldered his musket early in 1861 and saw two years of service before he broke down. "We staked everything on the result, and for my part I submit to the issue without a murmur"; but before our conversation closed he said, "We have all taken the amnesty oath; we have just as many rights now as Mr. Johnson himself has; Georgia is again a member of the
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Federal Union, and I should like to see any Massachusetts or New York congressman get up and deny her sovereignty!" and, warming with his subject, he soon added, "We're not going there to ask favors, by G -- d, but to demand our rights!"

There is a pretty general contempt everywhere for the "Yankees," the word standing for the resident of any Northern State. Passing by a piazza in Americus on which three or four men sat, I overheard one of them remark, "Well, hell's the place for Yankees, and I want 'em all to go thar as soon's possible, and take the niggers 'long with 'em." Talking with a very intelligent Macon gentleman, I asked him how Northern men would be likely to succeed in business if they were to come into the State this winter; and his answer was, "I think they would get along well enough in the upper-country, but in the lower part of the State there is such ignorance and prejudice that I reckon they would see hard times a long while before they made a living." I must add, that in a general way I hear much expression of a desire for an influx of Northern energy and Northern capital. "Yet when the Yankees come down here," said a man from Columbus, whom I sat next at the tea-table, "they 'll have to be Georgians if they reckon to make money."

I have seen not a little of feminine bitterness since coming into the South; but the women of this section have favored me with some unusual exhibitions during the past week. One who took the train at Montezuma remarked to an acquaintance that the Yankees had all left that place, and she hoped to the good gracious that none would ever be seen there again; to which her friend responded, "I wish we could git shet of 'em forever up to our place." While going through the hotel hall to my room, one evening, from the parlor came a woman's voice asking Henry, the man of all work, if any Yankees came on the train. He reckoned not. "I'm thankful for that," answered the voice. When we
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went down past Andersonville the other day, a genteel young lady who sat in the seat in front of mine said to the gentleman who was her seatmate, "Do y