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 generally 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

took all my cows. Three cows afterwards came back; but they recently disappeared again, and I found them in the possession of a man who says he bought them of these bummers. I had a grindstone, and as they could n't carry it off, they smashed it. There was on my place a poor, old, blind negro woman, -the last creature in the world against whom I should suppose any person would have wished to commit a wrong. She had a new dress; and they stole even that.

"I was known as a peace man," said the Governor, "and for that reason I did not suffer as heavily as my neighbors." He gave this testimony with regard to that class which served, but did not honor, our cause: "Of all the malignant wretches that ever cursed the earth, the hangers-on of Sherman's army were the worst;"adding: "It can't be expected that the people should love a government that has subjugated them in this way."

CONDITION OF THE SOUTH.

588

CHAPTER LXXXI.

CONCLUSIONS.

I MADE but a brief stay in North Carolina, but passed on homeward, and reached the beautiful snowy hills and frosted forests of New England early in February.

It now only remains for me to sum up briefly my answers to certain questions which are constantly put to me, regarding Southern emigration, the loyalty of the people, and the future of the country.

The South is in the condition of a man recovering from a dangerous malady: the crisis is past, appetite is boundless, and only sustenance and purifying air are needed to bring health and life in fresh waves. The exhausted country calls for supplies. It has been drained of its wealth, and of its young men. Capital is eagerly welcomed and absorbed. Labor is also needed. There is much shallow talk about getting rid of the negroes, and of filling their places with foreigners. But war and disease have already removed more of the colored race than can be well spared; and I am confident that, for the next five or ten years, leaving the blacks where they are, the strongest tide of emigration that can be poured into the country will be insufficient to meet the increasing demand for labor.

Northern enterprise, emancipation, improved modes of culture, and the high prices of cotton, rice, sugar, and tobacco, cannot fail to bring about this result. The cotton crop, if no accident happens to it, will this year reach, I am well satisfied, not less than two million bales, and bring something like two hundred and fifty million dollars, -as much as the five million bales of 1859 produced. Next year it will approximate to its old average standard in bulk, and greatly exceed it in value; and the year after we shall have the largest cotton crop ever

known. Meanwhile the culture of rice and sugar will have fully revived, and become enormously profitable. Nor will planting alone flourish. Burned cities and plantation-buildings must be restored, new towns and villages will spring up, old losses must be repaired, and a thousand new wants supplied. Trade, manufactures, the mechanic arts, all are invited to share in this teeming activity.

Particular location the emigrant must select for himself, according to his own judgment, tastes, and means. Just now

I should not advise Northern men to settle far back from the main routes of travel, unless they go in communities, purchasing and dividing large plantations, and forming societies independent of any hostile sentiment that may be shown by the native inhabitants. But I trust that in a year or two all danger of discomfort or disturbance arising from this source will have mostly passed by.

The loyalty of the people is generally of a negative sort: it is simply disloyalty subdued. They submit to the power which has mastered them, but they do not love it; nor is it reasonable to expect that they should. Many of them lately in rebellion, are, I think, honestly convinced that secession was a great mistake, and that the preservation of the Union, even with the loss of slavery, is better for them than any such separate government as that of which they had a bitter taste. Yet they do not feel much affection for the hand which corrected their error. They acquiesce quietly in what cannot be helped, and sincerely desire to make the best of their altered circum

stances.

There is another class which would still be glad to dismem ber the country, and whose hatred of the government is radi cal and intense. But this class is small.

The poor whites may be divided into three classes: those who, to their hatred of the negro, join a hatred of the government that has set him free; those who associate with the negro, and care nothing for any government; and those who, cherishing more or less Union sentiment, rejoice to see the old aristocracy overthrown.

Except in certain localities, like East Tennessee, positive unconditional Union men are an exceedingly small minority. But they are a leaven which, properly encouraged, should leaven the whole lump of Southern society. Upon the close of hostilities, these men who, for near five years suffered unrelenting persecution, rose temporarily to a position of influence which their conduct had earned. Secession saw with dismay that to this class the first place in the future government of the country rightfully belonged. Their old neighbors, who had so long done evil to them continually, or given them only dark looks, now shrank sullenly out of their sight, or openly courted their smiles. A professed Union sentiment blossomed everywhere; lives, that had all along been thistles, now bore a plentiful harvest of figs. This was a hopeful state of things. It is better, as an example to a community, that goodness should receive insincere homage, than none at all; and that men should assume a virtue if they have it not. But as soon as it was seen that the muttering thunder-cloud of retribution was passing by with nothing but sound, and that loyal men were not to have the first, nor even the second or third or fourth place, in the government of the lately rebellious States, they sank to their former position. What is needed now is to cause this class, and the principles they represent, to be permanently respected.

The mere utterance of disloyal sentiments need not alarm any one. It is often sincere; but it is sometimes mere cant, easily kept in vogue, by newspapers and politicians, among a people who delight in vehement and minatory talk, for the mere talk's sake.

Of another armed rebellion not the least apprehension need be entertained. The South has had enough of war for a long time to come; it has supped full of horrors. The habiliments of mourning, which one sees everywhere in its towns and cities, will cast their dark shadow upon any future attempt at secession, long after they have been put away in the silent wardrobes of the past. Only in the case of a foreign war might we expect to see a party of malignant ma ontents go