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CHAPTER LXXIX.

THE RIDE TO WINNSBORO'.

FOR a distance of thirty miles north of Columbia, I had an interesting experience of staging over that portion of the Charlotte and South Carolina Railroad destroyed by Sherman. Much of the way the stage route ran beside or near the track. Gangs of laborers were engaged in putting down new ties and rails, but most of the old iron lay where our boys left it.

It was the Seventeenth Corps that did this little job, and it did it well. It was curious to note the different styles of the destroying parties. The point where one detail appeared to have left off and another to have begun was generally unmistakable. For a mile or two you would see nothing but hairThen pins, and bars wound around telegraph posts and trees.

you would have corkscrews and twists for about the same distance. Then came a party that gave each heated rail one sharp wrench in the middle, and left it perhaps nearly straight, but facing both ways. Here was a plain business method, and there a fantastic style, which showed that its authors took a wild delight in their work.

Early in the morning I rode with the driver, in the hope of learning something of him with regard to the country. But he proved to be a refugee from East Tennessee, where he said a rope-noose was waiting for him. An active Rebel, he had been guilty of some offences which the Union men there could not forgive.

Finding him as ignorant of the country as myself, I got down, and took a seat inside the coach. Within, an animated political discussion was at its height. Two South Carolinians and a planter from Arkansas were dissecting the Yankees in liveliest fashion; while a bitter South Carolina lady and a good-natured Virginian occasionally put in a word.

It was some time before I was recognized as a representative of all that was mean and criminal in the world. At length something I said seemed to excite suspicion; and the Arkansan wrote something on a card, which was passed to every one of the company except me. An alarming hush of several minutes ensued. It was as if a skeleton had appeared at a banquet. The abuse of the Yankees was the banquet; and I was perfectly well aware that I was the skeleton. At last the awful silence was broken by the Arkansan.

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"What is thought of negro suffrage at the North?”

The question was addressed to me. I replied that opinion was divided on that subject; but that many people believed some such security was necessary for the freedmen's rights. They do not think it quite safe," I said, "to leave him without any voice in making the laws by which he is to be governed, — subject entirely to the legislation of a class that cannot forget that he was born a slave.'

"I believe," said one of the South Carolinians, “all that is owing to the lies of the newspaper correspondents travelling through the South, and writing home whatever they think will injure us. I wish every one of 'em was killed off. If it was n't for them, we should be left to attend to our own business, instead of being ridden to death by our Yankee masters. It is n't fair to take solitary instances reported by them, as representing the condition of the niggers and the disposition of the whites. Some impudent darkey, who deserves it, gets a knock on the head, or a white man speaks his mind rather too freely to some Yankee who has purposely provoked him, and a long newspaper story is made out of it, showing that every nigger in the South is in danger of being killed, and every white man is disloyal."

"Certainly," I said, "isolated cases do not represent a whole people. But the acts of a legislative body may be supposed to represent the spirit and wishes of its constituents. We consider the negro code enacted by your special legislature simply abominable. It is enough of itself to show that you are not quite ready to do the freedmen justice. Your

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present governor appears to be of the same opinion, judged by his veto of the act to amend the patrol laws, and his excellent advice to your representatives who passed it. You are wholly mistaken, my friend, in supposing that the people of the North wish anything of you that is unnecessary, unreasonable, or unjust. They may be mistaken with regard to what is necessary, but they are honest in their intentions."

"All we want," said the South Carolinian, "is that our Yankee rulers should give us the same privileges with regard to the control of labor which they themselves have."

Very well; what privileges have they which you have

not?"

"In Massachusetts, a laborer is obliged by law to make a contract for a year. If he leaves his employer without his consent, or before the term of his contract expires, he can be put in jail. And if another man hires him, he can be fined. It is not lawful there to hire a laborer who does not bring a certificate from his last employer. All we want is the same or a similar code of laws here."

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you

My dear sir," said I, "all any man could wish is that might have just such laws here as they have in Massachusetts. But with regard to the code you speak of, it does not exist there, and it does not exist in any Northern State with which I am acquainted. There is nothing like it anywhere." "How do you manage without such laws? How can you get work out of a man unless you compel him in some way'

?"

"Natural laws compel him; we need no others. A man must work if he would eat. A faithful laborer is soon discovered, and he commands the best wages. An idle fellow is detected quite as soon; and if he will not do the work he has agreed to do, he is discharged. Thus the system regulates itself."

"You can't do that way with niggers."

A

"Have you ever tried? Have you ever called your freedmen together and explained to them their new condition? planter I saw in Alabama told me how he managed this thing. He said to his people,' If you do well, I shall want you an

to me.

6

other year. The man who does best will be worth the most But if you are lazy and unfaithful, I shall dismiss you when your contracts are ended, and hire better men. Do you know why some overseers are always wandering about in search of a situation?' 'Because nobody wants 'em,' said the negroes. Why not?' 'Because they a'n't good for Their business.' 'Why did I keep John Bird only one year?' 'Because, soon as your back was turned, he slipped off to a grocery, or went a-fishing.' And why did I keep William Hooker eight years, and increase his salary every year?' 'Because he stuck by and always looked after your interest.' 'Now,' said the planter, you are in the condition of these overseers. You can always have good situations, and your prospects will be continually improving, if you do well. Or you may soon be going about the country with bundles on your backs, miserable low-down niggers that nobody will hire.' In this way he instructed and encouraged the freedmen; and he assured me they were working better than ever. But by your serf-codes you would crush all hope and manhood out of them."

"Well, there may be something in all that. I can't say, for I never thought of trying but one way with a nigger. But nigger suffrage the South a'n't going to stand anyhow. We've already got a class of voters that's enough to corrupt the politics of any country. I used to think the nigger was the meanest of God's creatures. But I've found a meaner brute than he; and that 's the low-down white man. If a respectable man hires a nigger for wages, one of those low-down cusses will offer him twice as much, to get him away. They want him to prowl for them. A heap of these no-account whites are getting rich, stealing cotton; they 're too lazy or cowardly to do it themselves, so they get the niggers to do it for 'em. These very men hold the balance of political power in this district. They'll vote for the man who gives 'em the most whiskey. Just before the war, at an election in Columbia, over a hundred sand-hillers sold their votes beforehand, and were put into jail till the polls opened, and then marched out to vote."

"It was in the bargain. They knew they could n't be trusted not to sell their votes to the next man that offered more whiskey, and they like going to jail well enough, if they can go drunk. Make the niggers voters, and you'll have just such another class to be bought up with whiskey.'

"It seems to me more reasonable," I replied, “to suppose that the franchise will elevate the negro; and by elevating him you will elevate the white man who has been degraded by the negro's degradation. Some of both races will no doubt be found willing to sell their votes, as well as their souls, for whiskey; but that is no more a reason why all blacks should be deprived of the right of suffrage, than that all whites should be."

This is a specimen of the talk that was kept up during the day.

We stopped to dine at a house, where I was told by a young lady that the Yankees were the greatest set of rogues, and that some passed there every day.

"Is it possible!" I said. "Are you not afraid of them?" "I have nothing whatever to do with them. I should be ashamed to be seen talking with one.'

“Then be careful that no one sees you now."

"You are not a Yankee!" she exclaimed.

"Yes," said I, "I am one of that set of rogues.'

"I am very sorry to hear it, for I had formed a more favorable opinion of you."

Only the good-natured Virginian went in with me to the dining-room. The lady of the house, sitting at the table with us, soon began to talk about the Yankees. "They often dine here," she said. "But I have nothing to say to them. As soon as I know who they are, I go out of the room." was very sociable; and when I informed her at parting that she had been entertaining a Yankee, she appeared confused and incredulous.

She

Such was the spirit commonly shown by the middle class of South Carolinians. But I remember some marked exceptions.