CHAPTER XIX.
Aspect of the Country at Termination of the War—The Returned Confederate Soldier—Carpetbaggers—Lincoln's Vow—His Proclamation Concerning Confiscation of Slaves—How the Slaves Were Legally Liberated—Lincoln Murdered—Johnson President—His Thirst for Vengeance—"Treason" to Be Made Odious—Grant Declared That the Paroles Must Not Be Violated—Cost of a Bill of Dry Goods in Confederate Money in 1864—Leave Columbus for Greenville, Miss.—Desolate Home—The Good Israelite—Return to Columbus—I Go with Mrs. French to Mississippi—Traveling Incognito a Failure—Journey to New York in 1865—Incidents of My Mother and Child When They Went North—Home Confiscated—Edward Cooper's Kind Act—No One Would Touch Mother's Trunks—Copy of a Contract in 1865, Whereby I Obtained Funds—People under Espionage at the North—Return to the Plantation—Northern Plan to Terminate the War.
If a man had ascended one of the lofty peaks of the Southern Appalachian chain of mountains at the termination of the war, and been endowed with telescopic powers of vision extending for hundreds of miles in every direction, he would have beheld the wreck of "the storm-cradled nation" that fell in defense of the rights that they possessed under the constitution of 1787-88, which was shaped, and established, and agreed to, by the States forming the convention. As far as such vision could extend, that once beautiful country was almost desolate and silent; the busy hum of industry had ceased, the daily smoke of burning buildings, the marching of armies, and the dull sound of distant cannon terminated; railroads had been destroyed, bridges were burned, many wagon roads were impassable; agriculture had nearly ceased, draft animals had been taken for war purposes; the flower of the South, with its pride of ancestors, had "fallen foremost in the light;" the noble women were almost paralyzed in mind, ready to doubt the existence of a just God who seemingly had been deaf to their prayers, and made fatherless their little children; four million slaves sat idle around their decaying cabins, impressed with the prevailing idea that freedom meant to do as they pleased, and not work any more; provisions were scarce, and the whole scene was a picture of war's desolation and misery.
I can call to mind the delight I experienced when reading that wonderful description by Burke of the desolation of the Carnatic, in India, by the butcher Hyder Ali, in years long passed; or with sorrowful heart the desolation of the Palatinate by the French troops by order of Louvois, but I am not aware of any Northern pen having told the story of the destruction of the beautiful Valley of the Shenandoah[39] in Virginia by Gen. P. H. Sheridan, though it be a theme as sad as the one immortalized by the genius of Burke.
Hyder Ali left nothing in the Carnatic that drew the breath of life; Sheridan left nothing in the Valley for a crow to feed on—as stated in his official report, wherein he writes that "a crow could not cross the Valley without carrying his provisions with him."
It is true, however, that you can find in some of the Northern schoolbooks a beautiful poem entitled "Sheridan's Ride," as mythical as Barbara Frietchie; still there are in the true story some incidents not unlike those in Burns's "Tam O'Shanter" that kept "Sheridan far away."
And now the surviving Confederate soldier returned to what was once his happy home. He had faith in the terms of his parole, that he was "not to be molested by the United States authorities as long as he obeyed the laws of 1861." Inured to hardships incident to a soldier's life, he was well equipped to become an industrious, peaceful citizen; he had stormed fortifications, captured batteries, marched up to the cannon's deadly mouth without tremor, passed days without rest and nights without sleep, subsisted on parched corn, been frost-bitten by cold, and burned by the torrid sun. His bare feet had left their prints in blood on the rocks, and crimsoned the snow on many a wintry march; he had stopped the marauder in his path, and turned the enemy from his course; he had tempted the ocean in its wrath, and driven off its waters the enemy's commercial sails. All that man dares he had done. And now in adversity, almost naked, with unending toil before him, he commenced life anew, and went manfully to work with hope for the joy of peace, little thinking of the degradation, insults, humiliations, oppressions, robbery, extortions he and his family would be subjected to during the coming years, caused by revengeful legislation. And now behold him even greater in peace than in war!
The plunder obtained by the soldiers of the Union army had so whetted the avaricious spirit of those who had furnished substitutes for themselves, that they were bent on having their share of the spoils; and the politicians, anxious to ride into place and power, to that end resorted to more machinations than Machiavelli ever dreamed of in his advice to the prince.
By the daily trains came men, generally from the Eastern States, in every garb, and they walked along the streets in single file in quest of cheap hotels and boarding houses, and the insignia of their order was a carpetbag, and their interests and tastes—not their sympathy—prompted them to associate with the freedmen, considering themselves just as good and honorable as the "Wards of the Nation."
You must not deem it out of place if I here make mention of some incidents that occurred pretty early in the war.