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The State bank was obliged to suspend its operations, but the faith of the State was pledged for the redemption of the bills. The other banks had been ruined by loans made to the Confederate government. Their stock had been considered the safest in the market, and the property of widows and orphans was largely invested in it. The estates of the stockholders, liable for double the amount of the bills issued, were insufficient to redeem them. In January, 1866, two National Banks had been organized in the State.

The aggregate of debts, old and new, in South Carolina, were estimated to be worth not more than twenty-five per cent. of their par value.

South Carolina had suffered more than any other State by the sale of lands for United States taxes, during the war. I heard of one estate, worth fifteen thousand dollars, which had been sold for three hundred dollars. Governor Orr instanced another, the market value of which was twenty-four thousand dollars, which was bought in by the government for eighty dollars. Such was the fate of abandoned coast lands held by the United States forces. Their owners, absent in the interior, were in most instances ignorant even of the proceedings by which their estates were sacrificed. In this way, according to the governor, "the entire parish of St. Helena, and a portion of St. Luke's, have completely changed hands, and passed either into the possession of the government, or of third parties."

The prevalence of crime in remote districts was alarming. I was assured by General Sickles that the perpetrators were in most cases outlaws from other States, to which they dared not return. Union soldiers and negroes were their favorite victims. They rode in armed bands through the country, defying the military authorities. The people would not inform against them for fear of their vengeance. Many robberies and murders of soldiers and freedmen, however, were unmistakably committed by citizens.

Much ill-feeling had been kept alive by United States treasury agents, searching the country for Confederate cotton and

branded mules and horses. Many of these agents, as far as 1 could learn, both in this and in other States, were mere rogues and fortune-hunters. They would propose to seize a man's property in the name of the United States, but abandon the claim on the payment of heavy bribes, which of course went into their own pockets. Sometimes, having seized "C. S. A.” cotton, they would have the marks on the bales changed, get some man to claim it, and divide with him the profits. Such practices had a pernicious effect, engendering a contempt for the government, and a murderous ill-will which too commonly vented itself upon soldiers and negroes.

I found in South Carolina a more virulent animosity existing in the minds of the common people, against the government and people of the North, than in any other State I visited. Only in South Carolina was I treated with gross personal insults on account of my Northern origin.

There is notwithstanding in this State a class of men whom I remember with admiration for their courteous hospitality and liberal views. Instead of insulting and repelling Northern men, they invite them, and seem eager to learn of them the secret of Northern enterprise and prosperity. Their ideas, although not those of New-England radicals, are hopeful and progressive. Considering that they have advanced from the Southern side of the national question, their position is notable and praiseworthy. This class is small, but it possesses a vital energy of which great results may be predicted. From it the freedmen have much to hope and little to fear. It is not so far in advance of the people that it cannot lead them; nor so far behind the most advanced sentiment of the times that we may not expect them soon to come up to it.

Foremost among this class is Governor Orr, - almost the only man in South Carolina who seemed to me prepared to consider dispassionately the subject of universal suffrage. The color of the negro's skin, he said, was no good reason for keeping the ballot out of his hand. "In this country, suffrage is progressive; and when the colored people are prepared for it, they will have it." A large proportion of the freedmen, he

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felt sure, would become industrious and respectable citizens. As an instance of the capacity and fidelity shown by many of their race, he gave an account of one of his own slaves.

"He is by trade a carpenter, and a first-class workman. He was the son of his original owner, who emancipated him by his will, and gave him, with his liberty, a mule, a saddle, a set of tools, and some money. One of the heirs of the estate was the executor of the will. Finding Henry a very valuable man, he looked for some legal flaw by which the will could be broken. There was a law of South Carolina designed to prevent slave-owners from emancipating old worn-out servants, and thus converting them into public paupers. It required the master, before freeing his servant, to make a certain statement, under, oath, that the said servant was capable of selfsupport. This formality had been neglected in Henry's case; and the court decided that he must remain a slave. When the fact was made known to him, he said to the executor, If the court has so decided, I suppose I must abide by the decis ion. It is unjust, but I submit to it. But I will never serve you. I have lost all confidence in you, and all respect for you; and the best thing you can do is to sell me.' The executor was so impressed by this declaration, that he told him to go and choose his future master. He came to me, and entreated me to buy him. I finally consented to do so, and paid his price, fifteen hundred dollars.

"He lived as my slave until the close of the war; and all the time his patience under his great wrong was wonderful. He never complained; and he served me with the most conscientious fidelity. By overwork, he earned two hundred dollars a year, which he spent upon his family. I had bought him a set of tools worth five hundred dollars, and scientific books worth one hundred, which I gave him when we parted. He has wit and education enough to understand the books, I assure you. He is now doing business in Columbia. He might become wealthy, but he is too generous. He will not spend his earnings foolishly, but he will share whatever he has with his people. If I was in want, he would give me his last dollar."

There were in January fifty freedmen's schools in operation in South Carolina, with one hundred and twenty teachers, and ten thousand pupils. The New-England Freedmen's Aid, and the National Freedmen's Association, had each about fifty teachers in the field. The Boston teachers in Charleston get forty-five dollars a month, and pay their own expenses. At other points, where expenses are less, they get thirty-five dollars. The average yearly cost of each teacher to the associa tions is six hundred dollars.

The American Missionary Association, the Pennsylvania Freedmen's Relief, and the Friends' Freedmen's Association, had also teachers in the field.

The State superintendent of freedmen's schools spoke in high praise of the school in the Normal school building, at Charleston. The principal was a colored man who had been educated at his own expense at the University of Glasgow. Another teacher was a colored girl, who had taught a free colored school in Charleston during the war, paying half her income to a white woman for sitting and sewing in the school-room, and appearing as the teacher, when it was visited by the police. "This woman's pupils," said Mr. Tomlinson, "draw maps, and do everything white girls of twelve and sixteen years do, in ordinary advanced schools." General Richardson of the Eastern District, had set a number of old soldiers, unfit for military duty, to teaching the freedmen.

There was not much active opposition shown to the schools in the State, nor yet much encouragement. Only here and there an enlightened planter saw the necessity of education for the negroes, and favored it.

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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 hairpins, and bars wound around telegraph posts and trees. Then 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.