They professed to believe that our occupation would be
temporary, but their actions did not agree with their words.

They were greatly mortified at the inability of their army to oppose
our advance, and frequently abused the Rebel Government without stint.
They had anticipated an easy victory from the outset, and were greatly
disappointed at the result, up to that time.

"Just see how it is," said a Mississippian one day; "we expected to
whip you without the slightest trouble. We threw the war into the
Border States to keep it off our soil. Mississippi was very earnest
for the Rebellion when Kentucky was the battle-ground. We no more
expected you would come here, than that we should get to the moon.
It is the fortune of war that you have driven us back, but it is very
severe upon the cotton States."

I ventured to ask about the possibilities of repudiation of the Rebel
debt, in case the Confederacy was fairly established.

"Of course we shall repudiate," was the response. "It would be far
better for the Confederacy to do so than to attempt to pay the debt,
or even its interest. Suppose we have a debt of a thousand millions,
at eight per cent. This debt is due to our own people, and they have
to pay the interest upon it. In twelve years and a half they would
have paid another thousand millions, and still be as deeply in debt as
ever. Now, if they repudiate the whole, the country will be a thousand
millions richer at the end of twelve years and a half, than it
otherwise would."

In Mississippi, as well as in other Southern States, I frequently
heard this argument. It is not surprising that the confidence of the
people in their currency was shaken at a very early period.

In its days of prosperity, Holly Springs boasted of two rival papers,
each of them published weekly. One of these died just as the war broke
out. The proprietor of the other, who was at the same time its editor,
went, with his two sons, into the Rebel army, leaving the paper in
charge of his wife. The lady wielded the pen for nearly a year, but
the scarcity of printing-paper compelled her to close her office, a
few months before our arrival.

One afternoon, I accompanied Mr. Colburn, of _The World_, on a visit
to the ex-editress. The lady received our cards and greeted us very
cordially. She spoke, with evident pride, of her struggles to sustain
her paper in war-time and under war prices, and hoped she could soon
resume its publication. She referr