Mr. —— talked quite sensibly of the origin and results of the war. He and the majority of the farmers in that region were originally Union men, and remained so to the last. “Some of the hottest secesh, too, got to be right good Union before the wa’ was over,—they found the Yankees treated ’em so much better ’n they expected, and the Rebs so much wuss.”
He accepted emancipation. “The way I look at it, the thing had growed up till it got ripe, and it fell on us in this age. It was the universal opinion before the wa’, that the country would be a heap better off without niggers. But we couldn’t go with the Abolitionists of the No’th, nor with the secesh fire-eaters. We stood as it were between two fires. That was what made it so hard.”
But he shared the common prejudice against permitting the negroes to remain and enjoy the land. “’T won’t do to have ’em settled among us. ’T would, if everybody was honest. But the whites, I’m ashamed to say it, will just prey upon them. They’re bound to be the poorest set of vagabonds that ever walked the earth. O yes, they’ll work. It’s just this way,—they’ll work if they have encouragement; and no man will without, unless he’s driven. All around hyere, and up in Middle Tennessy, whur I’ve been, they’re doing right smart. But it has seemed to bear on their minds that they wanted to rent land, and have a little place of their own. They get treated right rough by some unprincipled men, and by some that ought to know how to give ’em Christian treatment, now they’re free. But the truth is, a white man can’t take impudence from ’em. It may be a long ways removed from what you or I would think impudence, but these passionate men call it that, and pitch in.”
“Blair, an old nigger down to the saw-mill whur I went to-day,” said Zeek, “got his head split open with an axe by a man two days ago. He said Old Blair sassed him. He fell plumb crossways of the fire, and they had to roll him off.”
“That’s the way,” said Mr. ——. “Befo’e the wa’ the owner of the nigger’d have had the man arrested. He was so much property. It was as if you should kill or maim my horse. But now the nigger has no protection.”
“That’s very true, if the government does not protect him.”
We talked of the depredations of the two armies. “I never feared one party more than the other,” said Mrs. ——. “If anything, the Rebels was worst.”
“Both took hosses and mules,” said Mr. ——. “At fust, I used to try to get my property back. I’d go to head-quarters and get authority to take it whur I could find it; but always by that time ’t would be hocus-pocussed out of the way. It was all an understood thing. Aside from that, the regular armies, neither of them, didn’t steal from us. But as soon as they’d passed, then the thieves would come in. They’d take what we had, and cus us for not having mo’e. Sheep, chickens, geese, corn, watches, and money,—whatever they could lay hands on suffered. Men never thought of carrying money about them, them times, but always give it to the weemun to hide. Thar was scouts belonging to both armies, but which was mo’e robbers than scouts, that was the scourge of the country. If a man had anything, they’d be sure to h’ist it. They’d pretend to come with an order to search for gov’ment arms. It was only an excuse for robbing. They’d search for gov’ment arms in a tin-cup. They had what they called a cash rope. That was a rope to slip about a man’s neck, and swing him up with, till he’d tell whur his money was. They had a gimblet, which they said was for boring for treasures; and they always knew just whur to bore to find ’em. That was right hyere” (in a man’s temples). “They’d bore into him, till he couldn’t stand the pain, then if he had any money he’d be only too glad to give it up. These was generally Confederates. We was pestered powerful by ’em. But Harrison’s scouts was as bad as any. They pretended to be acting on the Union side. They was made up of Southern men, mostly from Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessy. They was a torn-down bad set of men; bad as the Rebs. They’d no respect for anybody or anything. One Sunday a neighbor of mine met them coming up the road. He knew them very well; and he said to them, it was Sunday, and he hoped thar’d be no disturbances that day; the people, he said, had all gone to preaching. That’s right, they said; they believed in means of grace; and they asked whur the preaching was to be, and who was going to preach. He told them, and said he was going thar himself. They said they believed a man did right to go to preaching, though they was deprived of that privilege themselves. He told ’em he hoped they’d look more after their eternal interest in futur’, and they said they intended to, and inquired mo’e particular whur the preaching was to be, and thanked him, and rode on. They then just went to plund’ring, cl’aring out his house about the fust one. Then they said they thought they’d take his advice, and look a little after their eternal interests, and go and hunt up the preaching. Then they just went over and robbed the meeting. There was seventeen horses with sidesaddles on ’em; the men generally went on foot, but the weemun rode. They tuke every horse, and left the weemun to walk home, and carry their saddles, or leave ’em.”
“Some Rebel bushwhackers,” said Mrs. ——, “went to the house of a woman I know as well as I know my own sisters, and because she wouldn’t give ’em her money—she had it in a belt under her dress tied around her waist—they knocked her eye out; then they took their knives, and cut right through to her flesh, cutting her money out.”
Both Zeek and his father kept out of the war. The latter was too old, and the former too young, to be swept in by the conscription act. “Zeek escaped well!” said the mother, with a gleam of exultation. “But I was just in dread he’d be taken!” And I gathered that a little innocent maternal fiction, as to his years, had been employed to shield him.