Communication with the interior is yet very uncertain. The mails are all stopped; the railroads broken up; the highways blockaded by sentries that imitate the fly-trap—let you in but won’t let you out. There is no scarcity of news here from the interior, but Savannah is, as yet, a focus which receives all these diverse rays of intelligence and reflects none back again. The town is full of black and white refugees from all parts of Georgia; both races are daily coming in large numbers, some for supplies, some to find what the policy of the Government is likely to be, some to go North. What the negroes tell, in the way of trouble with their masters, and petty persecutions that seem designed, since their freedom can’t be taken away, to make freedom very unpleasant for them, has already been partly recited. The whites are, of course, discreetly silent on such subjects, though I have heard one or two refer rather significantly to the “uncommon amount of whipping it takes now to keep the plantation niggers in order.” But they are full of complaints of their own, telling how lazy and worthless the negroes are, how Sherman’s soldiers desolated the country, and how unsettled every one feels.
There is apparently no apprehension among them of guerrilla warfare; in fact, they scout at the idea. Question them as to everything for which the war was fought, the doctrine of secession, the rightfulness of slavery, the wrongs of the South, and they are found as full of the sentiments that made the rebellion as ever; but every man has apparently schooled himself into saying, with an air of utter frankness: “We’re whipped, and we give it up. There will be no more fighting of any sort; no guerrillas; no resistance to the Government; and we all accept the death of slavery as inevitable.” Ask them what should be done with them, now that they’re subdued, and they say: “We’re wholly in the hands of the Government, but would like to have our State Governments restored as soon as possible.” Ask them what should be done with the negroes, now that they’re free, and the bolder ones answer, “Put them under the care of the State Legislature;” while all seem to insist upon some sort of apprenticeship, or other legal restriction that will practically keep them as much slaves as ever. I have found no Georgian who, now that his slaves can no longer be made to work for him, expects to work for himself. In fact, working for themselves does not seem to be, in any event, of success or of failure, of loyalty or of rebellion, a part of their philosophy of life. Work is for “niggers”—not for white men.
Nor do they seem to entertain any idea of selling off part of their lands, in order to get money to stock and till properly the remainder. Some of them think selling their lands, inherited from their fathers, would be dishonorable; others affect to believe that nobody would buy; while it is quite evident that, as long as they can help it, none of them mean to sell.
“What would be the sense of my selling?” asked one. “Suppose I did; what then could I do for a livelihood? I don’t know how to do anything to make money, and I wouldn’t go at it if I did. I’m no book-keeper or counter-jumper. I never learned a trade; I have no profession. I own these lands, and, if the niggers can be made to work, they’ll support me; but there’s nothing else that I know anything about, except managing a plantation.”
By-and-by, however, necessity will begin to pinch them more and more. Then, unless they succeed, in some way, in cheating the Government and making emancipation a sham, many of them will throw their lands into the market, rather than honestly attempt to work them with free labor. When that time comes, Northern capital will have such an opening as rarely coffers twice in one capitalist’s lifetime.
A large number of leading citizens of Savannah, and gentlemen gathered here from different parts of the State, waited on the Chief Justice and General Gillmore during our visit. One, a fine-looking old gentleman, of rubicund visage and silvery hair, with two sons holding high rank in the Rebel army, wanted to remonstrate against the admission of the negroes to the public schools. He was painfully polite, but, in spite of his calmness, the deep feeling under which he labored could not be wholly concealed. “Sir, we accept the death of slavery; but, sir, surely there are some things that are not tolerable. Our people have not been brought up to associate with negroes. They don’t think it decent; and the negroes will be none the better for being thrust thus into the places of white men’s sons.”
Accompanying this old gentleman, and one or two of the other Savannah magnates, was Mr. Charles Green, a noted British merchant, of many years’ residence here. Mr. Green is among the wealthiest inhabitants; has made more money out of the war than any one else, unless Savannah rumor greatly belies him; lives in one of the finest houses; was the first man to greet General Sherman and offer him the hospitalities of his residence—in short, is at once a British and a Savannah institution, and is, withal, a gentleman of culture and refinement. His cordial courtesies had to be declined; but it was interesting to see, in the short interview in which he tendered them, how completely the old prejudices of the section retained their influence. Mr. Green was Doctor Russell’s host during the much-abused Times’ correspondent’s stay in Savannah, and in those days it does not appear that he differed very widely from other secession-loving Britons in the South. But it is amazing what difference success or failure makes in the soundness of a principle!
Mingling freely with a crowd of fifteen or twenty gentlemen, who called a little later, all Georgians, and all but two or three residents of Savannah, I made some effort, by comparison of their various views, to get at the nature and standard of Savannah Unionism. Some of them, indeed, made no profession of being Union men, and said they only called to indicate their entire disposition to submit, without opposition, to whatever the Government might do, and to pay their respects to the man whom they recognized as the ablest in our public life, and, by virtue of his management of the finances, their real conqueror. But the most were all desirous of being considered now warm Union men. They were all ready to submit to anything. They were helpless, they said, but surely the Government would be magnanimous. They knew slavery was gone; but the Government ought not to permit the slaves to become vagabonds. If they must have the negroes living among them, they ought to have some power to make them work. The Rebel soldiers and officers were always spoken of with warm kindness; and it was evidently only in exceptional cases that active service for the Rebellion had made any of them think less of a returning Rebel neighbor. They hoped civil government would be re-established as soon as possible, and the military restraints removed. Of course, confiscation would be abandoned, now that all had submitted; and it would be very hard if the majority of the old voters were not still permitted to vote. Judge Wayne, of the Supreme Court of the United States, had returned within a few days, and settled down in his old house, among his old neighbors. They were glad to welcome him back, and hoped his coming was a token of the kindly feeling of the Judiciary toward them. They knew they would not be betrayed in returning like repentant children, and asking for protection in their rights.
This last phrase was reiterated so often that at last I exclaimed to one of them: “But what rights have you?”