Scarcely a postmaster was yet to be found along the route. The mails were handed out by the route-agents to any one who happened to be standing about the station, and they were delivered or not, as was convenient. Nobody could be got to take the offices, because nobody was able to take the oath. It had been proposed, by some wise person, to remedy the difficulty by appointing women. That would be “jumping from the frying-pan into the fire,” indeed. Where the men were Rebels, after the Mississippi pattern of earnestness, some new word must be discovered to define the extent of the hatred the women bore to the Yankee Government. Such mild titles as “Rebel,” failed to meet the case.
Of old, travelers in the South were perpetually regaled by the siren song of the affection between the negro and his master. “Free them all to-morrow, and it would make no difference. They know instinctively that their masters are their best friends. You could no more make them fight against us than you could make them fly.” On all hands one heard of this bond of attachment between the races; was pointed to the devotion of favorite servants; assured that no law was necessary to hold them; reproached with the fanatical prejudices of the North against color.
With the downfall of the rebellion there came a change. He would be blind and deaf, who, after a day’s stay anywhere in the interior of Mississippi, failed to discern aright the drift of public opinion toward the negro. The boasted confidence in the slave, and the generous friendship for the helpless freedman were all gone. There were, of course, many individual exceptions, but the prevailing sentiment with which the negro was regarded, was one of blind, baffled, revengeful hatred. “Now, that you’ve got them ruined, take the cursed scoundrels out of the country.” “D——n their black souls, they’re the things that caused the best blood of our sons to flow.” “The infernal sassy niggers had better look out, or they’ll all get their throats cut yet.” “We can drive the niggers out and import coolies that will work better, at less expense, and relieve us from this cursed nigger impudence.” “Let a nigger dare to come into my office, without taking off his hat, and he’ll get a club over it.” Such were the voices I heard on every hand—in the hotels, on the cars, in steamboat cabins, among returned soldiers, grave planters, outspoken members of the “Legislature,” from every party, and from men of all ages and conditions. More or less, the same feeling had been apparent in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana; but it was in Mississippi that I found its fullest and freest expression. However these men may have regarded the negro slave, they hated the negro freeman. However kind they may have been to negro property, they were virulently vindictive against a property that escaped from their control.
With coarser illustrations of the universal feeling the public prints have been crowded—stories of ear cuttings and shootings, and the like. Doubtless many of these stories were exaggerated; for even in Mississippi murder is not practiced with as much safety as the other fine arts; but no man could mingle in the community and not be convinced that the feeling was there, and that only prudence restrained its exercise. A railroad conductor was possessed with some delusion about my ability to help to his appointment as post-office agent, and he accordingly exhausted all his arts to entertain. The burden of his talk was “the blasted, imperdent nigger.” “Just think, sah, down here, the other day, at ——, a nigger sergeant ordered his men to shoot me. I never heard of it till I’d got twenty miles away, or I’d a raised a little speck of Jerusalem in that nigger camp. What did he want me shot for, sah? Why this was the way of it. I was writin’ on a platform car, where a d——d nigger guard was a trampin’ back and forrard, and says I, ‘Can’t you keep still thar, you nigger; don’t you see you’re a shakin’ the car?’ The black scoundrel never said a word, but kept on trampin’ his beat. I spoke to him again, kinder sharp, but he didn’t mind me no more nor if he’d never heerd me. Finally I couldn’t stand it no longer, and broke out: ‘G—d d——n your black heart, you dirty Yankee nigger, I’d just like to cut your throat from ear to ear for your infernal impudence.’ At that he walked off to the sergeant and kept a whisperin’ till I got ready to start. But I heerd afterward that the cowardly nigger sergeant told him to stand his ground and shoot me if I interfered with him. Just think of the nigger impudence we’ve got to bear, sah!”
In a crowded bar-room, among a group of cronies who evidently looked on him as the oracle, swaggered a “hotel-keeper,” whose guests were taken in and fleeced, at a point on the railroad between Jackson and New Orleans. He was boasting of his success with the “cussed free niggers.” “We’ve got a Provo’ in our town that settles their hash mighty quick. He’s a downright high-toned man, that Provo’, if he is a Yankee. I sent a nigger to him, the other day, who was sassy when he came into my office, and said he wouldn’t work for me unless he pleased. He tucked him up, guv him twenty lashes, and rubbed him down right smart with salt, for having no visible means of support. That evening I saw Tom, and asked him whether he’d rather come home. ‘Bress ye, yes, massa,’ says Tom. ‘But Tom,’ I told him, ‘I’ll take that old paddle of mine with the holes in it, and paddle you soundly, if I think you deserve it.’ ‘Bress you, massa, Tom likes dat all do time better dan dis.’ That’s a downright high-toned officer, I tell ye, that Provo’ of our’n!”
“A nigger’s just as good as a white man now,” argumentatively observed a bottle-nosed member of the Legislature, “but I give my Sam t’other day to understand that he wasn’t a d——d bit better. He came into my room without taking off his hat. ‘Take off your hat, you dirty black scoundrel, or I’ll cut your throat,’ I yelled at him. D——n him, he had the impudence to stand up and say he was free, and he wouldn’t do it unless he pleased. I jumped at him with my knife, but he run. Bimeby he came sneakin’ back, and said he was sorry. ‘Sam,’ says I, ‘you’ve got just the same rights as a white man now, but not a bit better. And if you come into my room without takin’ off your hat I’ll shoot you!’”
This Bowie-knife and pistol style of talk pervaded all the conversations of these people about their late affectionate bondsmen. Nothing less gunpowdery, it seemed, would serve to express their feelings. I fancy, however, that, as with all such talkers, there was a great amount of throat-cutting in words to a very small percentage of actual performance.[[61]] Nor must it be forgotten that the provocations were not wholly on one side. The negroes would be more than human, if suddenly enfranchised, clothed in the army blue, and taught to use the muskets in their hands, they should not strain the bounds of prudent freedom. They were not always respectful in their bearing toward men who talked of cutting their throats; and sometimes they had an indiscreet way of pressing claims, which it had been wiser for them to waive. “Get out of this car, you black puppy,” shouted a young blood, who evidently bemoaned the loss of the right to larrup his own nigger, as a handsome negro sergeant, fully equipped, modestly established himself in the corner of a first class car. The negro stood his ground but made no reply. Presently some one else ordered him to the negro car, quietly explaining that no negroes were allowed in the ladies’ car. “Ise paid my passage, same as de rest of ye. Ise goin’ on Government business, and Ise got as good right to what I pays for as anybody else.” The logic might have been hard to answer; but the conductor, who by this time had been summoned, didn’t trouble himself with logic. “I expect you’re on the Major General’s business, cuffee, but if you don’t get out of here mighty quick, bag and baggage, I’ll have you pitched off the train.” As there was but one against a train full of white men, he succumbed, though with an exceedingly bad grace. I have heard of other cases, where several soldiers were together, in which they stood their ground.
Embittered feelings, of course, follow all such controversies. The negro feels himself aggrieved by the petty spites of the men who can no longer hold him enslaved; the master feels himself outraged that one over whom his power had been so absolute should “go to putting on airs this way” in his very face. Against the negro troops, who alone kept these smouldering elements from breaking forth, the hatred of the community was especially intense.[[62]] Some timorous souls had great fears of a negro outbreak at Christmas, and even our officers believed that, in some cases, the negroes were distributing arms, to be used to enforce their claims to their masters’ lands. There was not a particle of foundation for the fears. They got arms, indeed, but what of it? Was not every man armed? Could you brush closely against any ragged neighbor without being bruised by his concealed revolver? People had not got over regarding negroes as something other than men; and when it appeared that they were imitating the example of the whites, and preparing to protect themselves, forsooth we had straightway cock and bull stories of impending negro insurrections and a war of races!
The heel of the destroyer had been on Jackson too; and solitary chimneys and shattered ruins attested the thoroughness with which the work was done. The same recuperative power was not displayed, with which the stranger was so impressed at Atlanta or Selma. The Mississippians seemed more listless. In traveling several hundred miles in the State, I did not see a white man at work in the fields, or very many at work anywhere or anyway. Cotton, however, continued to come out—a satisfactory proof that the “niggers” had still been able to do something. Piles of it were stored near the railroad; and through the interior one noticed an occasional wagon drawn by a couple of oxen, with, perhaps, a mule in front, bringing a few bales to the nearest station.