On our return we stopped at the old log-cabin near the center of the first Bull Run battle-field. Its inhabitants, a blear-eyed, hard-drinking poor white and his wife, the latter of whom seemed to be dividing her time between her pipe and the wash-tub, had occupied the house during the whole of both battles and during the subsequent alternate possession of the field by either side. Before the war he had made a living by selling a little whisky; now he had nothing to depend on but his “patch.” This, as it subsequently appeared, was gratuitously cultivated for him by a curious old misshapen negro who considered himself in some way bound to the place.
The negro brought us some cider, of indescribable taste. “How in the world did you make this, uncle?”
“Why, sah, I only had few rotten apples, but I’s got plenty peaches. So I pounds up de apples and de peaches togedder in a bary, wid a pessle. Den I puts water in to make de juice come, cause it’s so dry. Den I put away de juice, and gibs it to gemmen, and dey always gibs me somefin den what makes me laugh.”
He thought the end of the world was coming, sure, at the time of the first battle. Afterward, when the second came, he wasn’t quite so much scared at first, but ’fore it over he thought hisself dead nigger, shore.
Where were all his neighbors? Dey’d all done gone, sence dey got so badly whipped, and nebber cum back. Reckoned some on ’em lost mighty fine farms heah by it.
Didn’t he think they were very foolish to fight that way for nothing? He didn’t know, twan’t for him to say. Dey was old enough and ageable enough to know best for demselves.
Thus the freedman. The Virginian of the ruling class was even more cautious. “He hain’t nary a politic,” explained our driver. “He’s been first one thing and then the other, just accordin’ to which side happened to be camped around; but he’s a poor sneakin’ nigger-driver at heart.”
We drove from end to end of the two battle-fields, and found these to be its only inhabitants. In fifteen miles of driving through what had once been a cultivated country, we saw but a single fence.
At the railroad station, on our return, we found quite a number of negroes. They had always lived here, and wanted to live here still. They were willing to work, but their old masters weren’t willing to hire them. Didn’t we think that the Government ought to give them lands?