The Southern Soldier Boy Part 4

Besides the right to hold Negro slaves, there was another right dearer to the people of upper Cleveland, viz, the right to convert their sour apples into brandy and their corn into whiskey, infringed upon by the Yankee government. After the surviving remnants of the Confederate army came home, and the s.h.i.+rkers came in from the bushes, all of the little copper stills started up for a joyful time, and public sentiment was so strongly against Federal interference that they were not molested much for two or three years. Our hero, John Wesley Richards, after his long, arduous campaigns in the war, felt that he was ent.i.tled to a season of rest and recreation, with plenty of refreshments thrown in to boot. So he got on a long and continuous spree, and went to the bad, until his wife had to divorce him and turn him out to "root hog or die." Then, after a while, he began to rally and reform; and a grand, speculative idea striking him, he traded his faithful squirrel dog and his old shot gun for a warrantee deed for one hundred acres of land in the upright region of Cleveland County.

Then, as Wesley began to prosper, he found himself in need of a one-horse wagon, called in these parts a "carryall"; and learning that J. S. Groves, a big merchant at Shelby, kept wagons to sell for cash and on time, Wesley wended his way to Shelby and, looking over Mr. Groves' wagons, said he would like to have the running works of a one-horse wagon, but did not have the cash to pay down. Mr. Groves said that was all right; if he could give him a good paper he could have the wagon. John Wesley said he could give him a mortgage on one hundred acres of land. Mr. Groves said that would do. The papers were fixed up, the wagon delivered and John Wesley went on his way home rejoicing. The next fall Mr. Groves notified him that his note was due and they would expect him down soon to settle. A few weeks later he wrote Wesley that if he did not come soon and make some arrangements that he would have to advertise that land. John Wesley heeded not these warnings, and the land was advertised; and here is where Col.

Billy Miller b.u.t.ted in and bought a cheap farm. Col. Billy had served in the cavalry during the war and managed to pull through in good shape.

After engaging in several enterprises he founded a weekly newspaper called _The Shelby Aurora_, and made a great success. So this was the paper the land was advertised in. When the land was sold, lying twenty-five miles from town, none of the town people knew anything of it. Colonel Billy started it at forty cents per acre, which covered the cost of the wagon and advertis.e.m.e.nt, and no one bettered it, and he thought he had picked up a great bargain. Now this writer used to be somewhat connected with the _Aurora_. When his crops were short and prices low he could always get a job with Colonel Miller during the winter months to help out making ends meet, collecting and drumming up new subscribers. _The Aurora_ was very popular--good coa.r.s.e print so everybody could read it--and most everybody took it whether they could read or not. Its chief policy was to flatter all its patrons--those who paid for it because they paid and those who did not pay in hopes they would pay. When a man re-covered his house, built a new stable or cleared a fresh field we called him one of our most industrious and enterprising citizens, and when a fellow came to town to buy a side of bacon or a sack of flour on time he was alluded to as being on a business trip; and when nothing else good could be said of a fellow, we would puff him on his enthusiastic and steadfast Democracy. The way to run a county paper is to brag on all the people all the time and keep a good list of subscribers, and the patent medicine fellows will pay the running expense. So one winter, as I was ranging around the mountains near Colonel Miller's farm, I met up with Blacksmith George Towry, a jovial, good-natured man, who said, "Tell Miller to send me his paper six months for showing those fellows his farm and trying so hard to sell it to them.

He sent two young men up here and referred them to me and I went over there and showed it to them and bragged on it all I could. When we got to the house I said, "You see that large white-oak on the lower side of the yard, that is the place to have your hog pen; it will always produce acorns enough to fatten a hog; then see that large hickory in front of the house; it is full of squirrels every day in the fall, and while your hog is fattening you can sit in the door and shoot a mess as you need them.

Then, if you get tired eating squirrels, just look out yonder in that old field at the 'simmon trees. They are full of 'possoms every night, and you can gather a mess as you need them. Then when you kill your hog and get tired of so much greasy doings, just go up on the side of the mountain and cut some gum logs and you can catch all the rabbits you want. Don't you see its the easiest place to live you ever saw? Then look down there at that spring, as pure water as ever come out of the ground; it would be worth a thousand dollars anywhere in Texas; and the climate can't be beat anywhere in the world--malaria, microbes and such things never bother us.

These high mountains on the north and east break off the cold winds. In winter you can set out on a log in the suns.h.i.+ne all day and enjoy the scenery; then, if you are ambitious and enterprising, you could start up a turkey ranch right here; you have sixty thousand acres of free range, enough to raise 10,000 turkeys, with at least fifty cents per head net profit; that gives you $5,000 per year income on turkeys alone. I tell you that would beat raising cotton on the sandy flats all hollow. All the expense raising turkeys would just be to throw them a little corn to keep them gentle. The young men looked puzzled and one said, 'And where would we get the corn?' 'Oh,' said I, 'you could find some corn down at Jack Morrison's mill or at Ped Price's store.' Then one says, 'And how could we get the turkeys to market?' and I says, 'Oh, drive them out; they can fly across these deep hollows.' He then added, 'The young men turned away looking sorrowful, and I don't know whether they will buy or not.'"

UNCLE ABE WALLIS VISITS WAs.h.i.+NGTON.

A few years ago a story was current of an old darkey from Salisbury, N. C., visiting Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., to see the President and obtain social recognition. We name him. Uncle Abe Wallis was an industrious, well-behaved matter-of-fact old darkey who had acc.u.mulated the snug sum of forty dollars, and concluded to spend it in the advancement of his social position, and he reasoned that the shortest way to get to the top quick would be to call on the President for recognition. So he paid $15.00 for a ticket and boarded a flyer, and was on his way to the mecca of Afro-American hopes, rights and social privileges, looking disdainfully upon the common blacks as he sped by them along the way, he was soon in the city of equal rights for all with special privileges for none. After being relieved of two dollars for a night's lodging at a colored hotel, bright and early he inquired the way and set out for the White House, where he expected to take dinner and wanted his name in the pot in time.

When he had had an insight of the coveted goal and turned in that direction, he was accosted by a harsh voice, "Whar ye goin'?" "Well, sar; I'se on my way to visit the President." "This is not the day to see the President." "Well, I don't care anything about your arrangements; but this is my day to see him." "I guess not." "Captain, call the wagon and give this man a ride." "Den, befo' I could parley any mo' about it, dey chucked me in de wagin and went down one of dem wide roads as hard as dey could tare and soon turned up at a 'spectable enough looking buildin'. Den dey tell me to git out, and when I go in dey feel in my pockets and take my money and say, 'Guess we better save dis, de b.u.ms will clean you up.' Den dar I was with a pa.s.sel of no count looking n.i.g.g.e.rs and some po' drunken white trash--about de worst company I ever got into. Next mornin' de Jedge call me out and ax what my name and where I live. I say my name am Abraham Wallis and my home are Salisbury, N. C. Den he say, "What is your business," and I tell him I am a deacon in our Baptist church. Den he say, "And what is your business here?" an' I tell him I come specially to visit the President and let him know that there was as good an' 'spectable colored people in North Carolina as dere was in Alabama. Den he say, "Old man, I'll discharge you on condition that you take the first train South; you can't afford to circulate around here; some one will pull your "wad"

and you will be stranded along way from home. Go home while you can"; and soon I was comin' back just as fast as I went. I tell ye I'se seen 'nough of Was.h.i.+ngton; de colored man haint got no showin' at all. At Raleigh I can jest walk right into the Governor's office and n.o.body'll say, Where you gwine? and de Governor would say he felt pleased to see me, and he'd give me my dinner too; but he wouldn't eat with me. I'se hearn about dis yaller n.i.g.g.e.r, Booker Was.h.i.+ngton, who goes up North to eat wid white folks. He runs a big school and a big farm down in Alabama and gits all de young colored boys he can to go to school some and to work on his farm lots; and he tells 'em dey ought to be powerful glad to get to work on de farm, while he sends his own children off to Wesley University, in school wid white children. Take it all round, the honest colored person is respected about as much in North Carolina as anywhere, and I 'spect to stay at home after dis and keep on good terms wid our white folks, for dey is the best after all."

AN IRISH SOCIALIST.

Patrick Finnegan had been studying socialism and told his friend, Barney O'Brien, that socialism was a good thing, both charitable and Christian, and if the people would adopt it all would be prosperous and happy. Barney says, "Pat, if ye had two homes, would ye give me one?" "To be sure I would," says Pat. "Then if ye had two horses, would ye give me one?" "Then certainly I would," says Pat. "Then if ye had two hogs would ye give me one?" "No. To h.e.l.l with ye, Barney; ye know I've got thim." "Well, that was what I was thinking, that ye would hold to your pigs with all the tenacity that a Vanderbilt would grip his railroads. It is aisy enough to give away what ye ain't got; but if ye can't practice what ye preach ye had as well shut up." "Now that's just like ye, Barney; ye would never make a good socialist. Ye would rob me entirely. You know I need me hogs; but I would not need but one home, and one horse would be all I could work and feed." "Yes, Pat, and I guess if ye wait until ye get a home and a horse you'll be a socialist a good while yet." "To be sure I will, and if you ever have a home at all it will be when I have one to give you."

Barney: "Then I guess I had better hold my job and not depend on ye." Pat: "Along with ye, Barney; it may be well that ye can always find a boss."

SEVEN DAYS' FIGHT AROUND RICHMOND.

Reminiscences of Dr. Alexander, of Charlotte, N. C., recall to me the scenes of those battle-fields of the Seven Days' battles of McClellan, 1862, when we pa.s.sed over the ground in June, 1864, on our way to the Chickahominy River. Many of the Federal dead had scarcely been buried at all, as the rank weeds over the naked bones and blue rotten uniforms showed, where groups of a score or more had been bunched in shallow graves and lightly covered.

"Out of the 2,700 soldiers furnished the Southern army by Mecklenburg, how few remain to tell of that fearful seven-days' struggle. The weather had been intensely hot before the fighting began for several days. Many of our men were on the sick list. On the 25th inst. the long roll was sounded; our troops, the Thirty-seventh Regiment, was hastily formed in line.

Confederate battle-flags were here first displayed; stretchers for bearing off the wounded were here first put in charge of the ambulance corps.

Everything wore a death-like hue. John Bell, a member of my company, said he was not able for the march, was sick; I spoke to the surgeon, and told him I would take Bell's word for anything. He said, "Leave him behind." In a week he was dead. Another fellow asked me to intercede for him, that he was sick. I told him I knew Bell, but I could not vouch for him; when night came he deserted, and is living yet. This was as we were leaving camp at Brock Church, six miles north of Richmond. We camped near Meadow Bridge. On the 28th we moved slowly down the Chickahominy; got on the edge of the road to let a body of Yankee prisoners pa.s.s; one of our men asked them where they were going; an Irishman answered, 'In faith, I am going to Richmond, where me wife has been telling me to go for the last two months, and how far is it yit?'

"Late in the afternoon we heard heavy cannonading in our front, and we pushed forward rapidly, bearing to the left, as we thought, to charge a battery. Sh.e.l.ls were pa.s.sing through our line, killing seven men in one company; when we got in thirty steps of the battery we were ordered to lay down, to support the battery. The artillery duel ceased about 8 o'clock, and remained quiet until 9 o'clock next morning, when it broke loose with a vengeance and was quickly over. General Jackson had got in McClellan's rear. Here the sun was terribly hot as we lay on the southern slope of the hillside, with nothing to protect us from the vertical rays of the sun. We went from here to Mechanicsville, where the heavy fighting was done the evening before. Here the Yankee dead had not been moved, and the swarms of horse-flies that arose from the dead carca.s.ses rendered it necessary for each man to hold one hand over his mouth and nose. It is impossible to describe the scene as it was. In the afternoon of the 27th we reached Gains' Mill; this battle opened about 3 p. m. It was terrific. North Carolina's loss was very great. It was here that Colonel Campbell was killed. Capt. Billy Kerr was desperately wounded. Many private soldiers and company officers from Mecklenburg were killed and wounded. A rare sight I witnessed. Some man, I never knew who he was, was riding back and forth in front of our firing line, talking to the men, telling them to aim low, don't shoot too high; he was bareheaded, wounded in the neck; no coat on, and was riding a gray horse; the blood had run down from his neck to his gray horse; he appeared cool and determined. A large and spotted hound appeared at the same time, running and barking as heavy limbs were cut off by sh.e.l.ls, licking the blood from the dead and wounded. I don't know what became of the dog or the man on horseback.

"When the battle was over, I was appointed to the medical department and a.s.signed to the Thirty-seventh Regiment. We went next to the b.l.o.o.d.y field of Frazier's farm. Here our Colonel, Charles C. Lee, was killed; he was as gallant an officer as ever trod the battle-fields of Virginia; he was as brave as a lion and gentle as a lamb, and thought it not inconsistent with his profession as a soldier, to acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Captain of his salvation.

"The next move was to overtake McClelland's army, which was halted at Malvern Hill. Here General McGruder was in front, and his orders were to feel what position the enemy occupied. It was said at the time that McGruder was so pleased with the position of his artillery that he at once 'let slip the dogs of war.' This proved the bloodiest battle of the war for the time it lasted. From personal observation I can testify that there was no break in the roar of musketry for five hours. The gunboats on the James River threw large sh.e.l.ls at random, most of which burst over their own troops. The battle closed at 10 o'clock at night. Immediately the Yankee army sought the shelter of their gunboats. It took us two days to get the wounded all off to Richmond. One peculiar case of gun-shot wound I will mention. A soldier by the name of Rankin, Company H, Thirty-seventh Regiment, shot in the base of the skull of the medulla oblongatta, did not prevent him from walking about; was examined by a dozen surgeons, but were unable to trace or locate the bullet, when Dr. Campbell, of the Seventh Regiment, called me as the youngest surgeon to try my hand. In a jest I placed my hand on his forehead and told him to open his mouth; at once I saw a swelling in the roof of his mouth; it was hard and smooth. I made a slit with a scalpel, and showed a minnie ball to the astonished surgeons.

How the ball got there without killing him has always been a mystery.

"President Davis spent a night with us; he was in fine spirits, but seemed deeply touched at the sight of so much suffering. We pa.s.sed by the battle-ground two days after the battle; the field was rolling; our dead were all buried; it looked like a thousand-acre field of potato hills. The enemy were still lying where they fell. They must have fought with great desperation, as their line of battle was plainly to be seen by about every third man being killed. This line could be traced one mile and a half.

"After waiting a few days to rest, and the enemy showing no disposition to renew the fight, our men, from privates to general officers, began a general hunt for them pesky little fellows that are not known in polite circles. I have seen five hundred men have their s.h.i.+rts off at one time, looking for--what they were sure to find. After this campaign we had a great deal of typhoid fever; the hospitals being full of wounded, the most of the cases were treated in camp, more successfully than they would have been in Richmond hospitals. Lest we forget."

THE NEGRO PROBLEM.

Say what you will, it is the cause of all the sectional prejudice and hatred ever engendered in this country. Thousands of millions of money and hundreds of thousands of lives of good white men have been sacrificed in the solution of the Negro problem for this country, and still it hangs over us the darkest cloud that obscures the bright vision of peace and good will to all men. And as the biologists say, "He stands out in his dark isolation a perpetual challenge to the dogma of the unity of the races." We understand him as a slave. In that capacity he filled every expectation that could be required of him, always reflecting the character of his master. If the master was very religious, so was he. If the master was a drunkard and a sinner, so was he. Always a good imitator, but never an originator. He liked to be flattered and honored and was always faithful to every special trust. When kindly treated he loved his master like a child. These were the conditions that the discipline of slavery obtained. Now his status has changed and all personal restraints are removed and strict discipline stopped. He is now thrown upon his own resources, and must stand upon his own merits. He is now inclined to neglect the patient, hard-earned virtues of the whites, and to imitate their easy vices. He is handicapped at every turn by race prejudices. The professions in most places are closed to him. He is not wanted anywhere except as a cheap hewer of wood and drawer of water. All intelligent white labor resent his compet.i.tion, even in the humblest work. White lawyers and doctors get some pickings out of him, and where he is numerous white merchants have a good pull on him. All who are getting anything out of him are willing to tolerate him. All who get nothing out of him would gladly see him deported. Wherever he gets a foothold in country or city he depreciates real estate by making conditions more or less intolerable. He is a prolific subject for religious fanatics and cranks to practice upon.

He is an alien here in his native country among his own people. He is the only man in all the world ashamed of himself and his color. His greatest ambition is to be evoluted into a white man, and he wants to start right now, and so long as that boon is denied him will he be an aggressive alien. Since the old masters and old servants have pa.s.sed away there is no friends.h.i.+p or kind interest between their descendants, and the gulf is widening all the while. This great country, leading the vanguard of civilization for all the world, must do justice to all men. Now what can we do with the Negro? Shall we keep him here a standing menace and a perpetual challenge to mob law, and increase our police force, or deport him and sustain a strictly white man's country. If we deport him as fast as Europeans come in, we would soon be done with him as a factor in politics and labor; but as yet we have no place to send him. Through industrial and commercial relations we will soon absorb Mexico and the Central American States, and upon the completion of the Panama Ca.n.a.l we can expand rapidly into South America, where there is a vast area of unsettled country that would make an ideal Negro country--throughout all of the Amazon River country territory could be procured for the colonization of all our Negroes under the fostering care of the United States, where the black man may hold all the offices and fulfill all the functions of complete citizens.h.i.+p, with close commercial relations in the exchange of products. I have been taxed forty years for freeing him, and would consent to be taxed forty years more to remove him to such a paradise as herein suggested.

We want the Chinese excluded because they are too docile and carry a head of their own. Then we want the j.a.p excluded because he is too smart for us to compete with. When we lose a few million white men fighting j.a.pan, as we will have to do soon, as they swarm over here, dictating how they shall be treated, then the white man's burden will be pretty heavy with the colored problem, and a general house-cleaning may follow that will purify the political atmosphere somewhat.

In the meantime all of our great, soulless corporations, transportation and manufacturing companies regard all "c.o.o.ns alike," whether they be white, black, yellow, brown or ring-streaked or striped. They exploit them for what profit there is in them without regard to the interest of the present or future generations. What did it matter to the Pharaohs what was to be the future of their country, so long as they had plenty of slaves to rear gigantic pyramids to their own selfish ambition.

In peace or war, where is the town that would have Negro troops quartered in it, for fear at any time they be offended, shoot up the town and ma.s.sacre the women and children? Anywhere in this country that the Negro is denied full social rights, he stands offended and ready to enact any tragedy that promises to advance his social position. The whites must decide whether they shall warm him in their bosoms or cast him off.

Nothing has ever been more firmly implanted in the human breast than race prejudice. No first-cla.s.s white man can feel at ease on social equality with the colored races.