Selma bore rough marks of the Yankee General Wilson, who passed through it on his raid, just before the capture of Mr. Davis. A third or more of the city was in ruins, and the large machine shops and founderies of the Confederacy were thoroughly destroyed. On a public corner, where a large cotton warehouse had stood, was a broken safe, lying among the debris. Some resident had taken the pains to label it, so that the Yankee garrison might understand what it meant, “Always safe, except in case of Wilson, U. S. A.” On another side was a different inscription: “Business Cards! Wilson & Co., U. S. A., General Burglars and House and Safe Openers. Orders respectfully solicited.” The third side bore the following: “Insured safe from dangers of fire and dampness, Wilson and his Thieves (sic) only excepted.”
Wilson’s work had been thoroughly done. The gun foundery and machine shops which he had destroyed, were only to be compared to great Government establishments like those at West Point or Fort Pitt. A confused mass of bricks and mortar covered the ground, and from the debris rose fourteen tall chimneys, the blackened monument of what had been. About a hundred great guns were lying about in various stages of manufacture. Wilson had carefully knocked off the trunnions. Among them were the heaviest siege-guns, iron field ten-pounders, guns with wrought iron muzzles screwed on, Brooks’ guns, and other varieties. One still lay on the lathe, where the workmen had been turning it when Wilson and his raiders came.
On the other side of the town were the ruins of an extensive manufactory of small arms. Hundreds of musket barrels lay among the bricks and mortar, besides shot-gun barrels innumerable, and great sheaves of bayonets, fused together by the heat. But for the utter collapse of the rebellion, at about the same time, this destruction of these shops would have been justly considered the weightiest among the crowding calamities of the rebellion.
An accomplished Northern mineralogist,[[55]] who went over the ruins with me, pronounced the iron ore, which, had been used in making the great guns, nearly equal to the Marquette ore from Lake Superior. He thought it would average sixty-five to seventy-five per cent. of pure iron, and possibly even higher. It had all been brought from the mines near Talledega, where, also, a number of founderies for the Confederate Government had been established. The war had found these people ignorant of their mineral resources, without machinery, workmen, or materials. At its close they had developed a mineral wealth which ages could not exhaust, and had built up here, as I have said, a manufactory of guns, great and small, with which only three or four in the United States could be compared.
The burnt houses in the business part of the city were being rapidly rebuilt. Negro carpenters and masons seemed to have exclusive control of the work. An old negro, who worked as hod-carrier, explained that he was paid a dollar a day. “By de time I pays ten dollars a month rent fo’ my house, an’ fifteen cents a poun’ for beef or fresh po’k, or thirty cents fo’ bacon, an’ den buys my clo’es, I doesn’t hab much leff. I’s done tried it, an’ I knows brack man cant stan’ dat.” He had been “refugeed” from Tuscumbia; now he could not get back. He had been doing his best to save money enough, (forty dollars,[[56]]) but he couldn’t seem to get ahead at all with it.
His people were all going to work well, he thought, on cotton plantations where they were sure of good pay. Of course, they would work better for the Yankees, ’cause dey freed ’em. There was no talk of insurrection among them—had never heerd of sich a thing. What should they rise for? There were no secret societies among them.
On the other hand, the people had many complaints of insubordination, so great that they were in actual fear for the lives of their families! Some of the newspapers thought “the scenes of bloodshed and massacre of St. Domingo would be re-enacted in their midst, before the close of the year.” “We speak advisedly,” continued one frightened editor, “we have authentic information of the speeches and conversation of the blacks, sufficient to convince us of their purpose. They make no secret of their movement. Tell us not that we are alarmists. After due investigation and reflection upon this matter, we have determined to talk plainly, without fear or favor, and if our voice of warning is not heeded, we, at least, will have the consoling reflection that we have performed our duty.”
All this silly talk was, doubtless, utterly without foundation. Negroes neglected to touch their hats to overseers or former masters whom they disliked; and straightway it was announced that they were growing too saucy for human endurance. They held meetings and sung songs about their freedom, whereupon it was conjectured that they were plotting for a rising against the whites. They refused to be beaten; and, behold, the grossest insubordination was existing among the negroes.[[57]]
Near the ruins of the Selma armory was a village of huts, filled with the lowest order of plantation negroes. One or two were riding about on abandoned Government horses; more were idly watching them. They were “’joying their freedom.” A little round furnace stood some distance from the huts. At its mouth sat an old negro, far gone with fever and greatly emaciated. His story was a simple one. He had been sent here, by his master, from Northern Alabama, to work for the Government. Yankees had come along, and his paper to go home (his transportation) done wuf nothing no more. He begged a little, picked up a little, slept in the furnace, and so got along. He might last through the winter, but it was very doubtful. He was, apparently, sixty or seventy years old, and there was not a soul, black or white, to care for him.
Most of the negroes congregated here had either been sent to work in the Rebel shops, or had come since the end of the war to “’joy their freedom.”