Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 13.djvu/509

 508 Southern Historical Society Papers.

complaisance." A nice, yet just distinction, which some of us would do well to remember.

The railroad came to an end about three miles north of Winnsboro, and there I found a courier waiting me with a team consisting of a very spare horse and a very small mule hitched to a wagon. Pass- ing through the "burnt district" of my native village, my courage nearly failed as I saw the town garrisoned by the first black regiment it had ever been my misfortune to meet. Stories of their manners and habits towards the citizens were not calculated to restore my equanimity, which fairly gave way when, upon reaching the home where I had spent so many happy days, I found the old associations broken and fled forever. "Where is Maum' Renas ? Where is Mitty ?" These were the servants I loved best, the latter the third generation of a favorite family, to whom I was especially attached. When I found they were gone I broke down. I had pledged my faith (to myself) upon their faithfulness, and they had failed. Yet now I see how natural it was. They wanted to " feel free," and could not so long as they remained in their master s service, or even upon his premises. So they had gone to themselves, though living in the same town. But I did not want to see them ; disloyalty always seems so much worse than death. I was not angry or indignant, but sorely hurt at the failure of an affection upon which I had implicitly de- pended all my life.

Two or three days of the sad sights in this unfortunate village were enough. To see that uniform in possession of the scenes of my youth was hard enough, but when it was worn by the race which is regarded by the whole civilized world as inferior and subordinate in every possible sense, I shuddered with a feeling I could neither express nor hide. The indignities which these poor imitators of their white comrades heaped upon the citizens can scarcely at this time be credited; one doubts that they would have been borne quietly by a race known perhaps justly as "fire-eaters." But in the power of a military despotism more arbitrary than that of Rome, more cruel than that which degraded Russia, the helpless and oppressed victims could make no protest, offer no resistance. Truly it might have been inscribed on the banners of the invading army " vae metis!"

I must not allow myself to dwell upon the incidents which yet re- main fresh in the memory of many who lived through that heart- sickening time. Suffice it that I saw grey-haired gentlemen forced to clean the streets under a negro guard as a punishment for