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The young Rebel thought our army might have been easily destroyed after Saturday's battle, -at least that portion of it which occupied Fredericksburg. "We had guns on that point that could have cut your pontoon bridge in two; and then our artillery could have blown Burnside all to pieces, or have compelled his surrender."

"Why did n't you do it?"

"Because General Lee was too humane. He did n't want to kill so many men."

A foolish reason, but it was the best the young man could offer. The truth is, however, Burnside's army was in a posi. tion of extreme danger, after its failure to carry the Heights, and had not Lee been diligently expecting another attack, instead of a retreat, he might have subjected it to infinite discomfiture. It was to do us more injury, and not less, that he delayed to destroy the pontoon bridge and shell the town while our troops were in it.

The young man gloried in that great victory. "But," said I, "what did you gain? "what did you gain? It was all the worse for you that you succeeded then. That victory only prolonged the war, and involved greater loss. We do not look at those transient triumphs; we look at the grand result. The Confederacy was finally swept out, and we are perfectly satisfied."

"Well, so am I,” he replied, looking me frankly in the face. "I tell you, if we had succeeded in establishing a separate government, this would have been the worst country, for a poor man, under the sun."

"How so?"

"There would have been no chance for white labor. Every rich man would have owned his nigger mason, his nigger carpenter, his nigger blacksmith; and the white mechanic, as well as the white farm-laborer, would have been crushed out." "You think, then, the South will be better off without slavery?"

"Certainly, I do. So does every white man that has to work for a living, if he is n't a fool."

NEGRO WHO DID N'T SEE THE FIGHT.

"Then why did you fight for it?"

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"We was n't fighting for slavery; we was fighting for our independence. That's the way the most of us understood it; though we soon found out it was the rich man's war, and not the pore man's. We was fighting against our own interests, that's shore!"

There is a private cemetery on the crest, surrounded by a brick wall. Burnside's artillery had not spared it. I looked over the wall, which was badly smashed in places, and saw the overthrown monuments and broken tombstones lying on the ground. The heights all around were covered with weeds, and scarred by Rebel intrenchments; here and there was an old apple-tree; and I marked the ruins of two or three small brick houses.

On the brow of the hill, overlooking the town, is the Marye estate, one of the finest about Fredericksburg before the blast of battle struck it. The house was large and elegant, occupying a beautiful site, and surrounded by terraces and shady lawns. Now if you would witness the results of artillery and infantry firing, visit that house. The pillars of the porch, built of brick, and covered with a cement of lime and white sand, were speckled with the marks of bullets. Shells and solid shot had made sad havoc with the walls and the woodwork inside. The windows were shivered, the partitions torn to pieces, and the doors perforated.

I found a gigantic negro at work at a carpenter's bench in one of the lower rooms. He seemed glad to receive company, and took me from the basement to the zinc-covered roof, showing me all the more remarkable shot-holes.

"De Rebel sharpshooters was in de house; dat 's what made de Yankees shell it so."

"Where were the people who lived here?"

"Dey all lef' but me. I stopped to see de fight. I tell ye, I would n't stop to see anoder one! I thought I was go'n' to have fine fun, and tell all about it. I heerd de fight,

but I did n't see it!"

"Were you frightened?"

"Hoo!" flinging up his hands with a ludicrous expression. "Don't talk about skeered! I never was so skeered since I was bo'n! I stood hyer by dis sher winder; I 'spected to see de whole of it; I know I was green! I was look'n' to see de fir'n' down below dar, when a bullet come by me, h't! quick as dat. Time fo' me to be away f'om hyer!' and I started; but I'd no sooner turned about, when de bullets begun to strike de house jes' like dat!" drumming with his fingers. "I went down-stars, and out dis sher house, quicker 'n any man o' my size ever went out a house befo'e! Come, and I'll show you whar I was hid."

It was in the cellar of a little dairy-house, of which nothing was left but the walls.

"I got in thar wid anoder cullud man. I thought I was as skeered as anybody could be; but whew! he was twicet as skeered as I was. B-r-r-r-r! b-r-r-r-r! de fir'n' kep' up a reg'lar noise like dat, all day long. Every time a shell struck anywhar near, I knowed de next would kill me. 'Jim,' says I, now de next shot will be our own!' Dem's de on'y wu'ds I spoke; but he was so skeered he never spoke at all.”

"Were you here at the fight the year after?"

"Dat was when Shedwick [Sedgwick] come. I thought if dar was go'n' to be any fight'n', I'd leave dat time, shore. I hitched up my oxen, think'n' I 'd put out, but waited fo' de mo'nin' to see. Dat was Sunday mo'nin'. I had n't slep' none, so I jest thought I'd put my head on my hand a minute till it growed light. I had n't mo'e 'n drapped asleep; I'd nodded oncet or twicet: so;" illustrating; "no longer 'n dat; when c-r-r-r-r, -I looked up, all de wu'ld was fir'n'! Shedwick's men dey run up de road, got behind de batteries on dis sher hill, captured every one; and I never knowed how dey done it so quick. Dat was enough fo' me. If dar's go'n' to be any mo'e fight'n', I go whar da' an't no wa'!" "A big fellow like you tell about being skeered!" said the young Rebel.

"I knowed de bigger a man was, de bigger de mark fo' de balls. I weighs two hundred and fifty-two pounds."

SOUTHERN CONSISTENCY.

"Where is your master?" I asked.

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"I ha'n't got no master now; Mr. Marye was my master. He's over de mountain. I was sold at auction in Fredericksburg oncet, and he bought me fo' twelve hundred dolla's. Now he pays me wages, thirty dolla's a month. I wo'ked in de mill while de wa' lasted. Men brought me co'n to grind. Some brought a gallon; some brought two qua'ts; it was a big load if anybody brought half a bushel. Dat's de way folks lived. Now he's got anoder man in de mill, and he pays me fo' tak'n' keer o' dis sher place and fitt'n' it up a little."

"Are you a carpenter?'

"Somethin' of a carpenter; I kin do whatever I turns my hand to."

The young Rebel afterwards corroborated this statement. Although he did not like niggers generally, and wished they were all out of the country, he said Charles (for that was the giant's name) was an exception; and he gave him high praise for the fidelity and sagacity he had shown in saving his master's property from destruction.

While we were sitting under the portico, a woman came up the hill, and began to talk and jest in a familiar manner with Charles. I noticed that my Rebel acquaintance looked exceedingly disgusted.

"That woman," said he to me, "has got a nigger husband. That's what makes her talk that way. White folks won't associate with her, and she goes with the darkies. We used to have lynch law for them cases. Such things wa'n't allowed. A nigger had better have been dead than be caught living with a white woman. The house would get torn down over their heads some night, and nobody would know who did it."

“Are you sure such things were not allowed? Five out of six of your colored population have white blood in their veins. How do you account for it?"

"O, that comes from white fathers!"

"And slave mothers," said I. "That I suppose was all right; but to a stranger it does n't look very consistent. You

would lynch a poor black man for living in wedlock with a white woman, and receive into the best society white men who were raising up illegitimate slave children by their colored mistresses."

"Yes, that's just what was done; there's no use denying it. I've seen children sold at auction in Fredericksburg by their own fathers. But nobody ever thought it was just right. It always happened when the masters was in debt, and their property had to be taken."

The field below the stone wall belonged to this young man's mother. It was now a cornfield; a sturdy crop was growing where the dead had lain in heaps.

and 'Lijah and I

I didn't wait for

We knew that

"Soon as Richmond fell I came home; went to work and put in that piece of corn. Lee's surrender. Thousands did the same. if Richmond fell, the war would be removed from Virginia, and we had no notion of going to fight in other States. The Confederate army melted away just like frost in the sun, so that only a small part of it remained to be surrendered."

He invited me to go through the cornfield and see where the dead were buried. Near the middle of the piece a strip some fifteen yards long and four wide had been left uncultivated. "There's a thousand of your men buried in this hole; that's the reason we didn't plant here." Some distance below the cornfield was the cellar of an ice-house, in which five hundred Union soldiers were buried. And yet these were but a portion of the slain; all the surrounding fields were scarred with graves.

Returning to Fredericksburg, I visited the plain northwest of the town, also memorable for much hard fighting on that red day of December. I found a pack of government wagons there, an encampment of teamsters, and a few Yankee soldiers, who told me they were tired of doing nothing, and "three times as fast for going home " as they were before the war closed.

In the midst of this plain, shaded by a pleasant grove, stands a brown brick mansion said to have been built by

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