I kain't git it for that now. You might as well try to git thei eyes as their land."

Wade's theory of reconstruction was simple, and expressed in few words: "We should tuk the land, as we did the niggers, and split it, and gin part to the niggers and part to me and t' other Union fellers. They'd have had to submit to it, as they did to the niggers." I also found the freedmen, who had gathered about us, unanimously of this opinion.

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Wade," I said, “ you're a candid man: now tell me which you think will do the most work, a white man, or a nigger?"

"The nigger," said Wade, surprised at so simple a question. "Do you mean to say that one of these black men will do more work than you?"

"Yes, sho'e," (sure.)

"What's the reason of that?"

"Case they was allus put mo'e at it."

He went on to complain that he could n't always get pay for the work he did. "A man owes me money for wood. If he don't pay me soon, I'll take a stick and beat it out on him.”

"That 'll be to work for it twict, and not git it then," observed a negro, very wisely; and I trust Wade was persuaded not to try the stick.

"Ought to have such laws yer as dey has up in Tennessee," said another negro. "Dar you'd git yer money! Laws is strick in Tennessee! Ebery man chalks a line up dar. A man owes you money, de probo' marshal make him toe de line. I's been round, since de wa' busted, and I han't seen no whar laws like dey got up dar in Tennessee."

By this time a large number of negroes had assembled on the spot, dressed in their Sunday clothes; and such an animated discussion of their political rights ensued, that, concluding I had strayed by mistake into an out-door convention of the freed people, I quietly withdrew, followed by my friend Wade, who wished to know if I could accommodate him to a "chaw of tobacker."

Atlanta is the centre of a "perfect crow's-foot of railroads,"

RAILROADS AND BANKS.

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which have given it its business and military importance. The Western and Atlantic Road, connecting it with Chattanooga, forms a main trunk, with tributaries running into it from all parts of the North and West, and with branches from Atlanta running to all parts of the South. This road was constructed by the State, which in past years derived from it a large revenue. The war left it in a bad condition, with a dilapidated track, and merely temporary bridges in place of those which had been destroyed; - without machine-shops, or materials for the repair of what little remained of the old, worn-out rolling-stock. A purchase of four hundred thousand dollars' worth of indispensable stock from the government, had sufficed to put it in operation, and it was contributing something, by its earnings, towards the great outlay still necessary to refurnish it and place it in thorough repair. The other railroads in the State, built by private companies, were nearly all doing well, by reason of the great amount of freight and travel passing over them. Those destroyed by Sherman belonged to corporations which could best afford to rebuild them; and work upon them was going forward with considerable vigor. All these roads had heavy claims against the Confederate Government; some of them amounting to several millions.

Georgia, before the war, had over twelve hundred miles of railroad in operation, forming the most extensive and complete system south of Tennessee and Virginia, — Alabama having but five hundred miles, and Mississippi seven hundred.

The best of the old Georgia banks were connected with the railroads. The bills of the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company were still worth, after the war had swept over the State, ninety-five per cent. of their par value. Those of the Central Railroad and Banking Company were selling for about the same. The issues of the other banks were worth from five to seventy-five per cent. ; the stock being sacrificed.

CHAPTER LXIV.

DOWN IN MIDDLE GEORGIA.

As my first view of Atlanta was had on a dismal night, (if view it could be called,) so my last impression of it was received on a foggy morning, which showed me, as I sat in the cars of the Macon train, waiting at the depot, groups of raindrenched negroes around out-door fires; the dimly seen trees of the Park; tall ruins looming through the mist; Masonic Hall standing alone (having escaped destruction); squat wooden buildings of recent, hasty construction, beside it; windrows of bent railroad iron by the track; piles of brick; a small mountain of old bones from the battle-fields, foul and wet with the drizzle; a heavy coffin-box, marked "glass,” on the platform; with mud and litter all around.

A tide of negro emigration was at that time flowing westward, from the comparatively barren hills of Northern Georgia to the rich cotton plantations of the Mississippi. Every day anxious planters from the Great Valley were to be met with, inquiring for unemployed freedmen, or returning home with colonies of laborers, who had been persuaded to quit their old haunts by the promise of double wages in a country.

Georgia planters, who raise but a bale of cotton on three, four, or five acres, could not compete with their more wealthy Western neighbors: they higgled at paying their freedmen six or seven dollars a month, while Arkansas and Mississippi men stood ready to give twelve and fifteen dollars, and the expenses of the journey. As it cost no more to transport able-bodied young men and women than the old and the feeble, the former were generally selected and the latter left behind. Thus it happened that an unusually large proportion of poor families remained about Atlanta and other Georgia towns.