We followed the landlord into the apartment. It was the dining-room of the hotel, and by the dim light which came from a smoky fire on the hearth, I saw it contained about a hundred people, who, wrapped in blankets, bed-quilts and travelling-shawls, were disposed in all conceivable attitudes, and scattered about on the hard floor and tables, sleeping soundly. The room was a long, low apartment—extending across the entire front of the house—and had a wretched, squalid look. The fire, which was tended by the negro-woman—(she had spread a blanket on the floor, and was keeping a drowsy watch over it for the night)—had been recently replenished with green wood, and was throwing out thick volumes of black smoke, which, mixing with the effluvia from the lungs of a hundred sleepers, made up an atmosphere next to impossible to breathe. Not a window was open, and not an aperture for ventilation could be seen!
Carefully avoiding the arms and legs of the recumbent chivalry, we picked our way, guided by the negro-girl, to the corner of the room where the Unionist was sleeping. Shaking him briskly by the shoulder, the Colonel called out: "Andy! Andy! wake up!"
"What—what the d——l is the matter?" stammered the sleeper, gradually opening his eyes, and raising himself on one elbow, "Lord bless you, Cunnel, is that you? what in —— brought you har?"
"Business, Andy. Come, get up, I want to see you, and I can't talk here."
The North Carolinian slowly rose, and throwing his blanket over his shoulders, followed us from the room. When we had reached the open air the Colonel introduced me to his friend, who expressed surprise, and a great deal of pleasure, at meeting a Northern Union man in the Colonel's company.
"Look after our horses, now, Miles; Andy and I want to talk," said the planter to the landlord, with about as little ceremony as he would have shown to a negro.
I thought the white man did not exactly relish the Colonel's manner, but saying, "All right, all right, sir," he took himself away.
The night was raw and cold, but as all the rooms of the hotel were occupied, either by sleepers or carousers, we had no other alternative than to hold our conference in the open air. Near the railway-track a light-wood fire was blazing, and, obeying the promptings of the frosty atmosphere, we made our way to it. Lying on the ground around it, divested of all clothing except a pair of linsey trousers and a flannel shirt, and with their naked feet close to its blaze—roasting at one extremity, and freezing at the other—were several blacks, the switch-tenders and woodmen of the Station—fast asleep. How human beings could sleep in such circumstances seemed a marvel, but further observation convinced me that the Southern negro has a natural aptitude for that exercise, and will, indeed, bear more exposure than any other living thing. Nature in giving him such powers of endurance, appears to have specially fitted him for the life of hardship and privation to which he is born.
The fire-light enabled me to scan the appearance of my new acquaintance. He was rather above the medium height, squarely and somewhat stoutly built, and had an easy and self-possessed, though rough and unpolished manner. His face, or so much of it as was visible from underneath a thick mass of reddish gray hair, denoted a firm, decided character; but there was a manly, open, honest expression about it that gained one's confidence in a moment. He wore a slouched hat and a suit of the ordinary "sheep's-grey," cut in the "sack" fashion, and hanging loosely about him. He seemed a man who had made his own way in the world, and I subsequently learned that appearances did not belie him. The son of a "poor white" man, with scarcely the first rudiments of book-education, he had, by sterling worth, natural ability, and great force of character, accumulated a handsome property, and acquired a leading position in his district. Though on "the wrong side of politics," his personal popularity was so great that for several successive years he had been elected to represent the county in the state legislature. The Colonel, though opposed to him in politics—and party feeling at the South runs so high that political opponents are seldom personal friends—had, in the early part of his career, aided him by his endorsements; and Andy had not forgotten the service. It was easy to see that while two men could not be more unlike in character and appearance than my host and the North Carolinian, they were warm and intimate friends.
"So, Moye has been raising h—ll gin'rally, Colonel," said my new acquaintance after a time. "I'm not surprised. I never did b'lieve in Yankee nigger-drivers—sumhow it's agin natur' for a Northern man to go Southern principles quite so strong as Moye did."