"There are two places in the State," said an acquaintance to me at Augusta, "where they'd as soon shoot a man as a dog, -- Albany and Waynesboro. I've been in Albany nine times in the course of three or four years, and have seen a big row every time I was there. Waynesboro is just as bad, only it is n't so large a place. They manage to shoot half a dozen men a year there, though, without much trouble." It was a hint to walk very circumspectly, and, remembering Albany, I am giving it due heed.
Waynesboro is n't a lovely place, by any means. In fact, I don't see why anybody should desire to live here; and a forced residence of half a year might very well make a man long to be shot. Happily, though the town is the county seat of Burke, but few persons do live here, -- five hundred, perhaps. From Greensboro to Waynesboro is about one hundred miles, but those miles space the distance from civilization to barbarism. Not to be unjust to Waynesboro, let me say that it has a hotel, and a church, and two or three stores, and a good many dram-shops, and at least a hundred residences.
The town is the present terminus of the railroad from Augusta to Savannah, and therefore every traveller must pay it at least small tribute. It is thirty miles below Augusta, and stages run from here to make connection with the Savannah end of the railroad. About sixty miles of the
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line was destroyed by Sherman's army, and that sixty miles of staging was probably the worst in the whole South. Fortunately, -- for I must make the trip to-night and to-morrow, -- fifteen miles of the gap have been filled, and there are now but forty-five miles to make in these terrible old ambulance coaches. That will take ten hours at least, beginning at eleven P. M. The ride of six or seven hours in the chill November night, over a new and wretched road, through the low and marshy piny woods, will be very pleasant -- for those who like it!
Most of the counties in this section elected original Secessionists to the Convention, and have not changed their course of action in respect to the Legislature. Some of the men sent to the Convention were such notorious Rebels that the story was started immediately on their election that they would be arrested. Of course it had no other foundation than mere rumor. Yet, if I am not wrongly informed in regard to several of those elected to the lower house, almost the last place in which they should be is in a body called to legislate so as to restore the State's relations to the Union.
I scarcely need add that there is hereabouts a strong surface hatred of the Yankees. Officers on duty tell me some very curious stories illustrative of this fact. I am assured by one whose veracity no man can question, that in an adjoining county there is a public league of young women who have vowed not to speak to a Federal soldier under any circumstances whatever. Insolent treatment of soldiers and officers on the street is so common that it excites little or no remark. One of the drivers of the stageline tells me that only three days ago a man refused to ride in his coach because an officer of the army had a seat therein. It is confidently reported that in one neighboring county young ladies have been seen within a fortnight wearing little secession flags in their hats; but I am slow to believe this
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story, though it circulates on what appears to be good authority. While my acquaintance with some of the better class of citizens furnishes no cause for the assertion that there is unusual hostility to the government or to people from the North, the every-day language of the lower classes is clear proof of the existence of what I have designated as surface hatred.
As a curious specimen of what one hears, take the following little speech made by an apparently intelligent man to a group of half a dozen persons, of whom I was one: --
"I've sent an advertisement to the paper for a job of overseeing some plantations next year. I reckon I could do that right lively. O, I tell you, I can do up some tall cussin' when I get started. Can't lick free niggers, but I don't know if there's any law ag'in cussin' 'em, and I believe it does 'em a heap o' good. It's next best to lickin'. Jest cuss one o' 'em right smart for 'bout five minutes, and he'll play off peart. Probably the Yankees don't like that style, but I ha'n't no use for a Yankee no how. I had a lot of likely negroes, but they 're all gone; had Confederate money, but that's all gone; and I 've got a heap o' Confederate bonds, but they a'n't worth a damn. I reckon God Almighty fought on the other side in this war. He used to smile on us, but He has n't given us anything but frowns lately. I don't care a damn, but I don't like to see my friends all so cut up about it. I can git along well enough. I should like to lick a hundred free negroes jest once all 'round. If I did n't bring 'em to know their places, I'd pay ten dollars apiece for all I failed on. But the Yankees give us our orders, -- we mus n't lick the freedmen, they say. Free-damn-cusses I call 'em. I reckon 't a'n't ag'in no law to swa'r at 'em, and damn me if I can't do that ar. Yes, sir, God Almighty was ag'in us, but I 'low 't won't be wrong to cuss the free niggers. Yes, sir, God Almighty was ag'in us. . . . Waal, I ha'n't no use for a Yankee, -- they 're low-down, triflin' fellows, any how, and I reckon I shall have to play a lone hand and git 'long the best I can by myself."
The State-rights doctrine flourishes here much more vigorously than in the northern part of the State. "I don't vote
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for no man as long as I live, who did n't go with the State in the revolution," said one man to me. I should scarcely exaggerate, if I said that the test of a man's moral worth is his position on this question. State allegiance is made a sine qua non, apparently, by everybody. "I ha'n't got no use for a man who went ag'in the State, though," said one who had been telling me at some length how he opposed secession. "We shall have to knuckle down a little more, I reckon," remarked one gentleman to another, in the hotel at Augusta, "but I shall be a Calhoun man as long as I live." No one argues the point, as some do in South Carolina. It seems to be the common average sentiment that only a secondary allegiance is due to the general government.
I asked one of the delegates to the late Convention what the war had settled, and his answer was, "Well, it settled that the North was the strongest, and that the negroes are free."
"But did it settle nothing in regard to State rights?" I continued.
"It settled that you are able to enforce your belief on that question, but I don't believe it has changed the opinion of a single Southern man," said he; and after a moment he added, "but I've no idea we shall ever go to war on that point; we down here have had war enough, and you may hold your opinion just as I hold mine."
The planters hereabouts are not generally hopeful in regard to the availability of free negro labor. I had some conversation with a knot of them, in which the question of white labor came up.
"We shall have to have control of the free nigroes, or import white men to do the work," said one of them.
I asked if the negroes would n't work if they were treated exactly as white men would be in the same circumstances.
"No, a free nigroe is a free nigroe, any how."
"But," said I, "that way of talking and feeling cannot be
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beneficial either to him or to your interests. Why not use him fairly, like a man?"
"The trouble is jest here," said another, "he don't know his place. If you let us alone, we 'll teach him, and then I reckon we 'll git along with him better."
"But what do you mean by teaching him his place?" I asked.
A third man took up the question, and answered: "Our people are restive at what they call outside interference. The negro is n't to blame for his freedom. He served us faithfully all through the war, and I sincerely believe very few planters have any desire to see him injured. We know his ways; and if you give us time, I think we shall be able to get him back into his place again, -- not as a slave, but as a good producer."
They kept up a conversation among themselves, till the first again responded, "A free nigroe is a poor cuss, any how."
To which a fourth one answered, "I'll tell you how 't is: a free nigger's jest like any low-down white fellow, -- pull off your coat and work with him, and he does well enough; put it on and go off to town, and he shirks." Numbers one and two seemed a little puzzled at this, and he continued: "Now I don't have a d -- n bit of trouble with my fellows when I work right 'long with 'em."
"But your people don't generally go into the field and work, as our Northern farmers do," said I.
"That's just it," said the third; and the fourth concluded, "Yes, that's just it; we 've had too many d -- n fine notions, and one of our new notions is, that we must have white labor; I go in for white labor, -- yes, I do; and I'm agoin' to put some on my plantation. I'm goin' to work myself!"