Dixie After the War

CHAPTER XIV

The General in the Cornfield

We did anything and everything we could to make a living. Prominent citizens became pie-sellers. Colonel Cary, of General Magruder’s Staff, came home to find his family desperately poor, as were all respectable folks. He was a brave soldier, an able officer; before the war, principal of a male academy at Hampton. Now, he did not know to what he could turn his hand for the support of himself and family. He walked around his place, came in and said to his wife: “My dear, I have taken stock of our assets. You pride yourself on your apple-pies. We have an apple-tree, and a cow. I will gather the apples and milk the cow, and you will make the pies, and I will go around and sell them.”

Armed with pies, he met his aforetime antagonists at Camp Grant and conquered them quite. The pies were delicious; the seller was a soldier, an officer of distinction, in hard luck; and the men at Camp Grant were soldiers, too. There was sharp demand and good price; only the elite – officers of rank – could afford to indulge in these confections. Well it was that Yankee mothers had cultivated in their sons an appetite for pies. One Savannah lady made thirty dollars selling pies to Sherman’s soldiers; in Georgia’s aristocratic “City by the Sea,” high-bred dames stood at basement windows selling cakes and pies to whoever would buy.

Colonel Cary had thrifty rivals throughout Dixie. A once rich planter near Columbia made a living by selling flowers; a Charleston aristocrat peddled tea by the pound and molasses by the quart to his former slaves. General Stephen Elliott, Sumter’s gallant defender, sold fish and oysters which he caught with his own hands. His friend, Captain Stoney, did likewise. Gentlemen of position and formerly of wealth did not pause to consider whether they would be discredited by pursuing occupations quite as humble. Men of high attainments, without capital, without any basis upon which to make a new start in life except “grit,” did whatever they could find to do and made merry over it.

Yet reporters going over our battle-swept, war-scarred land from whose fields our laboring class had been by one fell stroke diverted, judged us by evidences of inertia seen from windows of creepy little cars – (where we had any cars at all) – that stopped every few hours to take on wood or water or to repair something or other. For a long time, there was good reason why our creepy railroads should be a doubly sore subject. Under the reconstruction governments every State paid thousands of dollars for railroads that were never built.

All that Southern white men did, according to some ready scribes, was to sit around cross-roads stores, expectorate tobacco-juice, swap jokes, and abuse Yankees and niggers. In honesty, it must be confessed there was too much of this done, any being too much. Every section has its corps of idlers, its crew of yarn-spinners and drinkers, even in ordinary times when war has not left upon men the inevitable demoralisation that follows in its train. Had railway travellers gone into cotton and cornfields and tobacco lots, they would have found there much of the flower and chivalry of the Old South “leading the row.” Sons of fathers who had been the wealthiest and most influential men in Dixie came home from the war to swing the hoe and drive the plow as resolutely as ever they had manned a battery or charged the breastworks.

But the young men of the South were not born tillers of the soil; not fitted by inheritance or education for manual toil. They were descendants of generations who had not labored with their hands but had occupied themselves as lawyers, doctors, politicians, gentlemen of leisure, and agriculturists commanding large working forces. Our nation might have been gainer had the Government devised measures by which talented men could have been at once bound to its interests and their gifts utilised for the common advantage. Instead of which, they were threatened with trial for treason, with execution or exile, were disfranchised, disqualified, put under the ban. Many who would have made brilliant and useful servants of the Republic were driven abroad and found honourable service in Mexico, Brazil, Egypt and Europe.

It is difficult for us at this day to realise what little promise life held for the young American of the South; difficult even for the South of the present to appreciate the irritations and humiliations that vexed and chafed him. Many felt that they had no longer a country.

Mischief was inevitable as the result of repressed or distorted energies, thwarted or stifled ambition. Some whose record for courage and steadiness on the field of battle reflects glory on our common country, failed utterly at adaptation. But as the patient effort of the great body politic changed the times and opened opportunity, middle-age and youth were ready to rush in with a will, occupying and improving fields of industry.

But the old people of the South never reacted. Many simply sat down and died, succumbing to bereavement, hardships and heartbreak. They felt that their country was dead. Men of their own blood, their brothers, had set an alien race, an ignorant race, half-human, half-savage, above them; were insisting that they should send their children to school with children of this race, while their consciences cried out against the mere discussion of this thing as an evil to themselves and the negro, and against the thing itself as crime. Intermarriage was discussed in legislative halls; bills sanctioning it were introduced; and the horrible black, social evil due to passions of the white man and the half-human, half-savage woman – the incubus, the nightmare, under which the whole section had groaned with groanings that cannot be uttered – was flung in their faces as more than fair reason.

With reconstruction there was strengthening of the tendency towards expatriation. Despair and disgust drove many away; and more would have gone had means been at hand. Whole families left the South and made homes in Europe; among these, a goodly proportion were proud old Huguenots from South Carolina. In some of the Cotton States it looked as if more white men were to be lost thus than had been lost in battle. In December, 1867, Mr. Charles Nathan, of New Orleans, announced through the press that he had contracted with the Emperor of Brazil to transport 1,000 yearly to that empire.

Many went into the enemy’s country – went North. Their reports to old neighbours were that they liked the enemy immensely at home; the enemy was serenely unconscious of the mischief his fad was working in other people’s homes. He set down everything ill that happened South to the Southern whites’ “race prejudice”; and sipped his own soup and ate his own pie in peace. The immigrant learned that it was wise to hold his tongue when discussion of the negro came up. He was considered not to know anything worth hearing upon the subject. His most careful and rational utterances would be met with a pitying look which said as plainly as words lips polite withheld: “Race prejudice hallucination!”

General Lee raised no uncertain voice against expatriation; from his prison cell, Jefferson Davis deplored it in the first letters he was allowed to write. Lee set prompt example in doing what his hand found to do, and in choosing a task rather for public service than for private gain. I quote a letter written by Mrs. Lee to Miss Mason, dated Derwent, Virginia, December, 1865:

“The papers will have told you that General Lee has decided to accept the position at Lexington. I do not think he is very fond of teaching, but he is willing to do anything that will give him an honourable support. He starts tomorrow en cheval for Lexington. He prefers that way, and, besides, does not like to part even for a time from his beloved steed, the companion of many a hard-fought battle… The kindness of the people of Virginia to us has been truly great, and they seem never to tire. The settlement of Palmore’s surrounding us does not suffer us to want for anything their gardens or farms can furnish… My heart sinks when I hear of the destitution and misery which abound further South – gentle and refined women reduced to abject poverty, and no hope of relief.”

Far more lucrative positions had been offered him; salaries without work, for the mere use of his name. Solicitations came from abroad, and brilliant opportunities invited across the ocean. He took the helm at Washington College with this avowal: “I have a self-imposed task which I must accomplish. I have led the young men of the South in battle. I have seen many of them fall under my standard. I shall devote my life now to training young men to do their duty in life.” Urged in 1867 to run for office, he declined, believing that his candidacy might not contribute to sectional unification. As nearly perfect was this man as men are made. Our National Capitol is the poorer because his statue is not there. If it ever is, I should like to see on its pedestal Grant’s tribute: “There was no use to urge him to do anything against his ideas of what was right.”

When the crippled and impoverished General Hood refused to receive money raised by subscription, the “Albany Evening Journal” commented: “It is the first instance we have ever seen recorded of a ‘Southern gentleman’ too proud or self-reliant to accept filthy lucre, come from what source it may.” The “Petersburg Index-Appeal” responded:

“Hood has only done what Lee did a dozen times, what Beauregard did, what Magruder did, and what President Davis did. The noble response of Magruder to the people of Texas, who contributed a handsome purse to procure him a fine plantation, was the impulse and utterance of the universal spirit of the Southern soldier: ‘No, gentlemen, when I espoused the cause of the South, I embraced poverty and willingly accepted it.’”

Near Columbia, on the ruins of his handsome home which Sherman burned, General Wade Hampton, clever at wood-work, built with his own hands and with the help of his faithful negroes, a lowly cottage to shelter himself and family. A section was added at a time, and, without any preconceived design on his part, the structure stood, when completed, a perfect cross. Miss Isabella Martin, looking upon it one day, exclaimed: “General, you have here the Southern Cross!” So “Southern Cross” the place was called. Here, Mrs. Wade Hampton, who, as Miss McDuffie, had been the richest heiress in South Carolina, and as such and as Hampton’s wife, the guardian angel of many black folk, wrought and ruled with wisdom and with sweetness unsoured by reverses. South Carolina offered Hampton a home, as Virginia and then Washington College offered Lee, but Hampton, almost in want, refused.

This is the plight in which General M. C. Butler, Hampton’s aide, came out of the war: “Twenty-nine years old, with one leg gone, a wife and three children to support, seventy slaves emancipated, a debt of $15,000, and, in his pocket, $1.75 in cash.” That was the situation of thousands. It took manhood to make something of it.

For months after the surrender, Confederates were passing through the country to their homes, and hospitality was free to every ragged and footsore soldier; the poor best the larder of every mansion afforded was at the command of the gray-jacket. How diffidently proud men would ask for bread, their empty pockets shaming them! When any man turned them off with cold words, it was not well for his neighbours to know, for so, he was like to have no more respectable guests. The soldiers were good company, bringing news from far and wide. Most were cheerful, glad they were going home, undaunted by long tramps ahead. The soldier was used to hard marches. Now that his course was set towards where loved ones watched for his coming, life had its rosy outlook that turned to gray for some who reached the spot where home had stood to find only a bank of ashes. Reports of country through which they came were often summed up: “White folks in the fields, negroes flocking to towns. Freedmen’s Bureau offices everywhere thronged with blacks.”

A man who belonged to the “Crippled Squad,” not one of whom had a full complement of arms and legs, told this story: As four of them were limping along near Lexington, they noticed a gray-headed white man in rough, mud-stained clothes turning furrows with a plow, and behind him a white girl dropping corn. Taking him for a hired man, they hallooed: “Hello, there!” The man raised his head. “Say,” they called, “can you tell us where we can get something to eat?” He waved them towards a house, where a lady who was on the porch, asked them to have a seat and wait while she had food cooked.

They had an idea that she prepared with her own hands the dinner to which they presently sat down, of hot hoe-cakes, buttermilk, and a little meat so smothered in lettuce leaves that it looked a great deal. When they had cleared up the table, she said: “I am having more bread cooked if you can wait a few minutes. I am sorry we have not more meat and milk. I know this has been a very light repast for hungry men, but we have entertained others this morning, and we have not much left. We hate to send our soldiers hungry from the door; they ought to have the best of everything when they have fought so long and bravely and suffered so much.” The way she spoke made them proud of the arms and legs they didn’t have.

Now that hunger was somewhat appeased, they began to note surroundings. The dwelling was that of a military man and a man of piety and culture. A lad running in addressed the lady as “Mrs. Pendleton,” and said something about “where General Pendleton is plowing.”

They stumbled to their crutches! and in blushing confusion, made humble apologies, all the instincts of the soldier shocked at the liberties they had taken with an officer of such high grade, and at the ease of manner with which they had sat at his table to be served by his wife. They knew their host for William Nelson Pendleton, late Brigadier-General, C. S. A., Chief of Artillery of the Army of Northern Virginia, a fighting preacher. She smiled when they blundered out the excuse that they had mistaken him for a day-labourer.

“The mistake has been made before,” she said. “Indeed, the General is a day-labourer in his own field, and it does not mortify him in the least now that all our people have to work. He is thankful his strength is sufficient, and for the help that the schoolboys and his daughters give him.” She put bread into their haversacks and sent them on their way rejoicing. The day-labourer and his plow were close to the roadside, and as they passed, they drew themselves up in line and brought all the hands they had to their ragged caps in salute.

Dr. Robert G. Stephens, of Atlanta, tells me of a Confederate soldier who, returning armless to his Georgia home, made his wife hitch him to a plow which she drove; and they made a crop. A Northern missionary said in 1867, to a Philadelphia audience, that he had seen in North Carolina, a white mother hitch herself to a plow which her eleven-year-old son drove, while another child dropped into the furrows seeds Northern charity had given. I saw in Virginia’s Black Belt a white woman driving a plow to which her young daughters, one a nursing mother, were hitched; and near the same time and place an old negro driving a milch-cow to his cart. “Uncle Eph, aren’t you ashamed,” I asked, “to work your milch-cow?” “Law, Miss, milch-white-’oman wuk. Huccom cow can’t wuk?”

CHAPTER XV

Tournaments and Starvation Parties

It would seem that times were too hard and life too bitter for merry-making. Not so. With less than half a chance to be glad, the Southerner will laugh and dance and sing – and make love. At least, he used to. The Southerner is no longer minstrel, lover, and cavalier. He is becoming a money-maker. With cannons at our gates and shells driving us into cellars, guitars were tinkling, pianos were not dumb, tripping feet were not stayed by fear and sorrow. When boys in gray came from camp, women felt it the part of love and patriotism to give them good cheer, wearing smiles while they were by, keeping tears for them when absent.

With the war over and our boys coming home for good, ah, it was not hard to laugh, sing and dance, poor as we were! “Soldiers coming up the road,” “Some soldiers here for tonight,” the master of the house would say, and doors would fling wide. “Nice fellows, I know,” or “I knew this one’s father, and that one’s uncle is Governor – and this one went to school with our Frank; and these fought side by side with friends of ours,” or “Their names are so-and-so,” or just, “They are gentlemen.” Maidens would make themselves fair; wardrobes held few or no changes, but one could dress one’s hair another way, put a rose in one’s tresses, draw forth the many-times-washed-over or thrice-dyed ribbon for adornment. After supper, there would be music in the parlor, and perhaps dancing. But not always! too often, the guest’s feet were not shod for dancing. It might be that he was clothed from shirt to shoe in garments from the host’s own store. Many a soldier would decline entering the great house and beg off from presentations, feeling the barn a more fitting shelter for his rags, and the company of ladies a gift the gods must withhold.

Joy reigned in every household when its owner came home from the war, joy that defeat at arms could not kill. The war was over! it had not ended as we had prayed, but there was to be no crying over spilt milk if young people had their way.

Departure of old servants and installation of new and untried ones was attended with untold vexation, but none of this was allowed to interfere with the pleasure and happiness of young people when it was possible to prevent it. Southern mistresses kept domestic difficulties in the background or made merry over them. On the surface, domestic machinery might seem to move without a hitch, when in reality it was in so severe a state of dislocation that the semblance of smooth operation was little short of a miracle.

Reserves of cotton and tobacco that had escaped the attention of the Yankee Army sold high. Fortunate possessors were soon flush with greenbacks which were put in quick circulation. It was a case of a little new bonnet and an alpaca skirt with girls everywhere; women had done without clothes so long, they felt they just must have some now; our boys had gone in rags so long, they must have new clothes, too; everybody had lived so hard and been so sad, there must be joy now, love-making and dancing. The “Starvation Party” did not go out of fashion with war. Festal boards were often thinly spread, but one danced not the less lightly for that. Enough it was to wing the feet to know that the bronzed young soldier with his arm about your waist must leave you no more for the battle.

To show how little one could be festive on, we will take a peep at a starvation party given on a plantation near Lexington, North Carolina, by Mrs. Page, soon after General Kilpatrick’s troops vacated the mansion. “We had all been so miserable,” Mrs. Page tells, “that I was just bound to have some fun. So I gave a dining.”

She invited ten ladies, who all came wondering what on earth she could set before them. They walked; there was not a carriage in the neighbourhood. They were all cultured, refined women, wives and daughters of men of prominence, and accustomed to elegant entertainment. A few days before, one of them had sent to Mrs. Page for something to eat, saying she had not a mouthful in the house, and Mrs. Page had shared with her a small supply of Western pork and hardtack which her faithful coloured man, Frank, had gotten from the Yankees. Mrs. Page had now no pork left. Her garden had been destroyed. She had not a chair in the house, and but one cooking utensil, a large iron pot. And not a fork, spoon, cup, plate or other table appointment.