Page:Memorials of a Southern Planter.djvu/269

 Rh manner of ways and fattening apace. Her recovery may be set down among the marvels. God bless you, my dear child."

, 29th August, 1875.

..."We are having lively times in the political way. I have seen nothing like it since 1840,—those days of 'hard cider,' 'log cabins,' 'coon skins,' and what-not, by means of which the Whigs gave Van Buren and the Democrats so signal an overthrow. I believe the impulse under which the outraged white race of the South are now being urged on will be equally irresistible. At a mass-meeting held in Raymond on the 18th instant, falling in with T. J. Wharton, I remarked to him that such an uprising was wonderful! 'Uprising?' replied he. 'It is no uprising. It is an insurrection!' To give you some notion of the enthusiasm of the people, I only have to say that they do not straggle in to such meetings, but go in clubs, each club with its band of music, flags, and regalia, and a cannon in many instances, and these cannon they make roar from every hill-top on the road. The procession of cavalry from Edwards Depot (some other clubs having joined the Edwards Club) reached from the court-house far beyond John Shelton's house,—the length of the column being two miles, as one of the number told me. That from Utica, taking in my club and one other, was a great deal longer. The thing to be appreciated had to be seen. The 'carpet-baggers' and negroes are evidently staggered. We have been carrying on this thing for a month without their having moved a peg. They do not know where to begin. I suppose something will be hatched up in Washington after a while, and the cue