One day in May the last of Jackson's hands (on Monday) went to the smokehouse and obtained their rations for the week, and then quit the plantation. They were arrested for breach of contract and obtaining supplies under false pretenses, and were tried before the notorious Judge Bolton. Whilst the trial was going on, Bolton asked my views of the matter. I told him if they were acquitted every contract recorded in court would be worthless, and it would damage the planting interest in the county perhaps two hundred thousand dollars. Nevertheless, he decided that there was no evidence to prove that the hands had any intention of leaving when they drew their rations, although they had a place engaged and left as soon as they got the provisions. For months I never retired to rest without apprehension that some of my hands would leave during the night, at the persuasions of visiting spies.
Another trouble was to check the thoughtless extravagance of the freedmen. If they were largely in debt, when fall came, they would not gather their cotton, believing it mortgaged to the merchants for all it would bring, but quit, and pick cotton on some other place, by the hundred, for cash. Of these things there was no end.
The counties of Bolivar, Washington, and Issaquena composed a levee district in Mississippi, and had for years protected the lands from overflow by constructing levees. Funds were obtained by tax on lands and by sales of bonds. When the war ended, I was elected president of the board. Gen. Alvan C. Gillem was military governor, and gave me all the aid he could to rebuild the levees. I negotiated the bonds in New York City at par, and repaired the levees and saved the plantations from overflow. When Ames[51] became military governor, he one day sent a man to Greenville with an order dismissing us, and required the office to be turned over to the bearer, etc.; and this, too, when the river was at its highest stage. I went to Jackson to see him. I demanded the grounds for his action in the matter, and was refused. At this time the river was out of its banks everywhere, except in our district. I wrote to President Grant, and he answered: "You should have telegraphed at once." Gen. Sherman wrote, "Yours is not a public office, and Ames is wrong, etc., meddling with private corporations," or words to that effect.
Whilst in Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, I was offered the opportunity of seeing the legislators who made our laws, composed mainly of carpetbaggers and negroes. For this purpose I obtained a seat by the sidewalk on the main street leading to the capitol.
As the hour to meet had arrived, down this street could be seen the members approaching. Generally they came two together, arm in arm, a carpetbagger and a negro in close confab. The whites were clothed in garments of various makes and colors; the negroes rejoiced in black clothing, with Prince Albert coats and silk hats and gold-headed canes. Down the avenue and far away could be seen the white of their eyes, teeth, shirts, and enormous collars.
The carpetbagger was generally holding on to the arm of his colored brother, and engaged in conversation; and, judging from the gestures, they were advocating some benevolent measure for the benefit of the "wards of the nation," and their own prosperity. One other observation I made: there were no small feet, and not an arched instep; flap, flap, came down their flat feet. I had seen enough; I thought the negro had the more honest face.
Thence I went into the House. Ye gods, what a sight! The floor was dirty, the many spittoons were all filthy—filled with quids of tobacco, stumps of cigars, pieces of paper around them were cemented to the floor by dried tobacco juice; fumes of tobacco filled the house, so that the air was foul and unpleasant.
The members were seated, black and white side by side, all over the house, perhaps to guide them in voting; and they lolled on the desks and chairs. A negro would lay his head on the desk of his white neighbor, look him in the face, and laugh with great glee at what was told him; the conversation was so loud and the laughter so boisterous that the Speaker could not command silence: he pounded with the gavel, and shouted "Order! order!" till his voice was drowned by the cries of "Master Speakyar!" from the negroes, while the whites shouted and waved their arms frantically to catch the Speaker's eye for recognition. The whole scene was one of confusion not unlike the Gold Exchange, New York, in days of yore, or the Stock Exchange.
I then went to the Senate chamber. It was cleaner than the House, and better order was preserved; but what a travesty on intelligence and decorum, and shame on the government of the United States, North, that made this not only possible but common, and laughed at it with joyous hearts; and wherefore? It was an assembly of mostly dishonest white men influencing the uneducated negro members to enact laws whereby the State was, by bonded indebtedness, plundered of millions of dollars. Their reign is ended.
"I myself have seen the ungodly in great power and flourishing like a green bay tree: I went by again, and lo, he was gone." Adieu! The royal Bengal tiger, when he once tastes human blood, will depopulate a village; so the loyal carpetbagger, having tasted Southern plunder, went home and devised a scheme of trust companies now in operation.