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SHERMAN'S "BUMMERS."

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South Carolina friends said to me: "We may as well tell the whole truth as half. The Yankees treated us mighty badly; but a heap of our own people followed in their track and robbed on their credit.”

On the train I found a hotel-keeper from Winnsboro' drumming for customers. He was abusing the Yankees with great violence and passion until he found that I was one. After that he kept remarkably quiet, and even apologized to me for his remarks, until I told him I had concluded to go to the house of a rival runner. Thereupon he broke forth again.

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They've left me one inestimable privilege to hate 'em. I git up at half-past four in the morning, and sit up till twelve at night, to hate 'em. Talk about Union! They had no object in coming down here, but just to steal. I'm like a whipped cur; I have to cave in; but that don't say I shall love 'em. I owned my own house, my own servants, my own garden, and in one night they reduced me to poverty. My house was near the State House in Columbia. It was occupied by Howard's head-quarters. When they left, they just poured camphene over the beds, set 'em afire, locked up the house, and threw away the key. That was after the burning of the town, and that's what made it so hard. Some one had told 'em I was one of the worst Rebels in the world, and that's the only truth I reckon, that was told. I brought up seven boys, and what they had n't killed was fighting against 'em then. Now I have to keep a boarding-house in Winnsboro' to support my wife and children."

At Winnsboro' I passed the night. A portion of that town also had been destroyed; and there too Sherman's "bummers" were said to have behaved very naughtily. For instance: "When the Episcopal church was burning, they took out the melodeon, and played the devil's tunes on it till the house was well burned down; then they threw on the melodeon."

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CHAPTER LXXX.

A GLIMPSE OF THE OLD NORTH STATE.

THE next day I entered North Carolina.

Almost immediately on crossing the State line, a change of scene was perceptible. The natural features of the country improved; the appearance of its farms improved still more. North Carolina farmers use manures, and work with their own hands. They treat the soil more generously than their South Carolina neighbors, and it repays them.

That night I passed at the house of a Connecticut man, in a country village, a warm and comfortable New-England home transported to a southern community, and went on

the next day to Raleigh.

At Raleigh I found the Legislature, composed mostly of a respectable and worthy-looking yeomanry-battling over the question of negro testimony in the civil courts; spending day after day in the discussion of a subject which could be settled in only one way, and which ought to have been settled at once. One member remarked outside: "I'll never vote for that bill unless driven to it by the bayonet." Another said: "I'm opposed to giving niggers any privileges." These men represent a large class of North Carolina farmers; but fortunately there is another class of more progressive and liberal ideas, which are sure at last to prevail.

The business of Raleigh was dull, the money in the country being exhausted. A few Northern men, who had gone into trade there, were discouraged, and anxious to get away.

"So great is the impoverishment of our State," Governor Worth said to me, “that a tax of any considerable amount would bring real estate at once into the market." Among other causes, the repudiation of the entire State debt con

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tracted during the war, had contributed to destroy the resources of the people. The middling and poorer classes had invested nearly all their surplus means in State treasury notes, which became worthless. The cause of education suffered with everything else. The University of North Carolina had all its funds invested in the banks; "Repudiation killed the banks," said Governor Worth, "and the banks killed the University." A million dollars of the common-school fund went the same way.

North Carolina, like several of her Southern sisters, had passed a stay law, which threatened a serious injury to her interests. By preventing the collection of debts, it destroyed credit, of which the people, in their present condition, stand so much in need. Although unconstitutional and impolitic, so great was the popularity of this law, that the ablest politicians feared to make an effort for its repeal.

By one of its provisions, a mortgage inures to the benefit of all the creditors of the mortgagor. Many large estates were, necessarily, to be broken up; and the best thing that could happen, for them and for the community, was, that they should fall into the hands of small farmers; but, in consequence of this curious law, the owners would not sell to these men, except for cash, which was lacking.

These Southern stay laws, I may here mention, do not touch the rights of a Northern creditor, who can bring his suit in United States courts, which ignore them.

The Northern men in the State were mostly settled on cotton plantations in the eastern counties. There were also many engaged in the turpentine and lumber business in the southern part, and along the coast. In the central and western parts there were almost none.

Of the extensive rice plantations of the tide-water region, but few were in operation, owing to the great outlay of capital necessary to carry them on. To seed them alone involves an expense of ten dollars an acre. Yet, from the representations of Northern men who had gone to rice planting, I am satisfied that here is an opening for very profitable investments.

GOVERNOR WORTH ON SHERMAN'S “BUMMERS." 581

The small farmers of North Carolina are a plain, old-fashioned, upright, ignorant class of men. Mr. Best, Secretary of State, told me that forty-five per cent. of those who took the oath of allegiance in Green County, where he administered it, made their marks. "Yet many of these are men of as strong sense as any in the State," he added; " and they were gener

ally Union men."

The freedmen throughout the central and northern part of the State, had very generally made contracts, and were at work. In the southern part, fewer contracts had been made, in consequence of the inability. of the large planters to pay promptly. "When paid promptly, the freedmen are everywhere working well," I was assured by the officers of the Bureau. The rate of wages varied from five to ten dollars a month.

There were in the State one hundred teachers, supplied by the benevolent societies of the North. Their schools, scattered throughout the State, were attended by eight thousand five hundred colored pupils.

Cases of robberies, frauds, assaults, and even murders, in which white persons were the agents and freed people the sufferers, had been so numerous, according to the State Commissioner, "that no record of them could be kept; one officer reporting that he had heard and disposed of as many as a hundred and eighty complaints in one day." Owing to the efforts of the Bureau, however, the number was fast decreasing.

From Governor Worth, I received a rather sorry account of the doings of Sherman's "bummers" in this State. Even after the pacification they continued their lawless marauding. "They visited my place, near Raleigh, and drove off a fine flock of ewes and lambs. I was State Treasurer at the time, and having to go away on public business, I gave my negroes their bacon, which they hid behind the ceiling of the house. The Yankees came, and held an axe over the head of one of the negroes, and by threats compelled him to tell where it was. They tore off the ceiling, and stole all the bacon. They

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