CHAPTER XXXII.
Conditions there were not as bad as I had seen along the line of march, although they were bad enough. Mr. and Mrs. Braswell received me as if I had been one of their own family. I found the premises badly dilapidated, fences down everywhere and everything in disorder, the negro men gone, following the yankee army, the negro women and children were still left to be taken care of by their Master and Mistress. Before leaving the Yankees started to set the premises on fire but the servant intervened and begged for their good master and mistress and they desisted in their intentions. I asked if old Sallie could wash my clothes I had on, and if I could borrow something to put on while mine was in process of cleaning, for the enemy had stolen my trunk and its contents and I had no change of garments. Mr. Braswell was of very corpulent stature, fully six feet high, weighing about 250 pounds, while I, in my emaciated condition only weighed 135. One of his garments would have wrapped twice around me. At 12 o'clock dinner was announced, and I was surprised at the good and substantial meal that was served. The menu consisted of fried ham and eggs, corn bread, biscuits, butter and honey. I said, "folks, you ought not to complain; if you had gone through where I have and seen what I have seen you would feel like you live like royalty, for I have seen women and children scratch in the ground for a few grains of corn for sustenance where the enemy's horses were camped and fed." Mr. Braswell then explained how he managed when he heard of the enemy's approach. He took his cattle, horses and mules and everything he could move, deep in the Ogeechee swamp, leaving only a few broke down around his premises which the enemy, General Kilpatrick's cavalry, shot down and left for the buzzards. Mrs. Braswell asked me what I was going to do. I said I did not know; I was in hope to meet Cousin Abe Hermann, but you say he was taken prisoner. Do you know where they carried him to? They answered, No, that Cousin Abe was drafted and went, as a sutler in General Rube Carswell's regiment and was captured by the enemy and that they had heard nothing from him, direct. Then Mr. Braswell said, As long as I've got a mouthful I will divide with you. We are poor and I don't know how to begin with the new order of things, all the hands having left me. After telling Mrs. Braswell about her kindred in Alabama and of my ups and downs during that afternoon, I spent a sleepless night, ruminating in my mind as to what to do. The future looked dark, the country was ruined. Wherever I cast my eyes, conditions looked the same. The following morning after breakfast I approached Mr. Braswell, saying, My friend, I can't accept your proposition to be an extra burden to you in your already impoverished condition. He said, What are you going to do? I said, The next time you hear from me I will be in a position to make a support, or I will be a dead cock in the pit. I am going to leave this morning. I left for Sandersville, where I met many friends. While there I heard of some of the boys having picked up an abandoned Confederate wagon. There were about fifteen that claimed a share in it. The next day I went to Milledgeville and stopped this side at Mr. Stroters, who had run a distillery during the war. I said, Mr. Stroter have you any whiskey on hand? He said, Yes, one barrel, I had it buried. Can I get about five gallons? He said, Yes. What will you take for it? Five dollars a gallon, in Yankee money, the Confederate money is no good now. I said, I'll take five gallons if you have a keg to put it in. I have no money of the description you want, but I will leave you my horse in bond.
Early in the morning I proceeded on my way to Macon, carrying the five gallon keg of whiskey on my shoulder. The journey was a long one, thirty-two miles, with a burden and it being summer time was no small undertaking. I arrived however, in East Macon the following day. I entered the woods in search of a clay root where I could hide away my burden. I found a large tree that was blown down, leaving a big hole, where I placed my keg and covered it with leaves. I marked the place so as to find it when wanted. I also carried a canteen full of liquor under my coat, and walked towards Macon. On the way I met a Federal in deep study. I passed him a step or two, then stopped and said, Say! He turned, saying, you speak to me? I said, Yes, would you like to have a drink? He said, Yes, the best in the world. I tell you how you can get this canteen full. If you bring me out a mule this side the sentinel I will give you this canteen full. He remarked, You'll wait yonder until I return. I waited over an hour, when I saw him come on a small mule. The exchange was quickly effected, and I rode back to Milledgeville and left the mule at Stroters. After eating a hearty meal I returned on foot to Macon, I repeated the same tactics, brought back three mules and sold over one hundred drinks at $1.00 a drink, paid Stroter my debt and returned to Washington County, left my stock with my friend B. S. Jordan to tend his crop, who at that time had a negro plowing an old steer. I said, Ben, Work your crop, for I do not know how long you can keep them. I returned to Sandersville in quest of the boys who claimed the captured Confederate wagon, and to purchase it. They agreed if I would bring each a wool hat from Savannah on my return I could have the wagon, which I agreed to. Major Irwin gave me an old set of gears and I was ready to carry freight from Sandersville and Washington County to Savannah for a living, for let it be known that Sherman in his vandalism tore up the Central railroad all the way from Macon to Savannah, Ga., and for eight months after the surrender I continued wagoning hauling freight back and forth, taking the weather as it came, rain or shine, cold or warm.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
My first journey as wagoner to Savannah was a successful one. There was still some cotton through the country that escaped the Sherman depredators. Mr. W. G. Brown let me have two bales. Mr. Pinkus Happ let me have one. My tariff was $5.00 per 100 pounds, and the same returning. I took the Davisboro road from Sandersville, having only two mules hitched to the wagon. I had sent word to Mr. Jordan to meet me with my horse and mule still in his possession. The road was heavy for it was a rainy season and to make it lighter pulling I concluded to have a four mule team. So we put the harness on the horse and mule and hitched them in the lead. About that time a negro I knew, named Perry, came up and made himself useful. I said, Perry, what are you doing? Nothing, Marse Ike. How would you like to wagon for me at $15.00 a month and rations? Very well, said he. Well, jump in the saddle, I am on my way to Savannah. It was about four o'clock p. m. Perry took hold of the line and cracked his whip, when the horse, whose other qualities, except a saddle horse I did not know, commenced to kick in a spirited manner, so as to skin his legs with the trace chains in which he became entangled, I had to unhitch him. Mr. John Salter was present and saw the whole proceeding. I remarked, Well. I am sorry for that for I had expected to have a four horse team, and now can have only a spike team. Salter said, Hermann, what will you take for this horse? You say he is a good saddle horse? I never straddled a better one. What will you give me? He said he had no money but had two bales of cotton under his gin house and I could have it for the horse. How far do you live from here? Two miles only. All right, the horse is yours. Perry, let us go and get the cotton. Mr. Salter led the way where the cotton was. We loaded the same and drove that night to the Fleming place and camped. The trip was uneventful. We made the journey to Savannah in four days. There was a firm of cotton factors named Bothwell and Whitehead doing business in the City, and they were my objective point. However, before arriving into the city, about thirty miles this side, I met men wanting to buy my cotton. They offered me from fifteen to fifty cents per pound. I did not know what the value was; I knew that before the war started it brought about eight cents. However, I drove up to the firms office on Bay street. I saw Mr. Bothwell; after the usual greeting I said, What is cotton selling at? It brought .62½ this a. m., but I think I can get more than that if it is good cotton. To make matters short I got .65 per pound and the two bales Salter let me have for my horse weighed 600 pounds a bale, netting me $720.00. I bought me another mule and now I was again fully equipped and made the voyage regularly every week. I took a partner, as the business was more than I could attend to by myself; his name was Solomon Witz. He would engage freight during my absence, and we sometimes made the trip together. The country was forever in a state of excitement. New edicts appeared from time to time from Washington, D. C., Congress promulgated laws to suit their motives, and notwithstanding the agreement between General Lee and General Grant at Appomattox that the men should return, build up their waste places and not again to take up arms until properly exchanged and they should not be molested as long as they should attend to their daily avocations, Congress established what was then known as the Freedmen's Bureau, seemingly for the protection of the negroes, as if they needed any, as their devotion to their master and their behavior at home while every white man able to bear arms was at the front fighting for their homes and firesides, leaving their families in the hands of their slaves whose devotion was exemplary, was not that a sufficient guarantee of the relationship between slaves and masters? The attachment was of the tenderest kind and a white man would have freely offered his life for the protection of his servants; but that condition did not suit our adversaries. Although we thought the war was over, it was not over and more terrible things awaited the Southern people. Emissaries of every description, like vultures, surnamed carpet baggers, for all they possessed could be enclosed into a hand bag, overran this country to fatten on the remnants left. School mams of the far East, of very questionable reputation, opened what were called schools, presumably to teach the negroes how to read and write, but rather to inculcate into their minds all sorts of deviltry, embittering their feelings against their former owners and life long friends, urging them to migrate for unless they did they would still be considered as bondsmen and bondswomen, thus breaking up the kind relation existing between the white man and the negro. And all this under the protection of the Freedmen's Bureau backed up by a garrison of Federals stationed in every town and city throughout the Southern States. In fact the South was made to feel the heels of the despots. Military Governors were appointed. All those who bore arms or aided or abetted in the cause of the South were disfranchised, the negro was enfranchised and allowed the ballot, with a military despot at the helm and negroes and carpet baggers, and a few renegades such as can be found in any country, as legislators. The ship of state soon run into shallow waters and was pounded to pieces on the reeves of bankruptcy. Taxes were such that property owners could not meet them and they had the misfortune to see their lifelong earnings sacrificed under so called legal process, of the hammer, for a mere song. These were the actual conditions in the days of the so called reconstruction. Bottom rail on top, was the slogan of those savage hordes. Forty acres and a mule, and to every freedman, Government rations, was the prelude of legislation. Men who took up arms in defense of their sacred rights could not be expected to endure such a state of affairs forever, the women and children must be protected. The garrisons were gradually withdrawn; the carpet baggers remained and ruled; negroes formed themselves into clubs and organizations under their leadership, when as an avalanche all over the Southern states appeared the K. K. K.'s, called the Ku Klux Klan, or the Boys Who Had Died at Manassas, who have come back to regulate matters. Terror struck into the ranks of the guilty and of the would be organizers and the country soon resumed its normal state, Governors fled and Legislators took to the bush. But I am deviating from my subject.