A CITY of ruins, of desolation, of vacant houses, of widowed women, of rotting wharves, of deserted warehouses, of weed-wild gardens, of miles of grass-grown streets, of acres of pitiful and voiceful barrenness, -- that is Charleston, wherein Rebellion loftily reared its head five years ago, on whose beautiful promenade the fairest of cultured women gathered with passionate hearts to applaud the assault of ten thousand upon the little garrison of Fort Sumter!
"The mills of the gods grind slow, but they grind exceeding small." Be sure Charleston knows what these words mean. Be sure the pride of the eyes of these men and women has been laid low. Be sure they have eaten wormwood, and their souls have worn sackcloth. "God's ways seem dark, but soon or late they touch the shining hills of day." Henceforth let us rest content in this faith; for here is enough of woe and want and ruin and ravage to satisfy the most insatiate heart, -- enough of sore humiliation and bitter overthrow to appease the desire of the most vengeful spirit.
Who kindled the greedy fire of December, 1861, whereby a third of the city was destroyed? No one yet knows. "It was de good Jesus hisself," said an old negro to me when I asked him the question, -- "it was de Almighty Hand workin'
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fru de man's hand." Certain it is that the people were never able to discover the agency of the fire; though, so far as I can learn, no one doubts that it was the work of an incendiary, -- "some man," say the ex-Rebels, "who wanted to do you Federals a good turn."
Recall last winter's daily bulletin about the bombardment, -- so many shells and no damage done, -- so many shells and no damage done, -- day after day the same old story, till one almost believed it true. Yet ex-Rebel officers will tell you now that our aim was so perfect that we killed their sentinels with our Parrott guns; and go where you will, up and down the streets in almost any portion of the city, and you find the dumb walls eloquent with praises of our skill.
We never again can have the Charleston of the decade previous to the war. The beauty and pride of the city are as dead as the glories of Athens. Five millions of dollars could not restore the ruin of these four past years; and that sum is so far beyond the command of the city as to seem the boundless measure of immeasurable wealth. Yet, after all, Charleston was Charleston because of the hearts of its people. St. Michael's Church, they held, was the centre of the universe; and the aristocracy of the city were the very elect of God's children on earth. One marks now how few young men there are, how generally the young women are dressed in black. The flower of their proud aristocracy is buried on scores of battle-fields. If it were possible to restore the broad acres of crumbling ruins to their foretime style and uses, there would even then be but the dead body of Charleston.
The Charleston of 1875 will doubtless be proud in wealth and intellect and rich in grace and culture. Let favoring years bring forward such fruitage! Yet the place has not in itself recuperative power for such a result. The material on which to build that fair structure does not here exist, and,
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as I am told by dozens, cannot be found in the State. If Northern capital and Northern energy do not come here, the ruin, they say, must remain a ruin; and if this time five years finds here a handsome and thriving city, it will be the creation of New England, -- not necessarily the pattern of New England, for the influences from thence will be moulded by and interfused with those now existing here; but yet, in the essential fact, the creation of New England.
It was noted on the steamship by which I came from New York that. leaving out the foreign element, our passengers were from Charleston and from Massachusetts. We had nearly as many Boston men as Charleston men. One of the Charleston merchants said to me that when he went North the passengers were also almost equally divided between Massachusetts and South Carolina; and he added, that, in Eastern Massachusetts, where he spent some days, he found many men who were coming to Charleston.
Of Massachusetts men, some are already in business here, and others came on to "see the lay of the land," as one of them said. "That's all right," observed an ex-Rebel captain in one of our after-dinner chats, -- "that's all right; let's have Massachusetts and South Carolina brought together, for they are the only two States that amount to anything."
"I hate all you Yankees most heartily in a general sort of way," remarked another of these Southerners; "but I find you clever enough personally, and I expect it'll be a good thing for us to have you come down here with your money, though it'll go against the grain with us pretty badly."
There are many Northern men here already, though one cannot say that there is much Northern society, for the men are either without families or have left them at home. Walking out yesterday with a former Charlestonian, -- a man who left here in the first year of the war and returned soon after our occupation of the city, -- he pointed out to me the various "Northern houses"; and I shall not exaggerate if I say that this classification appeared to include at least half the stores on each of the principal streets. "The presence of these men," said he, "was at first very distasteful to our people, and they are not liked any too well now; but we know they are doing a good work for the city."
I fell into some talk with him concerning the political situation, and found him of bitter spirit toward what he was pleased to denominate "the infernal radicals." When I asked him what should be done, he answered: "You Northern people are making a great mistake in your treatment of the South. We are thoroughly whipped; we give up slavery forever; and now we want you to quit reproaching us. Let us back into the Union, and then come down here and help us build up the country."
Every little variation from the old order of things excites the comment "Yankee notion," in which there is sometimes good-natured querulousness and sometimes a sharp spice of contempt. Stopping a moment this afternoon in a store where were three or four intelligent men, one of them asked me the use of the "thing" I had in my hand. It was one of the handle-and-straps so common in the North for carrying shawls, cloaks, overcoats, &c. Seeing that none of them had any idea what it was, I explained its use. "Well, now, what a Yankee notion!" "Yes," answered another, "but how handy it is."
To bring here the conveniences and comforts of our Northern civilization, no less than the Northern idea of right and wrong, justice and injustice, humanity and inhumanity, is the work ready for the hand of every New England man and woman who stands waiting. There is much prejudice to overcome, and some of it is better and aggravating; but the measure of success won by Northern men already in the field is an earnest of the reward for
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others. Self-interest is a masterful agent in modern civilization.
Business is reviving slowly, though perhaps the more surely. The resident merchants are mostly at the bottom of the ladder of prosperity. They have idled away the summer in vain regrets for vanished hopes, and most of them are only just now beginning to wake to the new life. Some have already been North for goods, but more are preparing to go; not heeding that, while they vacillate with laggard time, Northern men are springing in with hands swift to catch opportunity. It pains me to see the apathy and indifference that so generally prevails; but the worst feature of the situation is, that so many young men are not only idle, but give no promise of being otherwise in the immediate future.
Many of the stores were more or less injured by the shelling. A few of these have been already repaired, and are now occupied, -- very likely by Northern men. A couple of dozen, great and small, are now in process of repair; and scores stand with closed shutters or gaping doors and windows. The doubt as to the title of property, and the wise caution of the President in granting pardons, unquestionably has something to do with the stagnation so painfully apparent; but very much of it is due to the hesitating shiftlessness of even the Southern merchant, who forever lets I dare not wait upon I would. Rents of eligible storerooms are at least from one fourth to one third higher than before the war, and resident business men say only Northern men who intend staying but a short time can afford to pay present prices. I'm sure I can't see how any one can afford to pay them, but I know the demand is greater than the supply.
I queried of the returning merchants on the steamship how they were received in the North. An Augusta man complained that he could get no credit, and that there was a disposition to be grinding and exacting. One Charleston
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man said he asked for sixty days, and got it without a word of objection. Another told me that he asked for four months was given three, and treated like a gentleman everywhere. Another showed me the receipt for a debt of about fifteen hundred dollars contracted before the war, which he had paid in full; and when he asked for four months on a bill of eight thousand dollars, it was readily given. Still another settled his old indebtedness with one third cash and eight and twelve months notes for the balance. while he got ninety days on three fourths of his new bill. One man said he had many friends in the North, and they all knew him for a thorough Rebel; he expected some taunts, but tried to carry himself like a gentleman, and was courteously received, "even in Boston."
I judge that such of the merchants as first went North and settled with their creditors made more favorable terms than those who went later. If it be said that those were men who had loved the Union, while these are men who had not; that those were men of keen sense of commercial honor and integrity, while these are men who cared less for an adjustment; that those are men who deserved favors, while these are men who have forfeited all claim to special consideration, -- if this be said, the pith of the matter will probably be hit so far as regards most of those who now complain of their reception.
Yet there are men who deserved better than they have received. These are they who, whatever their views on the questions at issue in the war, meant to pay all their debts. Most of them are men who loved the Union and hated secession.. That there were such men in all parts of the State is beyond question. When the negroes say any one was a Union man during the war, the fact is established; from their judgment and testimony there is no appeal. These men, having no faith in the Confederacy, put everything they could into cotton or rosin or turpentine, -- hoping
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to save something from the general wreck they saw impending, -- only to find in the end that they are scarcely richer than those who invested everything in Confederate bonds.
It would seem that it is not clearly understood how thoroughly Sherman's army destroyed everything in its line of march, -- destroyed it without questioning who suffered by the action. That this wholesale destruction was often without orders, and often against most positive orders, does not change the fact of destruction. The Rebel leaders were, too, in their way, even more wanton, and just as thorough as our army in destroying property. They did not burn houses and barns and fences as we did; but, during the last three months of the war, they burned immense quantities of cotton and rosin.
The action of the two armies put it out of the power of men to pay their debts. The values and the bases of value were nearly all destroyed. Money lost about everything it had saved. Thousands of men who were honest in purpose have lost everything but honor. The cotton with which they meant to pay their debts has been burned, and they are without other means. What is the part of wisdom in respect to such men? It certainly cannot be to strip them of the last remnant. Many of them will pay in whole or in part, if proper consideration be shown them. It is no question of favor to any one as a favor, but a pure question of business, -- how shall the commercial relations of the two sections be re-established? In determining it, the actual and exceptional condition of the State with respect to property should be constantly borne in mind.
Yet when all this is said in favor of one class of merchants, it must, in good conscience, be added, that by far a larger class is showing itself unworthy of anything but stringent measures. "How do you find the feeling?" said I to a gentleman of national reputation, who is now here
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settling the affairs of a very large New York house. "Well, there are a good many merchants who don't mean to pay anything more than they are obliged to," said he in reply. I asked of one of the leading merchants this morning, "Are your people generally disposed to settle their accounts?" His answer was, "Those who expect to continue business must of course do so." "How about the others?" I queried. "I'm afraid there is n't so much commercial honor as there should be," he replied. I am told of one firm which represented itself entirely ruined, when subsequent investigation showed that it had five thousand pounds sterling to its credit in Liverpool; and of another which offered only thirty cents on the dollar, when its property in New York alone will cover over seventy cents on the dollar of its entire indebtedness.
That Rebellion sapped the foundations of commercial integrity in the State is beyond question. That much of the Northern indebtedness will never be paid is also beyond question. What is desirable is, that creditors should become cognizant of all the facts in the case before fixing terms. For the rascal there is but one set of terms; for the honest man there should be every possible consideration.
The city is under thorough military rule; but the iron hand rests very lightly. Soldiers do police duty, and there is some nine-o'clock regulation; but, so far as I can learn, anybody goes anywhere at all hours of the night without molestation. "There never was such good order here before," said an old colored man to me. The main street is swept twice a week, and all garbage is removed at sunrise. "If the Yankees was to stay here always and keep the city so clean, I don't reckon we'd have `yellow jack' here any more," was a remark I overheard on the street. "Now is de fust time sence I can 'mem'er when brack men was safe in de street af'er nightfall," stated the negro tailor in whose shop I sat an hour yesterday.
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On the surface, Charleston is quiet and well behaved; and I do not doubt that the more intelligent citizens are wholly sincere in their expressions of a desire for peace and reunion. The city has been humbled as no other city has been; and I can't see how any man, after spending a few days here, can desire that it shall be further humiliated merely for revenge. Whether it has been humiliated enough for health is another thing. Said one of the Charlestonians on the boat, "You won't see the real sentiment of our people, for we are under military rule; we are whipped, and we are going to make the best of things; but we hate Massachusetts as much as we ever did." This idea of making the best of things is one I have heard from scores of persons. I find very few who hesitate to frankly own that the South has been beaten. "We made the best fight we could, but you were too strong for us, and now we are only anxious to get back into the old Union and live as happily as we can," said a large cotton factor. I find very few who make any special profession of Unionism; but they are almost unanimous in declaring that they have no desire but to live as good and quiet citizens under the laws.
For the first two months of our occupancy of the city scarcely a white woman but those of the poorer classes was seen on the street, and very few were even seen at the windows and doors of the residences. That order of things is now, happily, changed. There does n't yet appear to be as much freedom of appearance as would be natural; but very many of what are called the "first ladies" are to be seen shopping in the morning and promenading in the evening. They, much more than the men, have contemptuous motions for the negro soldiers; and scorn for Northern men is frequently apparent in the swing of their skirts when passing on the sidewalk.
One does n't observe so much pleasantness and cheerfulness as would be agreeable; but the general demeanor is
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quite consonant with the general mourning costume. A stroller at sunset sees not a few pale and pensive-faced young women of exquisite beauty; and a rambler during the evening not unfrequently hears a strain of touching melody from the darkened parlor of some roomy old mansion, with now and then one of the ringing, passionate airs with which the Southern heart has been fired during the war.
Mothers yet teach their children hate of the North, I judge; for when I asked a bright-eyed girl of half a dozen years, with whom I walked on a back street for a block or two, whose girl she was, she promptly answered, "A Rebel mother's girl." Patience, good people who love liberty, patience; this petty woman's spite will bite itself to death in time.
Down in the churchyard of St. Philip's, one of the richest and most aristocratic of churches in this proud city, is a grave which every stranger is curious to see. There are only the four plain panelled brick walls about three feet high, and on them a mottled white marble slab, some nine feet by four in size. At the head of the grave is a single sickly ten-foot-high magnolia tree. At each corner of the foot is a sprawling and tangled damask rose-bush, and about midway on the right there is also a small white rose-bush. All around the little plat is a border of myrtle, sweet in its rich greenness, but untrimmed and broken and goat-eaten. It is the grave of the father of the Rebellion, and on the marble slab there is cut the one word, --
"CALHOUN."
This churchyard symbolizes the city of Charleston. Children and goats crawl through a convenient hole in the front wall, and play at will among the sunken graves and broken tombstones. There is everywhere a wealth of offal and garbage and beef-bones. A mangy cur was slinking among the stones, and I found a hole three feet deep which he had dug at the foot of one of the graves. Children were quarrelling
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for flowers over one of the more recent mounds. The whole yard is grown up to weeds and brush, and the place is desolate and dreary as it well can be; more desolate because cruel hands have broken away the corners of the great marble slab of Calhoun, -- for mementos, I suppose. Time was when South Carolina guarded this grave as a holy spot. Now it lies in ruin with her chief city. When Northern life shall rebuild and revivify that city, let us pray it may also set chaste and simple beauty around this grave; for there is no need to wish the brave but bad spirit of Calhoun greater punishment than it must have in seeing the woe and waste and mourning which the war has brought the region he loved so well.
II. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN THE INTERIOR OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
Orangeburg C. H., September 7, 1865.
FROM Charleston to Orangeburg Court House is seventy-seven miles. Route, South Carolina Railroad. Time, seven and a half hours. Fare, five dollars. There is one train per day each way. Our train consisted of five freight-cars, the baggage-car, a box freight-car with seats for negroes, and one passenger-coach. The down train, which we met at Branchville, -- where Sherman's army was to find its doom, -- consisted of seven freight-cars, four of which were filled with troops on the way to Charleston and home, the baggage-car, and two passenger-coaches. Our one car was uncomfortably full when we started; but only eleven of the passengers came through.
"What sort of accommodations can I get at Orangeburg?" I asked of a friend in Charleston.
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"You're not going to stop up there? O you can't do it!"
"Well, I shall try it, at all events."
"Don't do it; Orangeburg is just as good as any of these towns; but I advise you to shun all of'em. The accommodations are awful: push right on to Columbia."
I was n't to be put down that way, for I had consulted a gazetteer, and learned that "Orangeburg is a pleasant and thriving town on the northeast bank of the north fork of the Edisto River. It is in the midst of a farming district, and is the centre of a large cotton trade. Population two thousand seven hundred." That was before the war, and I knew the place had been partly burned; but I felt confident that my friend exaggerated.
We left the city at seven and a half o'clock in the morning. Twenty miles out, the conductor came through the car, and collected our fares; for no tickets are sold at Charleston. In front of me sat a good-looking young woman, of about twenty-two, I judged. Hearing her very plainly say that she was going to Orangeburg, I determined to ask her about the town and its hotel accommodations.
"Yes, I live there," she said.
"Is there a hotel in the town, or any place at which a person can stop?"
"O yes, there 's a hotel," she said; and after a pause, she added, "but it's hardly such a place as a gentleman would choose, I think."
She spoke pleasantly enough, and, having answered my question, might have dropped the conversation; instead of which, she went on to say that persons who had occasion to stop in town for some days frequently took a room at a private house, and were much better suited than at the hotel.
I did the only thing I well could do, -- the thing that it was perfectly natural I should do. I asked her if she could mention one or two private houses at which I might ask for accommodations, if the hotel proved unendurable.
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I fully expected that she would say her mother sometimes accommodated gentlemen; and I may as well own that I had determined what reply I should make to that announcement.
Instead, however, she turned in her seat so as to face me, and said, with considerable vim, "Are you a Yankee?"
The question surprised me; and I simply answered, "From the North."
"By what right do you presume to speak to me, sir?" she asked, in a clear and snapping tone, that caught the ears and eyes of most of the passengers.
The strangeness of the question, no less than the remarkable change in her manner, coupled with the fact that I knew myself to be under the observation of thirty or more persons of Southern birth and feeling, embarrassed me to such degree that I could only stammer, "By the right which I supposed a gentleman always had to ask a lady a civil question."
"Well, sir, I don't choose to talk with you."
And she settled herself sharply into her seat, jerked her little body into a very upright position, and squared her shoulders in a very positive manner, -- while I sat flushed and confused.
What should I do about it? That was a question I asked myself twenty times per hour for the next thirty miles. I was seriously inclined to apologize, though I hardly knew for what; but did n't, for I feared the little Rebel might snub me again, if I gave her an opportunity. In front of her sat a young man who had been a captain in the Rebel army. Him she soon engaged in conversation, and they cheered the slow miles with most lively chat. Surely, thought I, this is beginning the three months' journey unfortunately. I could have borne her indignation quite easily; but each individual in the car soon made me aware that my Yankee baseness was well known and thoroughly appreciated.
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The forenoon wore away, and the crazy old engine dragged itself along. Little Miss was vivacious and entertaining; the ex-officer was evidently in a cheerful frame of mind; I sat alternating between repentance and indignation. Finally the whistle sounded for Branchville.
Missy rose in her seat, shook out her skirts, drew on her small thread glove, turned to me, -- mind you, not to the ex-officer, but to me, -- and asked me if I would be good enough to hand out her basket for her.
Here was another surprise. Queer creatures, these little Rebels, said I to myself, as I followed her out, -- carrying the not heavy basket. She did n't stop when we reached the platform of the station-house, but walked on towards its upper end; and I followed, demurely, but wonderingly. Fifteen or twenty yards away from the car, she suddenly stopped, and turned quickly upon me with "Thank you; I want to apologize to you; I was rude."
And here was the greatest surprise of all! It caught me in confusion; but I managed to say something to the effect that perhaps I was too forward in asking the question I did.
"No, you were not. It was right that you should ask it, and I was rude to answer you so uncivilly. But you caught me at a disadvantage; I had n't spoken to a Federal since Sumter was taken."
"Well, it did n't hurt you very much, did it?" said I. Whereat she laughed and I laughed, and then the engine whistled.
"I'm going to stop here a day or two," she remarked; and then, "You'll shake hands, won't you?" as I started for the car. So we shook hands, and I left her standing on the platform.
I had n't learned much about my chances for comfort in Orangeburg, however.
We got here at three o'clock in the afternoon. I was determined to stop, let the accommodations be what they
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would, and firmly said "No" when the stage agent at the depot urged me to take a seat for Columbia.
There were five passengers with baggage. Twenty-five negroes crowded around us, and troubled the hot air with harsh clamor. "Give yer baggage here, sir." "Luf dis yer nig tote yer plun'er, Mass'r." "Have yer balese toted to de hotel, sah?" "Tuk a hack up town, Mass'r?"
There was the man I wanted. He proved to be a strapping boy of thirteen or fourteen, who tossed my valise to the top of his head and strode off with both hands swinging.
I found the "hack" to be a rickety old short-boxed spring wagon, with two rough board seats, on the back one of which was a worn-out cushion, over both being a canvas supported on sticks nailed to each corner of the box. This establishment was drawn by a scrawny lame mule, and we were seventeen minutes in accomplishing the half-mile, which the boy called it, up to the hotel.
I was a little distrustful about the hotel; and learning from the driver that boarders were sometimes taken at another house, I stopped there and asked the white girl of fifteen, whom I found on the piazza, if they could give me meals and lodgings for about three days. She thought they could, but would call her mother. So much of the house and grounds as I could see presented an inviting appearance, and I indulged in visions of a pleasant chamber and many dreamy hours on the broad piazza. Presently "mother" appeared. She was a plump woman of thirty-three, perhaps.
"Yes, sir, we have a couple of rooms, and we sometimes take transient boarders," said she, answering the question I put to the girl.
"I am stopping three or four days in town, and had much rather be at a pleasant private house than at the hotel," I said.
"O, a Yankee, of course," I answered, smiling, though I saw breakers ahead.
"No Yankee stops here! Good day, sir!" And she turned and walked into the house.
The negro boy, who stood with my valise on his head, volunteered the remark, "Haf to go to de hotel, sah"; and I followed him back to the "hack."
At the "hotel" was a negro boy washing the steps from the piazza into the basement. I told him what I wanted. He would call the Missus. She was somewhere in the lower part of the house; and after her head came into sight above the level of the floor on which I stood, she stopped and washed her hands in the dirty water with which the boy had just finished scrubbing the stairway, smoothing her hair with them and wiping them on her apron.
I made known my desires, paid my driver his charge of seventy-five cents, and was shown by Robert -- him of the wash-rag and scrubbing-brush -- to room No. 8, the figure being at least a foot in length and rudely done in white chalk.
The room is about fourteen feet square, has one window fronting the southeast, and is in the third story. Lath and plaster there are not, on this floor at least. The partitions are of rough unmatched pine, with strips of cloth over the larger cracks, and a cheap wall paper on the boards all round. The ceiling is also of wood, and was once painted white, but is now, like the wall paper, of a smoky yellow. The paper is much broken by the shrinkage of the boards, and large patches of it have been torn off in a dozen places. The walls and ceiling are handsomely decorated with wasp's mud nests and sooty-branched cobwebs. The bed is a dirty cotton mattress in an old-fashioned high-post bedstead. There are no sheets, and in fact nothing but a cotton-stuffed pillow and a calico spread. This establishment is the abode of a numerous and industrious colony of the Improved Order of
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Red Men, to whom I nightly pay a heavy blood tribute. Beside the bed there is for furnishing of the room one caneseat chair, a seven-by-ten looking-glass, and a three-foot-square and breast-high plain pine table, on which are a cracked wash-bowl and a handleless and noseless water-pitcher, to which I prevailed on Robert to add a cracked tumbler. In the window are six sound panes of glass, four cracked ones, and the remnants of five panes more. I suppose I should add also to the furniture several very social and handsome mice, and a healthy and lively swarm of uncommonly large mosquitoes.
The house has three stories and a basement dining-room. The first and second floors have broad piazzas on each side of the house. The first floor has four rooms, and the second and third have five each. Robert says mine is the best on the upper floor, -- in which fact there is much consolation. Glimpses into the second floor rooms have not bred in me any desire to move down. In the so-called drawing-room there are three old chairs, a round and rickety centre-table, a sort of writing-desk, the wreck of a piano, and several pieces of carpet. In the dining-room are two twelve-foot plain pine tables, and twenty-three chairs of five different patterns. The table-spread of this noon was the same we had on the evening of my arrival, three days ago, and it was horribly filthy then. The dining-room itself is airy and clean. In the hall, and pasted to the wall, are a set of "rules for the hotel," twice as long and formidable as any I ever saw in any Northern house, whether first or fourth class. The hotel register, a book fully equal to the necessities of any Boston house for six months, is, with a lead pencil, handed round at the supper table each day for the reception of the names of persons who have arrived since morning.
The hotel grounds consist of a large yard, the gate of which is always open, and within which all the stray stock
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of the town has free ramble. At the bottom of the broad steps on the upper side of the house is a large mud-puddle, in which dogs and hogs alternately wallow, there being at least five of the former and nine of the latter running about. The dogs are gaunt and wolfish, -- the hogs are slab-sided, half-grown, and very long of nose. There is in the yard about everything one can name, except grass and cleanliness, -- bits of wood and crockery, scraps of old iron, wisps of straw and fodder, old rags, broken bottles, sticks, stones, bones, hoofs, horns, nails, etc., etc., ad infinitum. The barber throws the sweepings of his shop on one side the house, and the cook is equally free with her slops on the other side.
The "Missus" is the head of the house. She is tall and angular, with a complexion sallow to the last degree of sallowness, eyes in which there is neither life nor hope, hair which I am sure has not felt either comb or brush during my stay. Her dress is a greasy calico, of the half-mourning variety, to which she sometimes adds an apron which is n't more repulsive only because it can't be. She is a type of women, thank God, without counterpart in the North. She goes about the house in a shuffling, shambling manner, with the cry "Robert -- Robert -- Robert," or "'Manda -- 'Manda -- 'Manda," always on her tongue. There is no variety of accent in this cry, but only one of length, as "Robert -- Ro-be-rt -- R-o-b-e-r-t." During meals she stands at the head of the table, and serves out the allowance of tea or coffee, and sugar and milk, with an unending string of such talk as this: "Robert, tend the hominy"; "Gal, get the gemman's cup and sasser"; "'Manda, mind the flies"; "Goodness gracious, nigger, why don't ye pass them biled eggs"; "Now, Robert, do see them flies"; "'Manda, look arter them squeet pertaterses"; "Now, ye good-for-nuthin' nigger, can't ye brush away them flies?" She complains, in whining, listless fashion, to everybody, about the "niggers," telling how idle, shiftless, and ungrateful they are.
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She has a husband, who takes special pains to inform everybody that he has n't anything to do with the hotel; and whose sole occupations, so far as I can see, are smoking, complaining about "the niggers," and doctoring a poor old blind, spavined horse.
The genius of the house is Robert, who stands on his head as well as on his feet; who is trim, pert, wide-awake; who picks out a Northern man with unerring instinct, and is always ready and prompt to serve him; but who is forever out of the way, or very busy when that cry of "Robert -- Ro-be-rt -- R-o-b-e-r-t" shuffles up through the house. What trick of stealing sugar he has n't learned is n't worth learning. "She talk about the niggers, -- bah!" he exclaims, as he goes about his work.
When I was ready last evening to go to my room, I sent Robert for a light, and told him to bring me a whole candle. He came back directly and said, throwing his finger over his shoulder, "She says can't have it." I followed him into the dining-room, where she sat whining at 'Manda.
"Madam, I should like a light."
She told Robert to bring her a candle, and was about to cut off a piece two inches long.
"I should like a whole candle to-night, if you please," said I.
"Want a whole candle, sir?"
"Yes, ma'am, I 'm going to write in my room awhile this evening."
"Want a long candle? What yer goin' to write? Want all this candle?"
"Can't I have the candle?"
"The whole candle? Gemmen allers takes a short light and goes to bed right soon."
"Shall I take that candle, or shall I send Robert out to buy me one?"
"I reckon ye can have this. I'll send Robert up for it arter a while."
[p. 20]
I did n't stop to argue that point, but when I reached the hall I said to Robert, "You 'll find the door locked if you come up"; to which he responded, "I sha'n't come."
The table is wretched. The tea, eggs, and waffles are the only articles even passably good. Bread and biscuit are alike sour and leaden, and all the meats are swimming in strong fat. The cook is a large and raw-boned negro-woman, who is aided by the "Missus," the boy Robert, and the girl 'Manda. I suppose Sarah cooks quite to the satisfaction of her mistress; but I doubt if it would be possible for any Northern girl, even with twenty years of training, to make of herself a cook so utterly bad as Sarah is. She certainly exhibits most remarkable ability in spoiling everything in the line of eatables.
The general management of the house, I scarcely need add, is hopelessly miserable. Everything is forever at sixes-and-sevens, and the knowledge of where anything was yesterday gives not the least indication of its present whereabouts. The establishment, not less in its several parts than in its aggregate whole, is an unclean thing. Shiftlessness has here his abode, and there is neither effort nor desire to dispossess him. And the traveller's bill is three dollars and a half per day!
I have not drawn this picture except for a purpose. I hear, already, in this Southern trip, a great deal about the superior civilization of the South. This hotel is a part of its outgrowth. Orangeburg was a place of twenty-five hundred to three thousand inhabitants. It is the county seat. Here is the State Orphan Asylum. The place is midway between Charleston and the capital. Let any one consider what is the character of the only public house in any Northern town of the same size, and similarly situated, and then the quality of this boasted Southern civilization will be apparent. Nor can it be said that the war is responsible for the condition of things here, for the house was full from the beginning, and has not
[p. 21]
suffered any loss from either army. It could not receive a week's support in any community of any State from Maine to the Rocky Mountains. Yet here it lives on and on, year after year, a witness for Southern civilization. Let us call things by their right names, -- then shall we say Southern barbarism.
Orangeburg C. H., September 9, 1865.
RECALLING how persistently the whites of this State have claimed, for twenty-five years, to be the negro's special friends, and seeing, as the traveller does, how these whites treat this poor black, one cannot help praying that he may be saved from his friends in future. Yet this cannot be. Talk never so plausibly and eloquently as any one may of colonization or deportation, the inexorable fact remains, that the negro is in South Carolina, and must remain here till God pleases to call him away. The problem involved in his future must be met on the soil of which he is native; and any attempt to solve it elsewhere than in the house of these his so-called special friends will be futile.
The work of the North, in respect to South Carolina, is twofold: the white man must be taught what the negro's rights are, and the negro must be taught to wait patiently and wisely for the full recognition of those rights in his own old home. He waited so long in the house of bondage for the birthright of freedom, that waiting is weary work for him now; yet there is nothing else for him and us, -- nothing but faith, and labor, and waiting, and, finally, rest in victory.
The city negro and the country negro are as much unlike
[p. 22]
as two races. So, too, the city white man and the country white man differ much from each other. The latter, however, is just what he chooses to be, while the country negro is just what slavery and his late owners have made him. Tell me what you will derogatory of the country negro, and very likely I shall assent to most of the language you use. He is very often, and perhaps generally, idle, vicious, improvident, negligent, and unfit to care well for his interests. In himself, he is a hard, coarse, unlovely fact, and no amount of idealizing can make him otherwise. Yet, for all that, he is worth quite as much as the average country white.
The negro, one may say, is made by his master. I even doubt if he is, in many cases, morally responsible for his acts. With him there is no theft when he takes small property from the white; there is, of course, crime in the eye of the law, but there is none in the design or consciousness of the negro. Has not every day of his existence taught him that robbery is no crime? So, too, if this uncouth freedman, just from the plantation, falls into a passion and half kills somebody, you will utterly fail in your effort to make him understand that he has committed a grave crime. Has not his whole life been witness of just such right and lawful outrage on humanity? This language may indicate a bad state of affairs; but it points out certain conditions with respect to the negro that must be taken into account by any one undertaking to deal with him as a freedman.
Everybody talks about the negro, at all hours of the day, and under all circumstances. One might in truth say -- using the elegant language of opposition orators in Congress -- that "the people have got nigger on the brain." Let conversation begin where it will, it ends with Sambo.
I scarcely talk with any white man who fails to tell me how anxious many of the negroes are to return to their old homes. In coming up from Charleston I heard of not less than eleven in this condition, and mention has been made
[p. 23]
to me here in Orangeburg of at least a score. The first curious circumstance is, that none of them are allowed to return; and the second is, that I can't find any of those desirous of returning. I presume I have asked over a hundred negroes here and in Charleston if they wanted to go back and live with their old masters as slaves, or if they knew any negro who did desire to return to that condition, and I have yet to find the first one who hesitates an instant in answering "No."
I spoke of this difficulty I have in finding a single negro who loved slavery better than he does freedom to an intelligent gentleman whom I met here last evening, -- a member of the Rhett family. "I am surprised to hear that," said he; "but I suppose it's because you are from the North, and the negro don't dare to tell you his real feeling." I asked if the blacks don't generally consider Northern men their friends. "O yes," he answered, "and that's the very reason why you can't find out what they think."
They deserve better treatment than they get at our hands in Orangeburg, at least; and I am told that what I see here is a forecast of what I shall see in all parts of the State. Theoretically, and in the intent of Congress, the Freedmen's Bureau stands as the next friend of the blacks; practically, and in the custom of the country, it appears to stand too often as their next enemy. That General Saxton is their good friend does not need to be asserted. Very likely the district commissioners under him are wise and humane men, and unquestionably the general regulations for the State are meant to secure justice to the freedmen.
The trouble arises from the fact that it is impossible for the State Commissioner or his chief deputies to personally know all, or even half, their various local agents. Take the case right in hand. Head-quarters for this district are thirty miles below here; and the ranking officer of the bureau has, probably, agents in at least forty different towns, the majority
[p. 24]
of whom are doubtless lieutenants from the volunteer forces of the army. They are detailed for this duty by the military commander of the post or the district, -- sometimes after consultation with the district commissioner, but quite generally without. As the post garrisons are constantly changing, there may be a new agent of the bureau once a month in each town of the district; and I need not add, that the probabilities are that half the aggregate number on duty at any given time are wholly unfit for the work intrusted to them.
Again, take the case right in hand. The acting agent here at present is a lieutenant from a New York regiment. He is detailed by the colonel commanding, and has been on duty several weeks. Yet he never has seen the district commissioner of the bureau. His duties are to examine, and approve or disapprove, all contracts between the planters and the negroes, and to hear and determine all cases of complaint or grievance arising between the negroes themselves, or between the whites and the negroes. He treats me courteously, but he has no sympathy with the poor and lowly; and his ideas of justice are of the bar-room order, -- might makes right. He does n't really intend to outrage the rights of the negroes, but he has very little idea that they have any rights except such as the planters choose to give them. His position, of course, is a difficult one; and he brings to it a head more or less muddled with liquor, a rough and coarse manner, a dictatorial and impatient temper, a most remarkable ability for cursing, and a hearty contempt for "the whole d -- n pack o' niggers." I speak from the observation of a good deal of time spent in and around his office.
I found Charleston full of country negroes. Whites of all classes concur in saying that there is a general impression throughout the back districts that lands are to be given the freed people on the sea-coast; and this, I am told, renders
[p. 25]
them uneasy and unreliable as plantation hands. Whites of all classes also concur in saying that they will not work.
"I lost sixteen niggers," said a Charleston gentleman; "but I don't mind it, for they were always a nuisance, and you'll find them so in less than a year." I asked, as usual, what they are now doing. Two or three of the men went into the army, one of the women had gone North as a cook, another is chambermaid on a steamer, and he found three of the men at work on one wharf the other day. "But," said I, laughing, "I thought the free negro would n't work." "O well, this is only a temporary state of affairs, and they'll all be idle before winter; and I don't look for nothing else when cold weather comes but to have them all asking me to take them back; but I sha'n't do it. I would n't give ten cents apiece for them."
Many of the private soldiers on duty here tell me that the planters generally overreach the negroes on every possible occasion; and my observation among such as I have seen in town tends to confirm this assertion to a considerable extent.
Coming up in the cars from Charleston I had for seat-mate part of the way one of the delegates to the Convention which meets at Columbia next week. He was a very courteous and agreeable gentleman, past middle age, and late the owner of twenty-two negroes. He was good enough to instruct me at some length in respect to the character of the negro. "You Northern people are utterly mistaken in supposing anything can be done with these negroes in a free condition. They can't be governed except with the whip. Now on my plantation there was n't much whipping, say once a fortnight; but the negroes knew they would be whipped if they did n't behave themselves, and the fear of the lash kept them in good order." He went on to explain what a good home they always had; laying stress on the fact that they never were obliged to think for themselves,
[p. 26]
but were always tenderly cared for, both in health and sickness; "and yet these niggers all left me the day after the Federals got into Charleston!" I asked where they now are; and he replied that he had n't seen anybody but his old cook since they ran away; but he believed they were all at work except two, who had died. Yet I am told constantly that these ungrateful wretches, the negroes, cannot possibly live as free people.
Yesterday morning while I sat in the office of the agent of the Freedmen's Bureau there came in, with a score of other men, a planter living in this district, but some sixteen miles from town. He had a woful tale of an assault upon himself by one of his "niggers," -- "a boy who I broughten up, and who's allers had a good home down ter my place." While the boy was coming in from the street the man turned to me and explained, "It never don't do no good to show favor to a nigger, for they's the most ongratefullest creeturs in the world." The dreadful assault consisted in throwing a hatchet at the white man by one of a crowd of negroes who were having a dispute among themselves, and suddenly discovered, in the early evening, somebody sneaking along by the fence. The boy said it was n't a hatchet, but a bit of brick; and added, that the man was so far away that no one could tell whether he was white or black, and that he did n't throw the brick till after he called out and told the man to go away. I followed the negro out after he had received his lecture from the officer, and had some talk with him. "D -- n him," said he, referring to his employer, "he never done nufin all his d -- n life but beat me and kick me and knock me down; an' I hopes I git eben with him some day."
Riding with an ex-Confederate major, we stopped at a house for water. The owner of the property, which was a very handsome one, was absent; and it was in charge of a dozen negroes, former slaves of the proprietor.
"Now here," said the late officer, "here is a place where
[p. 27]
the negroes always had the pleasantest sort of a home, -- everything to eat and drink and wear, and a most kind master and mistress."
Pompey, aged about twelve, came to bring us the water.
"Pompey," said the Major, "Pompey, how do you like your freedom?"
He hung his head, and answered, "Dun know, mawssa."
"O, well, speak right out; don't be afraid; tell us just how it is now," said he again.
Whereupon Pompey: "Likes to be free man, sah; but we 's all workin' on yer like we did afore."
"That 's right, Pompey," said I; "keep on working; don't be a lazy boy."
"It won't do," said the Major; "he 'll grow up idle and impudent and worthless, like all the rest."
"No, sah," answered Pompey, "I's free nigger now, and I's goin' to work."
There is much talk among the country people about a rising of the blacks. A planter who stopped here last night, and who lives twelve miles to the west, told me that it was believed in his neighborhood that they had guns and pistols hid in the timber, and were organizing to use them. His ideas were not very clear about the matter; but he appeared to think they would make serious trouble after the crops are gathered. Another man, living in Union district, told the company, with evident pleasure, that they 'd been able to keep control of the niggers up to his section till 'bout three weeks ago; he 'lowed thar 'd bin some lickin', but no more 'n was good fur the fellows. Now the Federals had come in, and the negroes were in a state of glad excitement, and everybody feared there would be bloody business right away.
A thing that much shocks me is the prevalent indifference to the negro's fate and life. It is a sad, but solemn fact, that three fourths of the native whites consider him a nuisance,
[p. 28]
and would gladly be rid of his presence, even at the expense of his existence. And this in face of the fact that all the planters are complaining about the insufficiency of labor. Thus, in Charleston, a merchant told me, with relishing detail, a story to the effect that, soon after the promulgation of the order against wearing Confederate buttons, a negro soldier doing duty in the city halted a young man, informed him of the regulations, and told him that if he was seen on the street again wearing the obnoxious buttons, he would probably be arrested; whereupon the hopeful scion of the Charleston aristocracy whipped out a large knife, seized the negro by the beard, and cut his throat. The soldier died in about a week; but nothing had been done with the man who killed him. So, too, a man who seems to be acting as stage-agent here says "a d -- d big black buck nigger" was shot near Lewisville about three weeks ago; and the citizens all shield the man who shot him, and sanction his course. All the talk of men about the hotel indicates that it is held to be an evidence of smartness, rather than otherwise, to kill a freedman; and I have not found a man here who seems to believe that it is a sin against Divine law.
Columbia, September 12, 1865.
THE war was a long time in reaching South Carolina, but there was vengeance in its very breath when it did come, -- wrath that blasted everything it touched, and set Desolation on high as the genius of the State. "A brave people never before made such a mistake as we did," said a
[p. 29]
little woman who sat near me in the cars while coming up from Charleston; "it mortifies me now, every day I live, to think how well the Yankees fought. We had no idea they could fight half so well." In such humiliation as hers is half the lesson of the war for South Carolina.
Columbia is in the heart of Destruction. Being outside of it, you can only get in through one of the roads built by Ruin. Being in it, you can only get out over one of the roads walled by Desolation. You go north thirty-two miles, and find the end of one railroad; southeast thirty miles, and find the end of another; south forty-five miles, and find the end of a third; southwest fifty miles, and meet a fourth; and northwest twenty-nine miles, and find the end of still another. Sherman came in here, the papers used to say, to break up the railroad system of the seaboard States of the Confederacy. He did his work so thoroughly that half a dozen years will nothing more than begin to repair the damage, even in this regard.
The railway section of the route from Charleston lies mostly either in a pine barren or a pine swamp, though after passing Branchville we came into a more open and rolling country, with occasional signs of life. Yet we could not anywhere, after we left the immediate vicinity of the city, see much indication of either work or existence. The trim and handsome railway stations of the North, the little towns strung like beads on an iron string, are things unknown here. In the whole seventy-seven miles there are but two towns that make any impression on the mind of a stranger, -- Summerville and George's, -- and even these are small and unimportant places. Elsewhere we stopped, as it appeared, whenever the train-men pleased, -- the "station" sometimes existing only in the consciousness of the engineer and conductor.
Branchville was, however, noticeable because of the place it once occupied in Northern anxiety. There is where Sherman
[p. 30]
was to meet his fate. Have we forgotten how the Richmond papers of early February spoke? They were not at liberty to mention the preparations, etc., but they might say, etc., and the Yankee nation would have sore cause to remember Branchville, etc. Unfortunately, however, Sherman flanked Branchville, just as he had other places of thrice its importance, and it missed the coveted renown. It is nothing but a railroad junction in a pine barren, with a long, low station-house and cotton warehouse, and three or four miserable dwellings.
I found the railroad in better condition than I supposed that I should. The rails are very much worn, but the road-bed is in fair order for nearly the entire distance. The freight-cars seemed in passably good repair; but the passenger-coaches were the most wretched I ever saw, -- old, filthy, and rickety. On our train was one new feature, -- a colored man and his wife, whose duty it was to wait on the passengers.
I came up from Orangeburg, forty-five miles, by "stage," to wit, an old spring-covered market-wagon, drawn by three jaded horses and driven by Sam, freedman, late slave, -- of the race not able to take care of themselves, yet caring, week in and week out, for the horses and interests of his employer as faithfully and intelligently as any white man could. There were six of us passengers, and we paid ten dollars each passage-money. We left Orangeburg at four, P. M.; drove eight miles; supped by the roadside; drove all night; lunched at sunrise by a muddy brook; and reached Columbia and breakfast at eleven, A. M., thankful that we had not broken down at midnight, and had met only two or three minor accidents. I am quite sure there are more pleasant ways of travelling than by "stage" in South Carolina at the present time. Thirty-two miles of the forty-five lie in such heavy and deep sand that no team can travel faster than at a moderate walk. For the other thirteen miles the road is
[p. 31]
something better, though even there it is the exception and not the rule to trot your mules. The river here was formerly spanned by an elegant and expensive bridge, but the foolish Rebels burned it; and the crossing of the Congaree is now effected in a ferry, the style and management of which would disgrace any backwoods settlement of the West.
The "Shermanizing process," as an ex-Rebel colonel jocosely called it, has been complete everywhere. To simply say that the people hate that officer is to put a fact in very mild terms. Butler is, in their estimation, an angel when compared to Sherman. They charge the latter with the entire work and waste of the war so far as their State is concerned, -- even claim that Columbia was burned by his express orders. They pronounce his spirit "infernal," "atrocious," "cowardly," "devilish," and would unquestionably use stronger terms if they were to be had. I have been told by dozens of men that he could n't walk up the main street of Columbia in the daytime without being shot; and three different gentlemen, residing in different parts of the State, declare that Wade Hampton expresses a purpose to shoot him at sight whenever and wherever he meets him. Whatever else the South Carolina mothers forget, they do not seem likely in this generation to forget to teach their children to hate Sherman.
Certain bent rails are the first thing one sees to indicate the advent of his army. They are at Branchville. I looked at them with curious interest. "It passes my comprehension to tell what became of our railroads," said a travelling acquaintance; "one week we had passably good roads, on which we could reach almost any part of the State, and the next week they were all gone, -- not simply broken up, but gone; some of the material was burned, I know, but miles and miles of iron have actually disappeared, gone out of existence." Branchville, as I have already said, was flanked, and the army did not take it in the line of march, but some of the boys paid it a visit.
At Orangeburg there is ample proof that the army passed that way. About one third of the town was burned. I found much dispute as to the origin of the fire; and while certain fellows of the baser sort loudly assert that it was the work of the Yankee, others of the better class express the belief that it originated with a resident who was angry at the Confederate officers. Thereabouts one finds plenty of railroad iron so bent and twisted that it can never again be used. The genius which our soldiers displayed in destroying railroads seems remarkable. How effectually they did it, when they undertook the work in earnest, no pen can make plain. "We could do something in that line, we thought," said an ex-Confederate captain, "but we were ashamed of ourselves when we saw how your men could do it."
We rode over the road where the army marched. Now and then we found solitary chimneys, but, on the whole, comparatively few houses were burned, and some of those were fired, it is believed, by persons from the Rebel army or from the neighboring locality. The fences did not escape so well, and most of the planters have had these to build during the summer. This was particularly the case near Columbia. Scarcely a tenth of that destroyed appears to have been rebuilt, and thousands of acres of land of much richness lie open as a common.
There is a great scarcity of stock of all kinds. What was left by the Rebel conscription officers was freely appropriated by Sherman's army, and the people really find considerable difficulty not less in living than in travelling. Milk, formerly an article much in use, can only be had now in limited quantities: even at the hotels we have more meals without than with it. There are more mules than horses, apparently; and the animals, whether mules or horses, are all in ill condition and give evidence of severe overwork.
Columbia was doubtless once the gem of the State. It is
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as regularly laid out as a checker-board, -- the squares being of uniform length and breadth and the streets of uniform width. What with its broad streets, beautiful shadetrees, handsome lawns, extensive gardens, luxuriant shrubbery, and wealth of flowers, I can easily see that it must have been a delightful place of residence. No South-Carolinian with whom I have spoken hesitates an instant in declaring that it was the most beautiful city on the continent; and, as already mentioned, they charge its destruction directly to General Sherman.
It is now a wilderness of ruins. Its heart is but a mass of blackened chimneys and crumbling walls. Two thirds of the buildings in the place were burned, including, without exception, everything in the business portion. Not a store, office, or shop escaped; and for a distance of three fourths of a mile on each of twelve streets there was not a building left. "They destroyed everything which the most infernal Yankee ingenuity could devise means to destroy," said one gentleman to me; "hands, hearts, fire, gunpowder, and behind everything the spirit of hell, were the agencies which they used." I asked him if he was n't stating the case rather strongly; and he replied that he would make it stronger if he could. The residence portion generally escaped conflagration, though houses were burned in all sections except the extreme northeastern.
Every public building was destroyed, except the new and unfinished state-house. This is situated on the summit of tableland whereon the city is built, and commands an extensive view of the surrounding country, and must have been the first building seen by the victorious and on-marching Union army. From the summit of the ridge, on the opposite side of the river, a mile and a half away, a few shells were thrown at it, apparently by way of reminder, three or four of which struck it, without doing any particular damage. With this exception, it was
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unharmed, though the workshops, in which were stored many of the architraves, caps, sills, &c., were burned, -- the fire, of course, destroying or seriously damaging their contents. The poverty of this people is so deep that there is no probability that it can be finished, according to the original design, during this generation at least.
The ruin here is neither half so eloquent nor touching as that at Charleston. This is but the work of flame, and might have mostly been brought about in time of peace. Those ghostly and crumbling walls and those long-deserted and grass-grown streets show the prostration of a community, -- such prostration as only war could bring.
I find a commendable spirit of enterprise, though, of course, it is enterprise on a small scale, and the enterprise of stern necessity. The work of clearing away the ruins is going on, not rapidly or extensively, to be sure, but something is doing, and many small houses of the cheaper sort are going up. Yet, at the best, this generation will not ever again see the beautiful city of a year ago. Old men and despondent men say it can never be rebuilt. "We shall have to give it up to the Yankees, I reckon," said one of two gentlemen conversing near me this morning. "Give it up!" said the other; "they've already moved in and taken possession without asking our leave." I guess the remark is true. I find some Northern men already here, and I hear of more who are coming.
Of course there is very little business doing yet. The city is, as before said, in the heart of the devastated land. I judge that twenty thousand dollars would buy the whole stock of dry goods, groceries, clothing, &c. in store. The small change of the place is made in shinplasters, printed on most miserable paper, and issued by the various business men, "redeemable in United States currency when presented in sums of two dollars and upwards." "Greenbacks" and national currency notes pass without question in the city,
[p. 35]
but are looked upon with suspicion by the country people. "Having lost a great deal by one sort of paper, we propose to be careful now," they say. Occasionally one sees a State bank-note, but they pass for only from twenty-five to sixty or sixty-five cents on the dollar. There is none of the Confederate money in circulation; though I judge, from what I hear, that considerable quantities of it are hoarded up in the belief that things will somehow take such a turn as to one day give it value.
There is a certain air of easy dignity observable among the people that I have not found elsewhere in the State, -- not even in Charleston itself. Something of this is probably due to the fact that the capital is located here; but more of it, probably, to the existence of Columbia College. It was before the war a very flourishing institution, but has been closed during the last three years. The old but roomy buildings are in part occupied by the military authorities, partly by the professors and officers of the college, and are partly closed. No indication is given as to the time of reopening the school. It is said by residents that the city contained some of the finest private libraries in the South; but these, with one or two exceptions, were burned.
The women who consider it essential to salvation to snub or insult Union officers and soldiers at every possible opportunity do not seem as numerous as they appeared to be in Charleston; and indeed marriages between soldiers and women of the middle class are not by any means the most uncommon things in the world; while I notice, in a quiet, unobservant manner, as even the dullest traveller may, that at least several very elegant ladies do not seem at all averse to the attentions of the gentlemen of shoulderstraps. Can these things be, and not overcome the latent fire of Rebellion?
In coming up from Charleston I learned a great many things, by conversation with persons, and by listening to
[p. 36]
conversation between people; and these are some of the more important facts thus learned.
Thus, one man insisted with much vehemence that cotton is king, and that a resolution on the part of the South not to sell any for a year would bring the North upon its knees.
Another man was very confident that the North depends entirely upon the cotton trade for a living, and that a failure to get at least one million bales before spring will bring a tremendous financial crash.
Another gravely asserted that a state of anarchy prevails in the entire North; that the returned soldiers are plundering and butchering indiscriminately; and that there has recently been a most bloody riot in Boston.
Another, and a man of much apparent intelligence, informed me that the negroes have an organized military force in all sections of the State, and are almost certain to rise and massacre the whites about Christmas time.
Another had heard, and sincerely believed, that General Grant's brother-in-law is an Indian, and is on his staff, and that the President had issued an order permitting the General's son to marry a mulatto girl whom he found in Virginia.
A woman, evidently from the country districts, stated that there had been a rising of the negroes in Maryland; that a great many whites had been killed; and that some considerable portion of Baltimore and many of the plantations had been seized by the negroes.
And, finally, an elderly gentleman who represented himself as a cotton factor, declared that there would be a terrible civil war in the North within two years; that England would compel the repudiation of our National debt and the assumption of the Confederate debt for her guaranty of protection.
The people of the central part of the State are poor, wretchedly poor; for the war not only swept away their stock and the material resources of their plantations, but also all values, -- all money, stocks, and bonds, -- and generally
[p. 37]
left nothing that can be sold for money but cotton, and only a small proportion of the landholders have any of that. Therefore there is for most of them nothing but the beginning anew of life, on the strictest personal economy and a small amount of money borrowed in the city. It would be a benefit of hundreds of millions of dollars if the North could be made to practise half the economy which poverty forces upon this people.
They are full of ignorance and prejudices, but they want peace and quiet, and seem not badly disposed toward the general government. Individuals there are who rant and rave and feed on fire as in the old days, but another war is a thing beyond the possibilities of time. So far as any fear of that is concerned we may treat this State as we please, -- hold it as a conquered province or restore it at once to full communion in the sisterhood of States. The war spirit is gone, and no fury can re-enliven it.
The spirit of oppression still exists, however, and military authority cannot be withdrawn till the relation between employer and employed is put upon a better basis. On the one hand, the negro in the country districts must be made to understand, what he has already been taught in the city, that freedom does not mean idleness. On the other hand, the late master should specially be made to understand that the spirit of slavery must go to the grave with the thing itself. It will not be an easy work to teach either class its chief lesson. We must have patience, -- patience, and faith that neither faints nor falters.
Columbia, September 13, 1865.
IN obedience to the proclamation of Provisional Governor Perry, the delegates of the people of South Carolina assembled at noon to-day in State Convention for the purpose of repealing the ordinance of secession and remodelling the State Constitution. The Convention met in the Baptist Church, in which the Secession Convention of 1860 originally assembled; though that, after two sessions, adjourned to Charleston, where the ordinance of secession was passed. That Convention numbered 168 members. This has but 124, -- that is, the proclamation fixes this as the number. In point of fact, however, the number present will not probably exceed 115; for it is known that three parishes held no elections, while Bishop Lynch, of Charleston, is in Europe, and Wade Hampton is not expected here. There were present to-day 101 delegates.
Five parishes are entirely unrepresented. There were two or three precincts in each of three districts where, so far as can be learned, there was no voting; but there is not even a pretence on the part of anybody that there was anywhere in the State any interference with, or restraint upon, the elections by the military. The Convention is the free choice of the people. In one district, Anderson, the various candidates were called upon to show their hands; elsewhere the canvass passed off without speech-making, and only the four delegates from that district -- "district" answering to "county" in the North -- are bound by any pledges.
Four at least of the delegates have national reputation, -- James L. Orr, late Federal representative, ex-Rebel colonel, and ex-Confederate senator; F. W. Pickens, late Federal
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representative, and the first Secession governor; Alfred Huger, postmaster at Charleston for the last twenty-five years; and Samuel McGowan, late major-general in the Rebel army, and one of the bravest officers this State gave the Confederacy. One delegate, James Farrow, was four years a member of the Rebel Congress. Twelve, namely, David L. Wardlaw and Thomas Thomson of Abbeville District, James L. Orr of Anderson, J. J. Brabham of Barnwell, John A. Inglis and Henry McIver of Chesterfield, James Conner and J. Du Pre of Charleston, J. P. Richardson of Clarendon, R. G. M. Dunovant of Edgefield, William R. Robertson of Fairfield, and John W. Carlisle of Spartanburg, were also delegates in the Secession Convention.
The people have cut loose from many of their old leaders, and others of that class have found their graves since the war began; but there are perhaps a score of delegates whose faces are more or less familiar to persons who have attended the sessions of the South Carolina General Assembly any time within a dozen or fifteen years. Of those who have some time been United States officers other than postmaster there are, I believe, four. Of those who were officers in the Rebel army there are not less than twenty-five or thirty, including at least four generals and six colonels. The half-dozen fellows -- of the blunt and blotchy nose, beefy and bloated face, shining and swallow-tailed coat -- who always attend conventions as delegates are here, and occupy the chief seats. So are also here the half-dozen country justices of the peace, no less knowing than usual, and fruitful with platitudes and resolutions.
For the rest, three fourths of the delegates have titles, -- captain, major, colonel, judge. It is the fashion of the South, as of the West, I suppose. There are a dozen young men, and about the same number of very old men; but otherwise they range mostly from forty-five to fifty-five years of age. Gray and grayish heads are numerous. It is n't by any
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means a prepossessing body. The average Southern head does n't show near as much intellectual force and vigor as the average Northern head; and the beauty of the South is solely in the faces of its young women, -- half of it at least in the faces of its mulatto and quadroon girls. A few of the delegates are clad wholly, and very many of them partly, in homespun. Many coats show Confederate buttons, -- from the necessity of poverty rather than the choice of disloyalty, I judge. Many of the members are rough, ignorant country fellows, and the Convention will be managed by less than a score of delegates. The difference between the two classes of delegates -- those who lead and those who are led -- is much greater than could exist in any Northern body of the same numbers; not that the one class is any way superior to the best class of a Northern State, but that the other class is almost immeasurably inferior. Half these men are so deficient in capacity and knowledge that scarcely one of them could by any possibility get into a New England convention.
That, in the stress of war, South Carolina should implore to be made a colony of Great Britain does not now seem half so strange to me as it did nine months ago. Her government was republican in name, but not in fact; while the whole under-current of her society set toward monarchical institutions. Everybody, even now, dreads popular elections; dozens of delegates have said to me that it is n't well to allow the people to elect their own rulers; and this Convention will no more than give the election of governor, lieutenant-governor, representatives, members of the General Assembly, and Presidential electors, to the people, leaving the great host of other officers to the appointment of the Governor or the election of the Legislature. Many of these delegates were elected, not because they represented the will of the parish or district, but because they represented the will of some great family. It was the English system
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reproduced here, with scarcely a variation. A dozen or more boast of their twenty years in the Legislature. It was not a republican form of government; but, more than that, it was not, is not, and will not soon be, a republican community. "It will not do," say the leaders, -- men who, personally, are easy, agreeable, and abundant in courtesies to the stranger, -- "it will not do to put power in the hands of the common people." Two delegates have said to me at different times, "It was a great mistake when we passed our free-suffrage law."
The delegates were called to order by Judge Robertson of Fairfield District, on whose motion Franklin J. Moses, of Sumter District, was made temporary chairman. Judge Robertson was one of the members of the Convention of 1860. Mr. Moses is of Hebrew descent, and has been a member of the State Senate for over twenty years.
The Provisional Governor sent in his message to the Convention at noon. It was read by his son, who is one of the delegates, and its reading occupied about twenty-five minutes. What he has to say on the subjects of slavery and negro suffrage appears in the following paragraphs: --
"Under the war-making power, the military authorities of the United States have abolished slavery in all of the seceding States. The oath you have solemnly taken to `abide by and faithfully support all laws and proclamations which have been made during the existing Rebellion, with reference to the emancipation of slaves,' requires you, in good faith, to abolish slavery in your new or amended Constitution. the express terms on which your pardons have issued stipulate that you shall never again own or employ slave labor. Moreover, it is impossible for South Carolina ever to regain her civil rights and be restored to the Union till she voluntarily abolishes slavery, and declares, by an organic law, that neither `slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,' shall ever again exist within the limits of the State. Until this is done we shall be kept under military rule.
The radical Republican party North are looking with great interest to the action of the Southern States in reference to negro suffrage; and whilst they admit that a man should be able to read and write and have a property qualification in order to vote, yet
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they contend that there should be no distinction between voters on account of color. They forget that this is a white man's government, and intended for white men only; and that the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that the negro is not an American citizen under the Federal Constitution. To extend universal suffrage to the `freedmen' in their present ignorant and degraded condition would be little less than folly and madness. It would be giving to the man of wealth and large landed possessions in the State a most undue influence in all elections. He would be enabled to march to the polls with his two or three hundred `freedmen' as employés, voting as he directed, and control all elections. The poor white men in the election districts would have no influence, or their influence would be overpowered by one man of large landed estate. That each and every State of the Union has the unquestioned right of deciding for herself who shall exercise the right of suffrage is beyond all dispute. You will settle this grave question as the interest and honor of the State demand."
After the reading of the message, the organization of the Convention was completed by disposing of the only contestedseat case. It was that of St. Luke's parish, which includes Hilton Head Island. It appears that Mr. David McGregor received the vote of one precinct, the voters, eighty-two in number, being mostly like himself, of Northern birth, but resident on the island for three or four years, and legally qualified under the laws of the State as electors. Mr. L. F. Youmans received seventy-five votes, -- the aggregate of the three other precincts in the parish. The island people were unable to learn the names of the regular managers of elections, or, in fact, that the other precincts of the parish intended voting; and after much fruitless effort to find the proper authorities to receive the poll, they held a meeting and appointed their own managers. Mr. McGregor brought the certificate of these managers, -- Mr. Youmans that of the regular managers. The case was referred to a special committee of three, who reported in favor of Mr. Youmans, on
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the ground that he alone held the proper certificate of election. The case was decided on its merits, without regard to the fact that Mr. McGregor is a Northern man; and he expresses himself fully satisfied with the decision.
The Convention at once proceeded to business, without any remarks from the chairman. Two gentlemen were appointed temporary secretaries, and the delegates then presented their credentials and signed the roll of the Convention; after which about a dozen who had not taken the amnesty oath advanced to the space in front of the platform and were sworn thereto. They were, without an exception, men whose appearance marked them as from the back country.
The election of a permanent President was called; and leave being given, several gentlemen were nominated.
Hon. C. M. Dudley, of Marlboro District, who has been known from the beginning as a Union man, though he took but little part in public affairs, was presented by James L. Orr. The Charleston delegation nominated Hon. David L. Wardlaw, of Abbeville District, who was originally opposed to secession, but acquiesced in the action of the State. Mr. T. M. Dawkins, a delegate from Union District, was also nominated, but rose and asked his friends not to use his
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name. Wade Hampton, of cavalry fame, who is one of the Columbia delegates, was suggested; but before the voting began, Mr. Huger, of Charleston, and postmaster there during Buchanan's administration, inquired if General Hampton was nominated by permission; adding, that his veneration for him was such that he could not consent to seeing his name put up unless by his express desire. That produced its withdrawal. He has not been in the city since the Convention was called. The contest was, therefore, narrowed down to one between Mr. Dudley and Mr. Wardlaw, both of them men of unexceptionable private character. The first ballot was Wardlaw, 42; Dudley, 36; Dawkins, 12; Hampton, 5; Scattering, 5. The second call gave Wardlaw, 55; Dudley, 35; Dawkins, 9; and blank, 1. Judge Wardlaw was thereupon declared elected.
He is a small and kindly mannered gentleman, well along in years, and one of the judges of the Court of Sessions and Common Pleas. He has served many years in the General Assembly, and has often been elected speaker of the lower House. He was one of the Union men of the fall of 1860, accepted the decree of the State, was a delegate in the Secession Convention and chairman of the Committee on Revision of the Constitution. His home is in the northwestern part of the State, beyond the route of Sherman's army. Delegates say there is no particular signification in his election over either of the other candidates. His remarks on taking his seat were very brief, and also without any special significance. He hoped the Convention would soon restore the State to the Union; and urged the delegates to do their duty in sincere and earnest spirit, that Peace and her blessings might once more abide in the whole land.
It seems that the fire-eaters are not yet all dead; for as soon as a committee had been appointed to wait on the Governor and tell him the Convention was ready for business,
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Mr. A. P. Aldrich, a delegate from the district of Barnwell, in the central part of the State, and in which there was a slave population of 17,400 to a white population of 12,000, offered the following resolution, which he asked might be printed, and made the special order for to-morrow: --
Resolved, That, under the present extraordinary circumstances, it is both wise and politic to accept the condition in which we are placed; to endure patiently the evils which we cannot avert or correct; and to await calmly the time and opportunity to effect our deliverance from unconstitutional rule.
In this resolution there is, of course, the very essence of Rebellion. More than one delegate saw the point at the first reading by Mr. Aldrich himself, and when it had been reread by the President, a sharp running debate of half or three quarters of an hour took place, in which the mover was opposed to four or five of the ablest men in the Convention.
Mr. Dudley protested briefly against the passage or printing of any such resolution, and moved that it be laid on the table.
Mr. Aldrich responded, that he did not ask debate now, but would be prepared to defend the resolution to-morrow.
Judge Frost, of Charleston, also expressed the idea that the resolution was very objectionable. He believed it indicated a spirit at war with the best interests of the State, and repugnant to the feelings of the great body of her citizens.
Ex-Governor Pickens tersely said, in a very feeling manner: "It does n't become South Carolina to vapor or swell or strut or brag or bluster or threat or swagger; she points to her burned cities, her desolate plantations, her mourning hearths, her unnumbered graves, her widows and her orphans, her own torn and bleeding body, -- this, she says, is the work of war; and she bids us bind up her wounds and pour in the oil of peace, -- bids us cover her great nakedness; and we must do it, even if it needs that in so doing we go backwards!"
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Mr. Aldrich replied, that he was not satisfied with the condition of things; that there had always been in the country an unconstitutional Republican party and a constitutional Democratic party; that the South had always acted with the latter, and that her hope and salvation lies only in an immediate union with the Democratic party of the North; that the State is now ground under the iron heel of a military despotism, repugnant alike to her people and the spirit of the Constitution; that for his part, he would not submit without an indignant protest; that he hoped for the speedy overthrow of the party now in power; and that he meant just what the resolution says, -- to be quiet till we are strong enough, through the aid of the Democratic party of the North, to get a constitutional government.
Mr. McGowan, of Abbeville District, late major-general in the Confederate service, and bearing the marks of several wounds, denounced the resolution in a brief speech of thrilling eloquence, which brought hearty applause from the delegates and the galleries. "I protest with all the earnestness of my nature against this resolution. It is not true that South Carolina carries a dagger underneath her vestments; not true that she stands with obedient words on her lips and disloyal spirit in her heart. The work she begins to-day she begins in good faith. She was the first to secede, and she fought what she believed to be the good fight with all her energies of heart and head and hand and material resources. Whatever may have been charged against her, no one has ever dared charge her with double-dealing. Her word is her bond. She is so poor that it is no figure of speech to say she has lost everything but honor. Pass this resolution, and you rob her of her honor, and bow in the dust the head of every one of her true sons. She has seen enough of war; in God's name I demand that she shall not be made to appear as if she still coveted fire and sword."
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The Aldrich resolution went to the table with only four dissenting voices, being refused even the poor privilege of going to the printer or to a committee.
Some debate followed on the question of rules for the Convention, in which a member having suggested that the rules of the Convention of 1860 were specially adapted for the government of such bodies, and might therefore be adopted for use now, Mr. Orr pointedly remarked that he thought as little reference as possible to that Convention would be desirable. A committee was therefore appointed to prepare rules, and the Convention then adjourned.