The freedmen throughout the central and northern part of the State, had very generally made contracts, and were at work. In the southern part, fewer contracts had been made, in consequence of the inability of the large planters to pay promptly. “When paid promptly, the freedmen are everywhere working well,” I was assured by the officers of the Bureau. The rate of wages varied from five to ten dollars a month.
There were in the State one hundred teachers, supplied by the benevolent societies of the North. Their schools, scattered throughout the State, were attended by eight thousand five hundred colored pupils.
Cases of robberies, frauds, assaults, and even murders, in which white persons were the agents and freed people the sufferers, had been so numerous, according to the State Commissioner, “that no record of them could be kept; one officer reporting that he had heard and disposed of as many as a hundred and eighty complaints in one day.” Owing to the efforts of the Bureau, however, the number was fast decreasing.
From Governor Worth, I received a rather sorry account of the doings of Sherman’s “bummers” in this State. Even after the pacification they continued their lawless marauding. “They visited my place, near Raleigh, and drove off a fine flock of ewes and lambs. I was State Treasurer at the time, and having to go away on public business, I gave my negroes their bacon, which they hid behind the ceiling of the house. The Yankees came, and held an axe over the head of one of the negroes, and by threats compelled him to tell where it was. They tore off the ceiling, and stole all the bacon. They took all my cows. Three cows afterwards came back; but they recently disappeared again, and I found them in the possession of a man who says he bought them of these bummers. I had a grindstone, and as they couldn’t carry it off, they smashed it. There was on my place a poor, old, blind negro woman,—the last creature in the world against whom I should suppose any person would have wished to commit a wrong. She had a new dress; and they stole even that.
“I was known as a peace man,” said the Governor, “and for that reason I did not suffer as heavily as my neighbors.” He gave this testimony with regard to that class which served, but did not honor, our cause: “Of all the malignant wretches that ever cursed the earth, the hangers-on of Sherman’s army were the worst;” adding: “It can’t be expected that the people should love a government that has subjugated them in this way.”
CHAPTER LXXXI.
CONCLUSIONS.
I made but a brief stay in North Carolina, but passed on homeward, and reached the beautiful snowy hills and frosted forests of New England early in February.
It now only remains for me to sum up briefly my answers to certain questions which are constantly put to me, regarding Southern emigration, the loyalty of the people, and the future of the country.
The South is in the condition of a man recovering from a dangerous malady: the crisis is past, appetite is boundless, and only sustenance and purifying air are needed to bring health and life in fresh waves. The exhausted country calls for supplies. It has been drained of its wealth, and of its young men. Capital is eagerly welcomed and absorbed. Labor is also needed. There is much shallow talk about getting rid of the negroes, and of filling their places with foreigners. But war and disease have already removed more of the colored race than can be well spared; and I am confident that, for the next five or ten years, leaving the blacks where they are, the strongest tide of emigration that can be poured into the country will be insufficient to meet the increasing demand for labor.
Northern enterprise, emancipation, improved modes of culture, and the high prices of cotton, rice, sugar, and tobacco, cannot fail to bring about this result. The cotton crop, if no accident happens to it, will this year reach, I am well satisfied, not less than two million bales, and bring something like two hundred and fifty million dollars,—as much as the five million bales of 1859 produced. Next year it will approximate to its old average standard in bulk, and greatly exceed it in value; and the year after we shall have the largest cotton crop ever known. Meanwhile the culture of rice and sugar will have fully revived, and become enormously profitable. Nor will planting alone flourish. Burned cities and plantation-buildings must be restored, new towns and villages will spring up, old losses must be repaired, and a thousand new wants supplied. Trade, manufactures, the mechanic arts, all are invited to share in this teeming activity.