As the window was down we tiptoed out and went upon our way, driving through Oxford before going to the plantation. This town was named for Oxford, England, and is, like its namesake, a college town. A small and very old Methodist educational institution, with a pretty though ragged campus and fine trees, is all there is to Oxford, save a row of ante-bellum houses. One of them, a pleasant white mansion, half concealed by the huge magnolias which stand in its front yard, was at one time the residence of General Longstreet. The old front gate, hanging on a stone post, was made by the general with his own hands—and well made, for it is to-day as good a gate as ever. Corra Harris lived at one time in Oxford; her husband, Rev. Lundy H. Harris, having been a professor at the college.
Though plantation life has necessarily changed since the war, I do not believe that there is in the whole South a plantation where it has changed less than on the Burge plantation. In appearance the place is not as Sherman's men found it, for they tore down the fences and ruined the beautiful old-fashioned garden, and neither has been replaced; nor, of course, is it run, so far as practical affairs are concerned, as it was before the War; that is to say, instead of being operated as a unit of nine-hundred acres, it is now worked chiefly on shares, and is divided up into "one mule farms" and "two mule farms," these being tracts of about thirty and sixty acres, respectively, thirty acres being approximately the area which can be worked by a man and a mule.
Practically all the negroes on the place—perhaps a hundred in number—are either former slaves of the Burge family, or the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of slaves who lived on the plantation. That is one reason why the plantation is less changed in spirit than are many others. The Burges were religious people, used their slaves kindly, and brought them up well, so that the negroes on the plantation to-day are respectable, and in some instances, exemplary people, very different from the vagrant negro type which has developed since the War, making labor conditions in some parts of the South uncertain, and plantation life, in some sections, not safe for unprotected women.
The present proprietors of the Burge plantation are two ladies, granddaughters of Mrs. Thomas Burge, who lived here, a widow, with a little daughter, when General Sherman and his hosts came by. These ladies frequently spend months at the plantation without male protectors save only the good negroes of their own place, who look after them with the most affectionate devotion. True, the ladies keep an ugly looking but mild mannered bulldog, of which the negroes are generally afraid; true also they carry a revolver when they drive about the country in their motor, and keep revolvers handy in their rooms; but these precautions are not taken, they told me, because of any doubts about the men on their place, their one fear being of tramp negroes, passing by.
Of their own negroes several are remarkable, particularly one old couple, perfect examples of the fine ante-bellum type so much beloved in the South, and so much regretted as it disappears.
During the period of twenty years or more, while the owners were absent, growing up and receiving their education, the whole place, indoors and out, was in charge of Uncle George and Aunt Sidney. The two lived, and still do live, in one wing of the house—over which Aunt Sidney presides as housekeeper and cook, as her mother, Aunt Liddy, did before her. Aunt Liddy died only a short time ago, aged several years over a hundred. Uncle George supervises all the business of the plantation, as he has done for thirty or forty years. He collects all rents, markets the crops and receives the payments, makes purchases, pays bills, and keeps peace between the tenants—nor could any human being be more honorable or possess a finer, sweeter dignity. As for devotion, when the little girls who were away returned after all the years as grown women, every ribbon, every pin in that house was where it had been left, and the place was no less neat than if the "white folks" had constantly remained there.
Before Georgia went dry it was customary for negroes of the rougher sort to get drunk in town every Saturday night. Drunken negroes would consequently be passing by, all night, on their way to their homes, yelling and (after the manner of their kind when intoxicated) shooting their revolvers in the air. Every Saturday night, when the ladies were at home, Uncle George would quietly take his gun and place himself on the porch, remaining there until the last of the obstreperous wayfarers had passed.
Uncle Abe and Uncle Wiley are two other worthy and venerable men who live in cabins on the place. Both were there when Sherman's army passed upon its devastating way, and both were carried off, as were thousands upon thousands of other negroes out of that wide belt across the State of Georgia, which was overrun in the course of the March to the Sea.
"Ah was goin' to mill wid de ox-caht," Uncle Abe told me, "when de soljas dey kim 'long an' got me. Dey tol' me, 'Heah, nigga! Git out dat caht, an' walk behin'. When it moves you move; when it stops you stop!' An' like dat Ah walk all de way to Savannah [two hundred and fifty miles]. Den, after dat, dey took us 'long up No'th—me an' ma brotha Wiley, ovah deh."