From Montgomery I went down the River to Selma, Alabama.

Colonel McGee, of Illinois, commanding the post there, had cut down a small oak which interfered with his hanging out the large garrison flag in front of his headquarters. The inhabitants complained bitterly about the sacrifice of the oak. “I tell you, gentlemen,” responded the Colonel, “not only trees but many brave men have been cut down that that flag may float!” Silenced, but not convinced, they took their revenge in mutterings; and the fair ladies of the place walked out into the sandy street to avoid passing under the Yankee colors. The public journals and the politicians thought it a great outrage that their representatives should not be immediately admitted to Congress, on the presentation of their certificates!

Selma is the center of the rich cotton-growing belt of Alabama, and the lands there are probably unequaled by any to the eastward, and by only the Mississippi and Red River lands on the west. But this temper of the inhabitants caused Northern investors some anxiety. The better classes were, undoubtedly, anxious that Northern capital and skill should be thrown into cotton cultivation; and were ready to welcome every respectable Northerner who came among them. But the baser sort also abounded. With no pecuniary or political interests to risk, and still full of the feeling that made the Selma ladies walk out of their way to avoid Colonel McGee’s flag, there was reason to apprehend petty outbreaks of malignity against Yankee incomers, which had to be taken into account in any calculations about the openings there for Northern enterprise.

All agree that the negroes would do more for the Yankees than for anybody else. The disposition of respectable Rebels was equally encouraging. They had been fairly whipped in fight; they frankly acknowledged it, and desired, above all things, to go to work and repair their shattered fortunes. Capital and enterprise they wanted among them, and would gladly receive from any quarter. But officers shook their heads if asked whether, when military protection was removed, Northerners would be secure from annoyance from the more vicious classes.

Lands were not so freely advertised for sale as about Montgomery, but there was the same disposition either to sell or rent. A treasury agent mentioned to a few friends his purpose to go into the land agency business. In a day or two he had twelve plantations put into his hands, to be sold at fixed prices, ranging from seven to fourteen dollars per acre. Before the war these lands were valued at from fifty to a hundred dollars. A few miles out from Selma was a large plantation, three thousand two hundred acres in extent, one thousand eight hundred acres cleared land, of the kind they call cane-brake, or prairie, the very best for cotton in Alabama. On this plantation were the entire stock and equipment for its cultivation—sixty or seventy mules, two hundred head of cattle, corn enough for next year’s feeding, large droves of hogs, etc. The planter was anxiously seeking for a buyer for land, stock, and everything, at sixty thousand dollars. Estimating the grain and live stock at current rates, this would leave the land at a valuation of ten dollars an acre. The run from the North was mainly for smaller plantations than this, and the prices on them had advanced considerably. Two months earlier the average price of all lands there was a third less.

The productiveness of all these lands seemed to be systematically overstated. Throughout the rich cotton-growing regions of Alabama, planters always assured me that their prime lands would, with careful cultivation, yield an average of a bale to the acre. But strict inquiries as to results actually realized, failed to show an average of more than two-thirds of a bale. Then it cost from three to ten dollars per bale to get the crop down to New Orleans.

Northern men were pressing in rapidly. Many officers were in Selma in November, arranging for pretty heavy operations; and soldiers who had gone home, talked about returning to lease small plantations. General McArthur, of Illinois, had leased five in Central Alabama. Generals Charles and William R. Woods, of Ohio, were getting some; so were Colonel Gere, of Iowa, and a number of others. Their plan was to rent at three to five dollars an acre, one-third down and the remainder payable 1st January, 1867. Then they hire, at liberal salaries, competent overseers for each plantation. In this mode of operating, everything, of course, depends on skillful management. I should judge it a splendid opening for careless men to lose money.

West of this region, on the Tombigbee, New Orleans capitalists began to come in. A purchase of five thousand acres, in one tract, had just been made by a New Orleans sugar-planter, in company with a former Tribune correspondent. Another company, composed of New Orleans gentlemen, proposed to run five or six plantations; and others were beginning likewise to extend their operations in this direction.

But these were the speculations of moneyed men. The South had its speculations to offer for small farmers as well as for capitalists. With reasonable prudence and skill, they might hope to realize at least double as much as could be expected from an investment of the same amount of capital in farming at the North. Scores of plantations, averaging from one to four hundred acres of arable lands, could be bought or leased, at prices not generally exceeding fifteen dollars per acre for purchase, or four dollars for lease. Purchases were made in cash; leases were paid either quarterly or one-third down, and the rest at the end of the year’s work.

A Northern farmer, himself working in the fields with his hands, could probably make the crop on a hundred acres with six hired negroes, depending upon subsequently hiring a few more to help pick it out. His account, then, would stand somehow thus:

The farmer could afford, out of this, to pay four dollars per acre for his lease, and still have a handsome year’s earnings left.

Selma bore rough marks of the Yankee General Wilson, who passed through it on his raid, just before the capture of Mr. Davis. A third or more of the city was in ruins, and the large machine shops and founderies of the Confederacy were thoroughly destroyed. On a public corner, where a large cotton warehouse had stood, was a broken safe, lying among the debris. Some resident had taken the pains to label it, so that the Yankee garrison might understand what it meant, “Always safe, except in case of Wilson, U. S. A.” On another side was a different inscription: “Business Cards! Wilson & Co., U. S. A., General Burglars and House and Safe Openers. Orders respectfully solicited.” The third side bore the following: “Insured safe from dangers of fire and dampness, Wilson and his Thieves (sic) only excepted.”

Wilson’s work had been thoroughly done. The gun foundery and machine shops which he had destroyed, were only to be compared to great Government establishments like those at West Point or Fort Pitt. A confused mass of bricks and mortar covered the ground, and from the debris rose fourteen tall chimneys, the blackened monument of what had been. About a hundred great guns were lying about in various stages of manufacture. Wilson had carefully knocked off the trunnions. Among them were the heaviest siege-guns, iron field ten-pounders, guns with wrought iron muzzles screwed on, Brooks’ guns, and other varieties. One still lay on the lathe, where the workmen had been turning it when Wilson and his raiders came.

On the other side of the town were the ruins of an extensive manufactory of small arms. Hundreds of musket barrels lay among the bricks and mortar, besides shot-gun barrels innumerable, and great sheaves of bayonets, fused together by the heat. But for the utter collapse of the rebellion, at about the same time, this destruction of these shops would have been justly considered the weightiest among the crowding calamities of the rebellion.

An accomplished Northern mineralogist,^[55] who went over the ruins with me, pronounced the iron ore, which, had been used in making the great guns, nearly equal to the Marquette ore from Lake Superior. He thought it would average sixty-five to seventy-five per cent. of pure iron, and possibly even higher. It had all been brought from the mines near Talledega, where, also, a number of founderies for the Confederate Government had been established. The war had found these people ignorant of their mineral resources, without machinery, workmen, or materials. At its close they had developed a mineral wealth which ages could not exhaust, and had built up here, as I have said, a manufactory of guns, great and small, with which only three or four in the United States could be compared.

The burnt houses in the business part of the city were being rapidly rebuilt. Negro carpenters and masons seemed to have exclusive control of the work. An old negro, who worked as hod-carrier, explained that he was paid a dollar a day. “By de time I pays ten dollars a month rent fo’ my house, an’ fifteen cents a poun’ for beef or fresh po’k, or thirty cents fo’ bacon, an’ den buys my clo’es, I doesn’t hab much leff. I’s done tried it, an’ I knows brack man cant stan’ dat.” He had been “refugeed” from Tuscumbia; now he could not get back. He had been doing his best to save money enough, (forty dollars,^[56]) but he couldn’t seem to get ahead at all with it.

His people were all going to work well, he thought, on cotton plantations where they were sure of good pay. Of course, they would work better for the Yankees, ’cause dey freed ’em. There was no talk of insurrection among them—had never heerd of sich a thing. What should they rise for? There were no secret societies among them.

On the other hand, the people had many complaints of insubordination, so great that they were in actual fear for the lives of their families! Some of the newspapers thought “the scenes of bloodshed and massacre of St. Domingo would be re-enacted in their midst, before the close of the year.” “We speak advisedly,” continued one frightened editor, “we have authentic information of the speeches and conversation of the blacks, sufficient to convince us of their purpose. They make no secret of their movement. Tell us not that we are alarmists. After due investigation and reflection upon this matter, we have determined to talk plainly, without fear or favor, and if our voice of warning is not heeded, we, at least, will have the consoling reflection that we have performed our duty.”

All this silly talk was, doubtless, utterly without foundation. Negroes neglected to touch their hats to overseers or former masters whom they disliked; and straightway it was announced that they were growing too saucy for human endurance. They held meetings and sung songs about their freedom, whereupon it was conjectured that they were plotting for a rising against the whites. They refused to be beaten; and, behold, the grossest insubordination was existing among the negroes.^[57]

Near the ruins of the Selma armory was a village of huts, filled with the lowest order of plantation negroes. One or two were riding about on abandoned Government horses; more were idly watching them. They were “’joying their freedom.” A little round furnace stood some distance from the huts. At its mouth sat an old negro, far gone with fever and greatly emaciated. His story was a simple one. He had been sent here, by his master, from Northern Alabama, to work for the Government. Yankees had come along, and his paper to go home (his transportation) done wuf nothing no more. He begged a little, picked up a little, slept in the furnace, and so got along. He might last through the winter, but it was very doubtful. He was, apparently, sixty or seventy years old, and there was not a soul, black or white, to care for him.

Most of the negroes congregated here had either been sent to work in the Rebel shops, or had come since the end of the war to “’joy their freedom.”

“You were just as free at home as here,” I said to one who had patched up an abandoned tent, under which he lived.

“But I’s want to be free man, cum when I please, and nobody say nuffin to me, nor order me roun’.”

“De Lo’d tole we to come heah,” another said. “De Lo’d him’ll take car’ ob us now.”