At Home again.—A detailed Account of Soul-harrowing Outrages inflicted upon the People of Confederate × Roads by a Party of Freedmen, and how the Insult was wiped out.
Post Offis, Confedrit × Roads
(wich is in the Stait uv Kentucky),
September 16, 1866.
I found my flock in a terrible state uv depression, at which, when I wuz told the cause, I didn’t wonder at. There wuz, back of the Corners on the side hill, over towards Garrettstown, about three quarters uv a mile this side of Abbott’s grocery (we estimate distance here from one grocery to another), five or six families uv niggers. The males of this settlement had all been in the Federal army ez soljers, and hed saved their pay, and bounty, and sich, and hed bought uv a disgustid Confederate, who proposed to find in Mexico that freedom which was denied him here, and who, bein determined to leave the country, didn’t care who he sold his plantashen to, so ez he got greenbax, three hundred acres, wich they hed divided up, and built cabins onto em, and wuz a cultivatin it. There wuz a store-keeper at the Corners who come here from Illinoy, and who hed been so greedy uv gain and so graspin ez to buy their prodoose uv em, and sell em sich supplies ez they needed. These accursed sons and daughters of Ham was a livin there in comfort. The thing was a gittin unendoorable. They come to the Corners dressed in clothes without patches, and white shirts, and hats on; and the females in dresses, and hoops under em; in short, these apes hed assoomed so much uv the style uv people that ef it hadn’t bin for their black faces, they wood have passed for folks.
Our people become indignant, and ez soon ez I returned, I was requested to call a meetin to consider the matter, which I uv course did.
The horn wuz tootid, and the entire Corners wuz assembled, eggscepting the Illinoy store-keeper, who didn’t attend to us much. I stated briefly and elokently (I hev improved in public speakin sense I heered His Serene Highness, Androo the I., all the way from Washinton to Looisville), and asked the brethren to ease their minds.
Squire Gavitt hed observed the progress uv them niggers with the most profoundest alarm. He hed noticed em comin to the Corners, dressed better nor his family dressed, and sellin the produx uv their land to that wretch—
At this point the Illinoy store-keeper come in, and the Squire proceeded.
—he shood say Mr. Pollock, and he hed made inquiries, and found that one family hed sold three hundred and seventy-five dollars worth uv truck, this season, uv which they hed laid out for clothes and books two hundred dollars, leavin em one hundred and seventy-five dollars in cash, which was more money than he hed made sense the accursed Linkin passed the emancipashen proclamation. And what hed driv the iron into his soul wuz the fact that wun of them niggers wuz his nigger. “The money they hev,” pursood the Squire, “is my money; that man worth $1500 is my man; his wife is my woman; her children my children—”
“That’s a literal fact!” shouted Joe Bigler, a drunken, returned Confederate sojer; “they hev yoor nose eggsactly, and they’re the meanest yaller brats in the settlement.”
This unhappy remark endid in a slite unpleasantness, wich resultid in the Squire’s bein carried out, minus one ear, and his nose smashed. Joseph remarked that he’d wantid to git at him ever sense he woodn’t lend him a half dollar two months ago. He was now satisfied, and hoped this little episode woodn’t mar the harmony uv the meetin.