“Oh! sir,” she answered, “my husband is a member of that church.”
At this moment breakfast was announced, and after the conclusion of the meal, I was requested by both the sheriff and his wife, to lead in prayer. The Lord put words into my mouth, and we had, indeed, a happy time. My host then invited me to take a walk with him, which I did, though my foot gave me considerable pain. We fell immediately to conversation, in the course of which I got a full insight into the real condition of affairs in the Southern Confederacy.
To one of my questions, he answered:
“Yes, sir, the war is the cause of all our misery. You see, for instance, this region of country is adapted only to raising cotton, for the land is too light for sugar-cane or rice. The masses of the people in this particular county are employed in cutting timber, which, being floated down the Ocmulgee to Darien, is sold there, and with the proceeds are obtained the necessaries of life, flour, corn-meal, salt, &c.”
“Well,” suggested I, “you rich men, at least, will not suffer.”
“There, sir, you are much mistaken. We shall suffer heavily; for, though we have farms and plantations, yet we have not hands to work them. And another thing, perhaps, you are not aware of, is, that we have thousands of poor men who live here and there, in their pole-huts, rearing large families on the little crops of cotton and so forth, which they raise on some other man’s farm, upon which they have squatted. In the fall they hunt, and thus supply their families with meat and salt; the skins of the animals they take to procure the latter article. So they live, half human, half animal, letting their progeny loose upon us. Of course, many of them must starve now. If they could obtain salt, however, they might live on gophers, which abound in the pine-forests.”
Presently, we came in sight of a wretched hut, about which I saw some white children playing. My companion led me thither, with the remark:
“I will show you, sir, a family belonging to the class of which I speak.”
Upon reaching the hut, my blood almost chilled at the sight of squalid poverty which I beheld. There stood a family of ten persons; a father—who on account of his age had escaped the conscription—a mother, and eight ragged, filthy children. The ages of the latter, I should judge, ranged from one year up to sixteen. The peculiar color of their complexions struck me very forcibly; it was the same as that of the men composing the first court by which I had been tried. My host gave us a reason for it, that “they laid around so much in the dirt, and ate so much clay.” I asked the man himself why he and his family ate clay.
“Cause it’s good, I golly!” was the prompt reply.