PREFACE.

As its name implies, this volume is a record of the thoughts, feelings and impressions of the Northern Editors who accompanied Major Hotchkiss south in the spring of 1871, and of the Southern Editors who, with him, returned the visit in 1872. No literary merit is claimed for it. The book is a compilation from the hastily penned letters of the newspaper men who took part in those expeditions. Writing under such circumstances, they were unable to bestow upon their work the care necessary to disarm adverse criticism. Many of the descriptions, however, contained in it are graphic, highly interesting, and by no means devoid of grace and elegance. As a whole, it is a stirring narrative, full of exciting incidents, and a faithful index of the feelings of the people both North and South, when properly approached. The volume is made up of extracts carefully selected from the different papers represented on the excursions. The names of these papers, with their editors, have been given in the body of the book, but it has been found impossible to individualize, as aside from the monotony occasioned by almost endless repetition, and the space required for the insertion of names of the journals accredited with certain portions of the work, dissatisfaction would inevitably follow. Many exceedingly interesting letters have been omitted, because of their length, while at times the compiler has found it difficult to discriminate in making his selections. He has endeavored to follow closely the admirable example set by the excursionists, and nothing of a political or sectional character will be found in the volume.

SEPTEMBER 16th, 1873.

When, in 1865, the great civil war was brought to a close, by the surrender of the Confederate armies, hopeful persons in both sections confidently expected reconciliation. The North regarded the South as necessary to the perpetuation and prosperity of the Union, or her people would never have submitted to the unprecedented sacrifices they were compelled to make in order to enforce that bond. The South lay helpless, crippled, well nigh ruined. Her people, with an unanimity scarcely exampled in the history of nations, had given their all to the cause they so fondly cherished and which they believed to be just. Stripped of her wealth, her fields laid waste, and in many instances homes that had protected generations desolated, bankrupt and without a currency, she naturally looked to the North for assistance and for the means of recuperation. The South in her then condition was but a barren conquest, and experience told but too surely what would result from the imposition of harsh measures and the prolongation of those animosities begotten of internecine strife. Americans are by nature generous. The struggle over, the victory won, the prejudices occasioned by untoward events over which neither side had control softened down, the proper thing to manly and magnanimous natures seemed to be reconciliation.

That such was the feeling of the people throughout the United States is evidenced by the many abortive attempts at reconstruction by both political parties during the winter succeeding the collapse of the Confederacy. Unfortunately two branches of the Government were arrayed against each other. Nothing that emanated from the Executive was acceptable to Congress; nothing that originated in Congress proved palatable to the President. The breach widened day by day, and finally degenerated into a struggle between political parties, and the poor South, the bone of contention, was ground between the upper and nether mill-stones. Her condition at the

time of the surrender was deplorable, but how much more pitiable it became three years later, when she was overrun with scalawags and carpet-baggers, will never be known save to those whose misfortune it was to live within her borders.

A scalawag is an original secessionist, a fire-eater of that peculiar Southern type who before the war kept alive the smouldering embers of sectional hate by appeals to the masses in the Southern States to resist the encroachments of Northern usurpation and fanned the flames of civil war by violent denunciations of the Northern people and their supposed efforts to trample upon the liberties and seize the property of the people of those States. None were more energetic in their efforts to bring on the war, none were more directly responsible for the frightful consequences which followed. They stirred the people to frenzy by their harangues, and assisted manfully in the formation of companies and regiments for the coming conflict, in most cases modestly confining their own ambitious longings to stationary positions in the commissary or quarter-master departments. If they soared higher and ventured into the rank and file of the army, at the first sound of approaching danger they were reminded of some convenient malady that had lain dormant in the system during a long period of years but which had opportunely thrust itself into notice in time to secure for the patient a discharge from military duty. Having worked all the injury to their fellow-beings that their microscopic souls could suggest, they quietly "enrolled themselves in their virtue and retired to private life" to await the result of that strife which they had done so much to foment.

The war over, the South helpless at the feet of the conqueror, they crawled from their holes and hiding-places and pounced upon those whom they had lured to their destruction. The iron-clad oath disclosed no obstacles to their elastic consciences. They swallowed it with an unctuousness that savored of delight, and protested their life-long devotion to the Union and the dominant party with an ardor and impetuosity which exceeded if possible the enthusiasm manifested by them in behalf of the South at the beginning of the struggle. Their late friends were not only abandoned but treated with ignominy the more galling because of the source from whence it sprang. The colored man was a brother whose interests must be secured, regardless of the rights of the whites, by placing them, the scalawags, in positions of trust where they could prey upon the body politic and grow plethoric from the remaining property of the sorely tried and impoverished

people of the South. They humbled themselves that they might be exalted. No descent was too low, no rascality too contemptible, which would further their plans and projects. The negroes were incited to hostilities against their late masters and natural friends, and taught by these new fledged philanthropists that what might be theirs through frugality and industry was theirs by common right, and that by elevating the scalawags to power it

should be assured to them.

We must not be understood as embracing in our description of the scalawag those who from conscientious convictions differed with the majority of their Southern brethren. Of these there were many, and their influence and example were potent in ameliorating the condition of their friends and neighbors.

The carpet-bagger, though differing but little in general features from the above, was, upon the whole, a superior creature. He was not a viper warmed into life to sap that which had given him birth. Born and raised in the North, he joined the armies of the Union as a camp-follower, and during the war had preyed indifferently upon his own people and those within the territory of the enemy. Whenever stealing cotton, cereals or household furniture and running the blockade proved more lucrative than filching from the soldiers who had gone out to fight the battles of their country he abandoned the latter for the former. At the termination of the war he discovered instinctively the true field for the exercise of his talents. The political complications in the South, growing out of that unfortunate affair, furnished just the material he needed for the prosecution of his purposes.

Armed with a box of paper collars and a couple of calico shirts, with an audacity strangely at variance with his late hang-dog mien while being kicked and cuffed by officers and men of the Union forces, he marched into the conquered territory, and with that contempt for appearances created in him by his previous career, he made his head-quarters at some negro cabin or abandoned hovel and from thence issued his ukases and thunderbolts. The negroes were taught that the whites were their natural enemies and that he was the modern Moses to lift the yoke of Egyptian bondage and give over to them the lands that flowed with milk and honey.. The carpet-bagger found a congenial spirit in the scalawag, and with combined forces they helped themselves to all the offices of trust and profit (we were about to say honor) within the gift of the people. Then commenced a system of plunder and corruption which would have beggared States that had known no trouble.