ance you have to
go to the cotton-plantations, miles in extent, where men, women and
children have been born and have died as cotton-pickers. Of course I
am not now speaking of the freedmen as they are, for it is ten years
since I was on duty in G----, Mississippi, where all the horrors of
freedom were first revealed to the poor creatures."

"'_Horrors_ of freedom!'" I repeated.

"It meant starvation to many, and intense suffering to others. Turn
out a nursery of children of five years old to care for themselves,
and they will fare better than many of the grown men and women of whom
I knew in my Southern experiences."

"You relieved G---- of the --th regiment?" I said.

"Yes, and I often think of our meeting at the depot. He had about two
minutes before taking the train to Vicksburg. 'Cap,' he said, 'go to
Sim's to board. Real Southern hospitality, and his wife's a mother if
you are sick--bound to have bilious fever, you know. And, Cap, those
confounded niggers think the Bureau is bound to back them up, right or
wrong, and in about ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they're wrong.
Clerk's got the reports and papers.'"

"Well?" I said.

"He was right. The way those planters allowed the negroes to impose
upon their good-nature and true generosity confounded me. I went to
relieve an oppressed race, and, by Jove! I was inclined to consider
the planters in that light."

"But I don't understand."

"I'll show you. When the planters found they could still have the
practised slave-labor in the cotton-fields by paying fair wages, they
made contracts with the negroes by the year. It was my fortune to be
the referee on all disputes on the accounts of the first year of such
contracts, and I solemnly declare the liberality and consideration of
the planters would astonish the hard-fisted business-men of some of
our factories. They knew the improvidence of the race, and out of
regard for them, instead of paying them in money, they allowed them to
obtain goods in their names at the leading stores. Almost invariably
these bills exceeded the amount stipulated for in the contract, but I
never knew one case where the employer made the negroes work out their
debt. When I would tell them how the accounts came out, they said:
'Well, captain, let it go: I'll pay the bills. These poor fellows do
not understand the use of money yet.'

"But the negroes had the laws of possession, the rights of freedom and
privileges of slavery in such