But Johnston's surrender did not lift the yoke from Richmond, in any degree. Police regulations of the most annoying character were imposed; the fact of a parole bearing any significance was entirely ignored; no sort of grace was shown to its possessor, unless he took the oath; and many men, caught in Richmond at this time and far from home, were reduced to distress and almost starvation by the refusal of transportation.
All this the southern people bore with patience. They submitted to all things but two: they would not take the oath and they would not mix socially with their conquerors. In that respect the line was as rigorously drawn in Richmond, at that time, as ever Venice drew it against the Austrian. Not that any attempt was omitted by the Federals to overcome what they called this "prejudice." There was music in Capitol Square, by the best bands of the army, and the ladies were specially invited by the public prints. Not one went; and the officers listened to their own music in company with numbers of lusty black emancipated, who fully felt themselves women and sisters. Next it was given out that the negroes would not be admitted; but then the officers listened alone, and finally gave it up. Failing in public, every effort—short of rudeness and intrusion, which were never resorted to—was made to effect a social lodgment in private. But no Federal uniform ever crossed a rebel threshold, in those days, save on business. The officers occupied parts of many houses; but they were made to feel that the other part, occupied by the household, was private still.
Another infliction, harder to bear, was the well-meant intrusion of old friends from the North. Pleasure parties to Richmond were of constant occurrence; and for the time quite eclipsed in popularity, with the Washington idlers, the inevitable pilgrimage to Mt. Vernon. Gaily dressed and gushing over in the merriment of a party of pleasure, these visitors often sought out their ante-bellum friends; and then and there would condone the crime of rebellion to them—sitting in desolation by the ashes of their household gods. It is not hard to understand how bitter was proffered forgiveness, to those who never admitted they could have been wrong; and perhaps the soft answer that turneth away wrath, was not always given to such zealously officious friends.
There was little bitterness expressed, however much may have fermented in the hearts of the captured; and, as a general thing, the people were grateful for the moderation of the Yankees, and appreciated the good they had done at the fire. But, deeper than any bitterness could have sunk, was that ingrained feeling that there were two peoples that these could never again mingle in former amity, till oil and water might mix. The men especially—and with much apparent reason—were utterly hopeless of the future; and, collecting in knots, they would gloomily discuss the prospect of emigration, as if that were the sole good the future held. There can be little doubt that had the ability been theirs, a large majority of the young men of the South would have gone abroad, to seek their fortunes in new paths and under new skies. Luckily, for their country, the commander at Richmond failed to keep his agreement with the paroled officers; and—after making out rolls of those who would be granted free permission and passage to Canada, England or South America—those rolls were suddenly annulled and the whole matter given up. Thus a number of useful, invaluable men who have ever since fought the good fight against that outrage—the imposition of negro dominance over her—were saved to the South.
And that good fight, begun in the natural law of self-preservation, has eventuated to the interests of a common country. For no one who does not intimately understand the character of the negro—his mental and moral, as well as his physical, constitution—can begin to comprehend the sin committed against him, even more than against the white man, by putting him in the false attitude of equality with, or antagonism to, the latter.
No one, who did not move among the negroes, immediately after conquest of the South—and who did not see them with experience-opened eyes—can approach realization of the pernicious workings of that futile attempt.
Writing upon the inner details of the war and its resulting action upon the morale of the southern people, omission can not be made of that large and unfortunate class; driven—first by blind fanaticism, later by fear of their own party existence—into abnormal condition by the ultra radicals. The negro rapidly changed; "equality" frittered away what good instincts he had and developed all the worst, innate with him. It changed him from a careless and thriftless, but happy and innocent producer, into a mere consumer, at best; often indeed, into a besotted and criminal idler, subsisting in part upon Nature's generosity in supplying cabbage and fish, in part upon the thoughtlessness of his neighbor in supplying chickens and eggs.
Yet—so powerful is result of habit; on so much foundation of nature is based the Scythian fable—the negroes of the South, immediately succeeding the surrender, used the new greatness thrust upon them with surprising innocence. Laziness, liquor and loud asseverations of freedom and equality were its only blessings claimed; and the commission of overt acts, beyond those named, were rare enough to prove the rule of force of habit. Lured from old service for a time, most of them followed not far the gaudy and shining Will-o'-the-Wisp; and almost all—especially the household and personal servants—soon returned to "Ole Mas'r" once more, sadder and wiser for the futile chase after freedom's joys. But, even these were partly spoiled and rendered of far less practical use to themselves, or to their employers.
The "negro question" to-day is made merely a matter of politics, rather than one of political economy. At the date of the Confederacy's death, it is a matter of history.
Gradually—by very slow degrees—people in Richmond—as elsewhere in the South, further removed from victor's contact—began to grow so far accustomed to the chains imposed upon them, that they seemed less unbearably galling. Little by little—forced by the necessities of themselves and of those still dearer—men went to work at new and strange occupations; doing not what they would, but what they could, in the bitter struggle with want for their daily bread. But, spite of earnest resolve and steady exertion,