The people were taxed for more than their lands would bring to fill the rapacious maws of these cormorants while those whose property and position certainly entitled them to some voice in their governance were compelled to sit with their hands tied and behold their own despoilment. The worst passions of the colored people were appealed to, and but for a common sense and a rugged honesty with which they were not then accredited the most frightful scenes would have ensued, horrors at the bare thought of which the soul shudders.

This is no fancy picture, nor is it overdrawn. It will be seen that the scalawag is a native, a fungous growth, for which the South is responsible, while the carpet-bagger will be recognized by every soldier of the Union as one whom, during the war, the army but for the control of its officers would have given "a short shrift and the end of a rope." We have sketched the main characteristics of these parasites for the benefit of our Northern brethren. The impression prevails largely at the North that the term carpetbagger is applied indiscriminately to all who hail from that section of our common country. Never was there a greater error. Many excellent men of both political parties have settled in the South, and not a few have adorned the most distinguished positions in the arena of politics. The South welcomes to her homes and firesides all who come with honest intent and a determination to further the general prosperty. She is grateful for the aid they give, the skill they possess and the capital they bring. She asks not what may have been their antecedents, what their political opinions; all she requires is that they assist in building up her institutions and developing her resources. That this is true may be easily learned from the perusal of the following pages. We have spoken with more latitude than we intended of the scalawag and carpet-bagger, and perhaps they were not worth such an extended notice, but our object has been to remove erroneous impressions.

In 1868, the South was at their mercy, and precious little of it did they exhibit towards her suffering people. Earnest efforts at reconciliation were made by all classes and both political parties. Peace conventions, Congressional committees, reconstruction laws, were tried without avail. Disorders followed in the wake of the anomalous governments established in the Southern States, and people, stung to madness, cared but little about the means they used to rid themselves of the vampires that had fastened upon them. As always happens when citizens take the law in their own hands, outrages were perpetrated which were deeply regretted by the better classes of people.

The partisanship of the press at this time was a serious misfortune for the South. While one-half the newspapers in the country were endeavoring to prove that the millenium had already begun in the ex-Confederate States, the other half contended that pandemonium had broken loose, and more stringent measures should be adopted for its suppression. Instead of allaying the animosities engendered, they were intensified until there was real danger that a feeling might spring up between the two sections which would embitter their relations for all time to come.

At this juncture Major N. H. Hotchkiss, a gentleman who will figure largely in this volume, accepted the appointment of General Traveling Agent of the York River and Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. He was a Northern man by birth and a Southerner by adoption. He loved both sections with an ardor which naught save the purest patriotism and most perfect unselfishness can beget. We do not propose to give here a sketch of his life, that will be found further on. Prior to the war he was an avowed Republican, but when Virginia resolved to cast herself into the breach between her Sister Southern States and the North he like many other noble men considered it his duty to stand by the land of his adoption. No taint of bitterness detracted from the purity of his resolve. His generous nature forbade that he should desert the people who had opened their arms to him in the hour of adversity and yet his heart bled to think that those who should be brothers were engaged in such a contest. Whilst aiding the State of Virginia with all that characteristic energy which will be clearly developed to the reader during the progress of this work, his mind ever turned with the deepest solicitude to those whom the cruel exigencies of war had for the time being made enemies. Major Hotchkiss was not exempt from the hard fate which overtook so many of his compatriots at the close of the war. Reduced to poverty, with a helpless and dependent family, and his naturally robust constitution seriously undermined by the many hardships and privations he had undergone, he nevertheless applied himself diligently to repair his broken fortunes. His first idea was that a man owes it to the community in which he lives to contribute his mite towards its general happiness and progress; his second, that the time not thus employed should be expended in efforts to strengthen the ties which connect it with others. The latter seems ultimately to have gained the ascendancy. He was a plain man, endowed with more than ordinary common sense, and to use the words of one of his eulogists, "he had a heart as big as a bushel."

It is a popular error to imagine that no man can become great unless he fills some exalted public station. The unknown benefactors of mankind, the great men in private life, whose only reward is the proud consciousness of duty well done, will probably fill as large a scroll and constitute as bright a record when days shall be no more as the story of those whom monumental brass has created the heroes of the hour.

Major Hotchkiss was contented with the lesser (?) distinction. While he did not disparage measures adopted by the Government for the restoration of peace and harmony between the two sections his active mind cast about for some other means to reunite the practically dissevered people of the Union. His own experience taught him that ignorance, as in many other cases the prolific source of evil, was in this the real cause of bitterness and distrust, and that if the North and South could be brought to know each other as they really were without the aid of political spectacles or party coloring, sectional hatred would fade away like the mists of the morning. His acceptance of the position tendered by the Chesapeake and Ohio and Richmond and York River Railroads gave him the long wished for opportunity to test the plan of reconciliation he had matured in his own mind. His new duties brought him in contact with the people of both sections. The Press was the acknowledged vehicle of public sentiment. Each journal was a centre from which radiated impressions to light thousands of people. The masses had no other means of gaining information. If the light were not obscured by the clouds of prejudice and passion the rays that issued from it must be bright and healthful.

So reasoned the Major, and he determined that he would never relax his efforts until the Editors of the North, the framers of public opinion in that section, should be brought face to face with the people of the South, until they should see them engaged in their daily avocations, listen to their views upon topics of general interest and importance, sit by their firesides and under the shadow of their sacred Penates partake of the generous hospitality for which they erst were famous. His heart told him that his labor would not be in vain. Month after month found him toiling to accomplish this noble object. The months lengthened into years, and at last, during the winter of 1871, having repeatedly visited New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and other Northern States, and having perfected his arrangements in the South he was enabled to announce to the Northern Editors that his efforts had been crowned with success, and that the great experiment at reconciliation would soon be commenced under the most hopeful auspices.

It must not be imagined that the end was reached without trouble. Railroad magnates were to be propitiated, lines of travel mapped out and obdurate Editors whose prejudices blinded their judgments were to be persuaded to lay aside for the nonce their unreasoning bias and look at things as they really were. This last was by no means the least of the troubles that beset Major Hotchkiss, while making his preparations. Men, intelligent men, whom he had known from boyhood and who preserved for himself the same unswerving esteem that they had manifested towards him when a youth, refused at first to believe that any good thing could come out of Nazareth and in more than one instance days of sight-seeing and familiarity with the people of the South were necessary to wrest the scales from their eyes and induce them to admit that they were mistaken. It must also be borne in mind by the reader that the troubles in the South which had reached such formidable proportions in 1868 had measurably increased during the period that elapsed between that time and the starting of the Editorial Excursion. "Rumor with her hundred tongues" had been busy, misrepresentation had so completely usurped the place of truth that the Northern Editors and by consequence the Northern people could not really be blamed for their prejudices against the South or their utter ignorance of her condition.

However on May 22d, 1871, a goodly number of Editors assembled at the Delavan House, in Elmira, to meet their leader, Major N. H. Hotchkiss, many of whom grasped his bronzed but honest hand for the first time. At 9.45 P. M. the party was escorted to the Northern Central Railway Depot where special cars had been provided for their accommodation through the kindness and foresight of Mr. Ed. Young, the deservedly popular General Ticket Agent of that line. A ride at night over this railroad is pretty much the same as a jaunt over any other road, but what wonders are disclosed at the return of day will be fully detailed hereafter. Editors freed from the trammels of the sanctum and temporarily released from the gentle tyranny of domestic life are about as irresponsible as any other class of men. Such absolute freedom is unusual to them and correspondingly enjoyed. The fun and hilarity which bubbled over on this occasion proved a pleasant harbinger of the good time a coming. Their leader, soon after bidding adieu to Elmira, made himself acquainted with the excursionists by one of those practical introductions which frequently form the basis of a lasting friendship. Through the kindness of Messrs. Thomas Flack & Son he was enabled to mete out to them consolation from a huge demijohn which bore the inscription "Old Baker," and an inspection

of its contents demonstrated conclusively that the aforesaid vessel had been correctly named. One car was set apart for the smokers, for whom ample provision had been made, while the other was devoted to the total abstinence party, whose members grew hourly "small by degrees and beautifully less." The night was passed in pleasant and genial intercourse, interspersed with jokes whose practical character gave a zest to the trip, while their perfect harmlessness prevented any unpleasant consequences. Harrisburg was reached at an early hour in the morning, and the excursionists breakfasted in the Northern Central Railroad Depot. They reached Baltimore in excellent time and were conducted to the Fountain Hotel. A short opportunity was here given for a stroll through the City, after which they partook of a substantial dinner at the hotel, and were escorted to the steamer State of Virginia of the Richmond and York River Railroad Line.

We will take up the narrative as written by the Journalists themselves.