Before he was grown, his father moved from South Carolina into Georgia, settling in Union County, near a little valley named Gaddistown. Up to this time, though young Brown was nineteen years of age, he had learned nothing but reading, writing, and arithmetic, and very little of these. He was now compelled to work harder than ever. Settling in a new country, and on new land that had to be cleared before it would yield a crop, the Browns had as much as they could do to get the farm in order in time for the planting season; and in this severe work, Joseph E., being the eldest son, was the chief reliance of the family. He had a pair of small steers with which he plowed; and when he wasn't plowing on the farm, he was hauling wood and butter and vegetables to the small market at Dahlonega, and taking back in truck and trade some necessary article for the family. In this way he learned the lessons of patience, self-control, and tireless industry that all boys ought to learn, because they are not only the basis of content and happiness, but of all success.

When Joe Brown was twenty years old, his father allowed him to seek an education. All he could do for the industrious and ambitious boy was to give him his blessing and the yoke of steers with which he had been plowing. With these young Brown returned to South Carolina and entered an academy in Anderson district He gave the steers for eight months' board, and went into debt for the tuition fee. In the fall of 1841 he returned to Georgia and taught school for three months, and with the money he received for this he paid for the schooling he had gone in debt for. He returned to the Carolina academy in 1842, and went into debt not only for his schooling, but for his board. His patience and his untiring industry enabled him to make such rapid progress that within two years he had fitted himself to enter an advanced class in college. But the lack of means prevented him from entering college. Instead he returned to Georgia and opened a school at Canton, Cherokee County. He opened this school with six pupils, and the number rapidly increased to sixty, so that he was able in a short time to settle the debts he had made in Carolina. He taught school all day, and at night and on Saturdays devoted himself to the study of law. He was admitted to the bar in 1845, and was at once successful. He made no pretense of oratory; but his simple and unpretending style, his homely and direct way of putting a case, and his faculty of applying the test of common sense to all questions, were as successful with juries as they afterwards proved to be with the people; and before the people he was irresistible.



But he was not yet through with his studies. A friend advanced him the money necessary to enter the Law School of Yale; and there, from October, 1845, to June, 1846, when he graduated, he took the lead in all his classes, and had time to attend lectures in other departments of the college. He returned home, began active practice, and was soon prosperous. He became a State senator, and was afterwards made a judge of the superior courts.

When the Democratic Convention met in Milledgeville in 1857, for the purpose of nominating a candidate for governor, it had so many popular candidates to choose from, and these candidates had so many and such strong friends, that the members found it impossible to agree on a man. A great many ballots were taken, and there was a good deal of "log-rolling" and "buttonholing," as the politicians call it, on behalf of the various candidates by their special friends. But all this did no good. There was a deadlock. No one of the candidates was able to obtain a two-thirds majority, which, according to Democratic law, was the number necessary to a nomination. Twenty-one ballots had been taken with no result, and the convention had been in session three days. Finally it was decided to appoint a special committee made up of three delegates from each congressional district. It was the duty of this committee to name a candidate on whom the convention could agree. When this committee retired, it was proposed that a ballot be taken, each committeeman writing the name of the candidate of his choice on a slip of paper, and depositing the slip in a hat. This was done; but before the ballots were counted, Judge Linton Stephens, a brother of Alexander H., stated that such a formality was not necessary. He thereupon moved that Judge Joseph E. Brown of Cherokee be selected as the compromise man, and that his name be reported to the convention. This was agreed to unanimously, and Joseph E. Brown was nominated; and yet, if the written ballots had been counted, it would have been found that Alfred H. Colquitt, who afterwards became so distinguished in Georgia, had been nominated by the committee. He received a majority of one of the written ballots when they were afterwards counted through curiosity. Twenty-three years later, Colquitt, who was then governor, made Joseph E. Brown a United States senator under circumstances that aroused strong opposition, and immediately afterwards Brown aided Colquitt to a reelection in one of the bitterest contests the State has ever witnessed.

The unexpected nomination of Brown by the convention of 1857 introduced into State politics the most potent element that it had ever known. The nomination, surprising as it was, was not half so surprising as some of the results that have followed it. At the moment the convention nominated him, Joe Brown was tying wheat in one of his fields near Canton, in Cherokee County. He was then judge of the Blue Ridge Circuit; and on the day that his name was placed before the Democratic Convention at Milledgeville, he had returned home. After dinner he went out into his farm to see how his men were getting on. He had four men cutting wheat with cradles, and he found the binders very much behind. About half-past two o'clock he pulled off his coat and ordered the binders to keep up with him. It was on the 15th of June, 1857. The weather was very warm, but he kept at work all the afternoon. About sundown he went home, and was preparing to bathe, when a neighbor, who had been to Marietta and heard the news, rode to his house and told him about the nomination, which had been made at three o'clock that afternoon. Telling about the incident afterwards, Joe Brown, with a twinkle in his eye, said that he had heard that a good many men were anxious to buy that wheat field, so as to have an opportunity to tie wheat in it while a nominating convention was in session.

The great majority of the people of the State were as much puzzled about Joe Brown as Toombs was. Either they had not heard of him before, or they had forgotten him. In those days a man who made a reputation in the Cherokee country was not known to the rest of the State for a long time. The means of communication were slow and uncertain. But the whole State found him out just as Toombs did. He was prompt to begin the campaign. Toombs had already left the Whig party, and was acting with the Democrats. Stephens had left the Whigs, but had not become a Democrat. He was an Independent. He was, as he expressed it, "toting his own skillet." Ben Hill was Joe Brown's opponent, and these two met in debate before the people on two or three occasions. It was thought at first that Mr. Hill had the advantage of the tall and ungainly candidate from Cherokee, but the end of the contest showed that the advantage was all the other way. Mr. Hill was a man of very marked ability. He was one of the few good speakers who could write well, and one of the few fine writers who could speak well. He had courage, he had wit, he had learning, he had eloquence; he had everything, in fact, to attract popular approval and entice a popular following; but somehow, and until the very latest years of his life, he fell far short of being a popular idol. He was showy and effective before a mixed crowd, he never failed to attract applause, and it was supposed that Brown was making a losing campaign; but the campaign was going just the other way. Hill, in the course of his discussion, said hundreds of things that the people applauded; while Brown said hundreds of things that the people remembered, and carried home with them, and thought over. Joe Brown was not only a man of the people, but a man of the country people; and he pleased the city people who had formerly lived in the country. The result of the campaign was that Know-nothingism was buried out of sight in Georgia. Joe Brown was elected by more than ten thousand majority, and the Democratic majority in the Legislature was overwhelming.

Although he was only thirty-six years old when he became governor, the people began to call him "Old Judgment." This was due no less to his peculiar gift of hard common sense than to his peculiar pronunciation. His speech and his ways were "countrified," and they remained so all the days of his life. His voice was not musical, and he had a peculiar drawling intonation, which, if it had been a little more nasal, would have been an exact reproduction of the tone and manner of the Down-east Yankee. He shared these peculiarities with hundreds of the descendants of the Puritans who settled in the mountains of East Tennessee and North Georgia. He had no wish for the luxuries of life; and though he lived comfortably, he never, even when by close economy he had accumulated one of the largest fortunes in Georgia, cared to live finely. He was a plain man at first and a plain man at last, always temperate, industrious, and economical.

His term of office in the governor's chair was for two years, and at the end of that time he had almost entirely remolded and refashioned his party. He had stamped his own personality and character upon it, and it became in truth and in fact the party of the people,—the common people. In his management of State affairs he had introduced the plain business methods suggested by common sense; he dispensed with all unnecessary officials; he shook off all the hangers-on; he uprooted all personal schemes: so that when the time came to nominate a man to succeed him, it was found that the people had no other choice. His party thought of no other name.

The year of Joe Brown's second nomination, as we have seen, was the year that witnessed John Brown's ridiculous raid into Virginia. The people of the South, however, thought it was a very serious matter, and the people of Georgia were not different from those of the rest of the South. Some very wise men allowed themselves to be led away by their passions. Even Joe Brown, as Alexander Stephens once said, "tucked his judgment under the bed" for the time being. Back of the indignation created by the John Brown raid was the unconfessed and half-formed fear that the Northern abolitionists would send their agents to the South and organize a negro insurrection. Many of the Southern people remembered the horrors of San Domingo, and there was a vague and an undefined but constant dread that such a rising of the blacks would take place in the South. But there never was any such danger in Georgia. The relations between the slaves and their masters were too friendly and familiar to make such an uprising possible. The abolitionists did send agents to the South to stir the negroes to rebellion, and some of them came to Georgia, but in every instance their mission became known to the whites through the friendliness of the blacks. There was always some negro ready to tell his master's family when the abolition agents made their appearance. Still the people resented to the utmost the spirit that moved certain so-called philanthropists of the North to endeavor to secure the freedom of the negroes by means of the torch and midnight murder.

Consequently in 1859, when Joe Brown was nominated for governor the second time, the people were greatly stirred. Sectional feeling ran high. In that year began the active movement that led to secession and the civil war. If all our statesmen had been as wise as Mr. Stephens and Mr. Hill, war would have been averted. Slavery itself, in the very nature of things, was doomed. It had accomplished its providential mission. It had civilized and christianized millions of savages who had been redeemed from slavery in their own land. It had justified its own ends, and would have passed away in good time, no matter what compromise may have been made.

Mr. Stephens and Mr. Hill were opposed to secession. They were for fighting, if there must be a fight, in the Union, and this was the true policy. For a while the people of Georgia were earnestly in favor of this; but the efforts of the abolitionists to stir the negroes to insurrection, and the inflammatory appeals of some of the leading men, led them to oppose a policy which was at once just, wise, and considerate. Even Joseph E. Brown, cool, calculating, placid, and not easily-swayed by emotion, became a disunionist, demonstrating once again that beneath the somber and calm exterior of the Puritan is to be found a nature as combative and as unyielding as that which marks the Cavalier.

Joe Brown was reelected in 1859, and did everything in his power as governor to hasten the event of secession. The National Democratic Convention met in Charleston, and the meeting showed that the differences between the Democrats could not be settled; and it so happened, that, while the South was opposed by the solid and rapidly growing Republican party, the people of the South were divided among themselves. What is most remarkable, the people of the South, after making the election of the Republican candidate certain by dividing among themselves, seemed to be amazed at the result. In some instances county meetings were held in Georgia, and resolutions sent to the Legislature declaring the election of Lincoln and Hamlin "a violation of national comity." Nothing could show more clearly that the minds of the voters were upset.

On Dec. 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union, and the event was made the occasion for great rejoicing by the secession element in Georgia. Bonfires were kindled, guns were fired, and people seemed to be wild with enthusiasm. Georgia did not secede until Jan. 19, 1861; but Governor Brown did not wait for that event. He committed the first overt act of the war. He seized Fort Pulaski, on the Savannah, Jan. 3, 1861.

On the 22d of January, ten cases of muskets belonging to a firm in Macon were seized by the New York police after they had been placed on board a vessel. Governor Brown sent a telegram to Governor Morgan, demanding the release of these arms. Governor Morgan hesitated some time before he made any response. Meanwhile, Governor Brown waited three days, and then ordered the seizure of every ship in the harbor of Savannah belonging to citizens of New York. Two brigs, two barks, and a schooner were seized and held by the State troops. When this seizure was made known, Governor Brown received official notification that the arms had been released. He therefore ordered the release of the vessels. But when the agents of the Macon firm made an effort to get the arms, they were refused. Promptly Governor Brown seized other vessels, and caused them to be advertised for sale.

This was merely the beginning of those greater events that cast a shadow over the whole country. The farmer boy of Gaddistown was reelected governor in 1861, and continued to hold the office until 1865.



GEORGIA IN THE WAR.



When the Southern Confederacy was organized at Montgomery, Ala., there was great enthusiasm all over the South, especially in Georgia; and this feeling kept up until the State had given to the Confederate armies a hundred and twenty thousand soldiers, twenty thousand more than its voting population. By reason of the fame and number of its public men, Georgia had a controlling influence in the organization of the new government. Howell Cobb was president of the convention of the seceded States that met in Montgomery on the fourth day of February, 1861; and it is well known that the convention itself was in favor of making Robert Toombs president of the provisional government that was there formed. Mr. Toombs, however, expressly forbade the use of his name. The Georgia delegates then concluded to support Jefferson Davis of Mississippi for president, and Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia for vice-president.

Only a few men doubted that the South would conquer the North, and among these was Herschel V. Johnson. There was an idea abroad, that one Southerner could whip a dozen Northerners. Nobody knows how this idea got out, nor why the absurdity of it was not plain to all; but the newspapers were full of it, and the speech makers insisted on it so roundly that the people began to believe it. One orator declared that he could take one company of "Southrons," arm them with popguns, and run a regiment of Yankees out of the country. Another stated that he would be willing to drink all the blood that would be shed as the result of secession. It is said that both of these orators were asked for an explanation by their constituents after the war was over. The first said that the reason he didn't run the Yankees out of the country with popguns was because they wouldn't fight that way. The second one, who had promised to drink all the blood, said that exposure in camp had interfered with his digestion, and his appetite wasn't as good as it ought to be.

At this time and afterwards there was an overwhelming sentiment in favor of the Union in some parts of North Georgia. The people of that section had few slaves, and the arguments in favor of the protection of slavery in the Territories did not appeal to them: consequently they were opposed to secession. There was but one thing that prevented serious trouble between these Union men and the State government, and that was the fact that Joe Brown was governor. He knew the North Georgians thoroughly, and he knew precisely how to deal with them. General Harrison W. Riley, a leading citizen of Lumpkin County, declared that he intended to seize the mint at Dahlonega, and hold it for the United States. This threat was telegraphed to Governor Brown by some of the secession leaders in that part of the State, and they appealed to him to send troops to Dahlonega at once, and seize the mint by force. But the governor knew Riley and the people of North Georgia too well to make any show of force. He knew that any such demonstration would excite sympathy for Riley, and inflame the Union sentiment there.. So Governor Brown wrote to some of Riley's friends, telling them what he had heard, and saying that he had known General Riley too long, and had too high an opinion of his good sense and patriotism, to believe the report. At the same time the governor informed the superintendent of the mint that the State of Georgia now held that institution. The superintendent said he was willing to act under the orders of the governor.

At Jasper, the county seat of Pickens County, the feeling of loyalty to the Union was very strong. The delegate from that county to the State convention had refused to sign his name to the ordinance of secession. Soon after the State had seceded, the citizens of Jasper planted a pole, and raised on it a United States flag, and kept it floating there for several weeks in open defiance of the Confederate and State authorities. This was an event to be delicately handled. The slightest mistake would have created a state of feeling in North Georgia that would have given no end of trouble during the whole war. But the Union flag floating in Pickens County irritated the rest of the State; and hundreds of appeals were made to Governor Brown to send troops to Jasper, and have the flag taken down by force. To these appeals he made but one response, and then turned a deaf ear to all criticism. "Let the flag float there," he said. "It floated over our fathers, and we all love the flag now. We have only been compelled to lay it aside by the injustice that has been practiced under its folds. If the people of Pickens desire to hang it out and keep it there, let them do so. I shall send no troops to interfere with it."

While this wise management on the part of Governor Brown did not change the sentiments of the Union men of North Georgia, it prevented any serious outbreak, and kept them soothed and quieted throughout the war. Matters were managed differently in East Tennessee; and the result was, that the Union men of that section went into the business of bushwhacking, and created a great deal of trouble. While Governor Brown exercised authority without regard for precedent, the time and the occasion being without precedent, he was very wise and very prudent in meeting such emergencies as those that arose in North Georgia.

By the time the election for governor came on, Joe Brown had aroused a good deal of opposition. He had had a controversy with the Confederate authorities because the latter had enrolled troops from Georgia without first making a requisition on the governor. He had seized several cargoes of salt which the speculators had been holding for higher prices. There was at that early day, and all during the war, a salt famine in the South. The farmers found it difficult to save their meat, owing to the scarcity of salt. It is a curious fact, that, when the famine was at its height, a pound of salt was worth a pound of silver. Foreseeing this famine, a great many shrewd business men had laid in large stocks of salt, storing it about in large warehouses in different parts of the State. They were about to realize immense fortunes out of the sufferings of the people, when Governor Brown stepped in and seized all the salt the State authorities could lay hands on, and prohibited the shipment of the article out of the State. The Legislature afterwards came to the support of the governor; but if the matter had been discussed in the Legislature in advance of the action of the executive, the speculators would have had timely notice, and the State authorities would have found no salt to seize.



This salt famine was almost as serious as any result of the war, and it hung over the State until the close of the contest. In thousands of instances the planters who had been prodigal of salt before the war, dug up the dirt floors of their smokehouses, and managed to extract a small supply of the costly article. The Legislature was compelled to organize a salt bureau, and for that purpose half a million dollars was appropriated. The State, in self-defense, took into its own hands the monopoly of manufacturing salt and of distributing it to the people.

The next difficulty with which the people of Georgia had to contend was the Conscription Act. This act passed the Confederate Congress in April, 1862. It had been recommended by Mr. Davis in a special message, and Congress promptly passed it. Nobody in Georgia could understand why such a law had been recommended, or why it had passed. It was the most ruinous blunder of the Confederate Government during the war. If such a law was necessary, it showed that the Confederacy had fallen to pieces. If it was not necessary, its enactment was a stupendous piece of folly; and such it turned out to be. Under the last call for troops for Confederate service, Governor Brown had no difficulty in furnishing eighteen regiments. He could have gone on furnish ing troops as long as there was any fighting material left in the State; but as soon as the Conscript Act went into operation, the ardor of the people sensibly cooled. The foolish law not only affected the people at home, but hurt the army in the field. It was a reflection on the patriotism of the whole Southern population. The law was the occasion of a controversy between Governor Brown and President Davis, in which Brown, in the nature of things, had a decided advantage; for the Conscript Act wiped out the whole theory of State rights, on which the people of the South depended to justify secession. But Georgia did not stand in the way of the law. It was enforced, and the terms of its enforcement did the work of disorganization more thoroughly than the hard times and the actual war were doing it.

In March, 1863, the governor issued a proclamation convening the Legislature in special session to discuss the subject of bread. This was a very important subject at that time. In his message, the governor said that the time had come for the farmers to raise bread instead of cotton. He also laid before the Legislature' the reports of the distribution of the fund of two and a half millions of dollars for the support of the indigent families of soldiers. These reports showed what havoc the war had created among the people of a State which, not much more than two years before, was one of the most prosperous in the country. The fund had been distributed among more than eighty-four thousand people. Of this number, about forty-six thousand were children, twenty-four thousand were kinswomen of poor living soldiers, eight thousand were orphans, four thousand were widows of dead soldiers, and five hundred were soldiers disabled in service. Governor Brown, out of his own barn, gave the people of Cherokee County four thousand dollars' worth of corn. These events show the straits to which the people had been reduced by two years of actual war.

It should be borne in mind, however, that the people had to fight the Union army in front, and the speculators and extortioners in the rear. Governor Brown tried hard to make the lives of this latter class entirely miserable, and he succeeded in a way that delighted the people. Wherever he could get his hands on a speculator or extortioner, he shook him up. He made many seizures, and confiscated the hoards of a great many men who had influence with some of the newspapers; and in this way life in the State was made almost as exciting as the experience of the soldiers at the front.

In 1863, Governor Brown wanted to retire from office. The strain on his health and strength had been very severe, and he felt that he was breaking down. He wanted to make Toombs, who was then a general in the army, his successor. But Brown's friends insisted that he should make the race. The public opinion of Georgia and of the whole South insisted on it. So he became a candidate for a fourth term. He had two opponents,—Joshua Hill, who had been a strong Union man; and Timothy Furlow, who was an ardent secessionist and a strong supporter of the Confederate administration; but Governor Brown was elected by a large majority over both candidates.

The war went steadily on, and during the year 1864 Georgia became the battle ground,—the strategic point. This fact the Union commanders realized very early, and began their movements accordingly. Virginia was merely the gateway to the Confederacy, but Georgia was very near the center of its vitality. This was shown by the fact that when Atlanta fell, and Sherman began his destructive march to the sea, it was known on all sides that the Confederate Government was doomed. This movement, strange to say, was hastened by the Confederate authorities. General Joseph E. Johnston, one of the greatest commanders of the war, was removed at a critical moment, when his well-disciplined army had reached Atlanta. He was ordered from Richmond to turn his army over to the command of General Hood, and within a very few days the fate of the Confederacy had been decided. Hood at once ordered an attack on Sherman's lines. He was repulsed, and then compelled to evacuate the city. General Sherman detached General Thomas from his main army to follow Hood on his march toward the Tennessee, and moved across the State to Savannah. Within a very few months thereafter the war was brought to a close. Colonel I. W. Avery, in his "History of Georgia," says that on the thirty-first day of December, 1864, one dollar in gold was worth forty-nine dollars in Confederate money. The private soldier received eleven dollars of this money for a month's service. He could buy a pound of meat with his month's pay. He could buy a drink of whisky, and have one dollar left over. With four months' pay he could buy a bushel of wheat. General Toombs once humorously declared that a negro pressman worked all day printing money, and then until nine o'clock at night to pay himself off. There was a grain of truth in this humor,—just enough to picture the situation as by a charcoal sketch.



A DARING ADVENTURE.

On the 12th day of April, 1862, the anniversary of the firing on Fort Sumter by the Confederates, a passenger train pulled out of the old car shed in Atlanta. It was a "mixed" train, being composed of three freight cars, a baggage car, and the passenger coaches. The train started from Atlanta at an early hour, arrived at Marietta about daylight, and stopped at Big Shanty, about seven miles north of Marietta, for breakfast. At Marietta, early as the hour was, quite a crowd of passengers were waiting to take the train. This excited no remark. There was a good deal of travel and traffic on the State Road at that time, for it was the key to the Confederacy—the one artery that connected the army at the front with its source of supplies.

The conductor of the train was Captain William A. Fuller, of Atlanta. Captain Fuller's title was not one of courtesy. He was a captain in the Confederate Army, on detached service. The engineer in charge of the locomotive was Jeff Cain. Mr. Antony Murphy, an employee of the road, was also on the train. At Big Shanty the passengers were allowed twenty minutes for breakfast, but the train men were in the habit of dispatching their meal a little quicker than this, so as to see that everything about the locomotive was shipshape when the conductor tapped the bell. Captain Fuller, sitting at a table near a window, had a full view of the train. He had hardly begun to eat before he saw the locomotive (the now famous "General") and the three freight cars pull out, and heard the gong sound as the cord snapped. He rose instantly and rushed from the breakfast room, followed by Engineer Cain and Antony Murphy. He saw the "General" going at full speed up the road with three freight cars attached. Without hesitation Captain Fuller started after the flying train on foot, followed by Cain and Murphy. Hundreds of soldiers were idling about the station. They had no idea what was taking place. They thought either that the locomotive had been carried up the track to take on or leave a freight car, or that some practical joker was playing a prank. They showed their enjoyment of the situation by laughing and cheering loudly when Captain Fuller, followed by Engineer Cain and Mr. Murphy, started after the "General "on foot.



The locomotive had been captured, and had the plan of its captors been successful, a paralyzing, perhaps a fatal, blow would have been struck at the Confederacy. The way the capture had come about was this: Early in 1862 the Federal commanders planned an advance on Chattanooga; but the fact that stood in their way was, that at various points along the line of railroad leading from Atlanta to Chattanooga, Confederate troops had been posted: consequently the moment an advance on Chattanooga was made, soldiers and war supplies could be hurried forward to the relief of the city. It was General Mitchell of the Federal army who planned the advance; and it was J. J. Andrews, an active spy in the Union service, who planned a raid by means of which it was intended to burn the bridges on the road north of Marietta, cut the telegraph wires, and thus destroy for a time the lines of transportation and communication between Atlanta and Chattanooga, and make the capture of the last-named point an easy matter. Andrews suggested to General Mitchell that a party of bold men could make their way to a station on the Western and Atlantic Railway (called the State Road because it was owned by the State), capture a locomotive, and then steam towards Chattanooga, burning the bridges and cutting the telegraph lines as they went along. Although there seemed to be small chance for the success of such a daring adventure, General Mitchell gave his consent to it, agreeing to pay Andrews sixty thousand dollars if he succeeded. To aid him, Andrews was allowed to select a number of young men who had already made a reputation in the Federal army for intelligence and bravery.

There were twenty-four men in this small expedition when it started for Chattanooga. They were under the command of Andrews, who was a tall, handsome man with a long black beard. He was cold, impassive, and had the air of one who is born to command. He was bold as a lion, and never once lost his coolness, his firmness, or his decision. He and his men pretended to be Kentuckians who had become disgusted with the Lincoln government and were making their way South, where they might find more congenial company than that of the ardent Union men who were their neighbors at home. This story was plausible on the face of it, for many Southern sympathizers had fled from Tennessee and Kentucky when the Federals began to take possession of those sections.

Andrews and his men tramped southward more than a hundred miles before they reached Chattanooga. Before going into that city, they divided into smaller squads, and all but two succeeded in eluding guards, sentinels, and patrols, and passing into the town. They left Chattanooga on a train bound for Atlanta, buying tickets for Marietta. They reached Marietta in safety, and went to different hotels for the night. They had arranged to meet again at four o'clock the next morning and take the north-bound train. Two of the men were not called by the clerk of the hotel at which they stopped: consequently they overslept, and their companions had to go on without them when the train arrived. They had learned that Big Shanty had no telegraph office, and that it was a breakfast station. At that point Andrews determined to capture the locomotive. It was not long before the brakeman put his head in at the door of the car and yelled out, "Big Shanty! Twenty minutes for breakfast!"

Andrews and his men looked out of the windows of the car as the train drew up at the station, and the sight they saw was not calculated to make them feel certain of success. Opposite the station was a field covered with the tents of soldiers, and in and around the station thousands of soldiers were loitering and standing about. When the train stopped, Andrews, the leader, and Knight, an engineer who had come with the party, rose and left the coach on the side opposite the depot, and went to the locomotive, which they found empty. They also saw that the track was clear. Andrews and Knight then walked back until they came to the last of the three box cars. Andrews told his engineer to uncouple the baggage car from the box car, and then wait for him. Knight did as he was told, while Andrews walked leisurely back to the passenger coach, opened the door, and said quietly, "Now is our time, boys! Come on!"

The men rose at once and went out of the coach. Knight, as soon as he saw them coming, climbed into the locomotive, cut the bell rope, and stood with his hand on the throttle, waiting for the word. Andrews stood near the locomotive, and motioned with his hand for the men to get into the box cars, the doors of which were slid back. All the men were now in the box cars except Andrews, Knight, and another engineer named Brown, who ran forward and climbed into the locomotive. While this was going on, a sentinel stood within half a dozen yards of the train, but he had no idea what was occurring. Andrews gave the signal to go ahead. Instantly Knight pulled the throttle valve open, and the locomotive started forward with a jerk. It went puffing and snorting out of Big Shanty without let or hindrance.

But the train had not gone very far before the speed of the locomotive began to slacken. The fire in the furnace refused to burn, and the steam was low. While the engineer was trying to discover what was wrong, Andrews ordered the men to cut the telegraph wire and tear up a rail from the track. By the time the rail had been torn up and the wire cut, the engineer had discovered that the dampers of the fire box were closed. With these open, the boiler began to make steam again, and the locomotive was soon rattling over the rails once more. It was the intention of Andrews to run the captured train on the time of the regular passenger train, so that he would have only one train to meet and pass before reaching the Resaca River, where he intended to burn the bridge. This done, it would have been an easy matter to burn the bridges over the Chickamauga. This crooked stream winds about the valleys so unexpectedly, and in such curious fashion, that the railroad crosses it eleven times within a few miles. These eleven bridges Andrews intended to burn as he went along, and then he would not fear pursuit. His success seemed to be certain.

The captured locomotive, an old-fashioned machine with a big heavy smokestack, went clanking and clattering along the road, and reeling and rumbling through the towns, dragging after it the three box cars containing the men whom Andrews had brought with him. After passing a station, the locomotive would be stopped and the wire cut. When the train reached Cassville, wood and water were running low, and a stop was made to get a fresh supply. The doors of the box cars were closed, and the men inside could not be seen. The station agent at this place was very inquisitive. He wanted to know why so small and insignificant a freight train was running on the time of the morning passenger train. Andrews promptly told the agent that the train was not a freight, but an express, and that it was carrying three cars of gunpowder to Beauregard. The agent believed the story, and furnished Andrews with a train schedule.



From Cassville the distance to Kingston was seven miles, and at that point a freight train was to be passed. When Andrews reached the place, he found that the freight had not arrived. He therefore switched his train into a siding to wait for the freight train, and repeated his powder story for the benefit of the inquisitive. When the freight arrived, he saw that it carried a red flag. This meant another train was on the road. After another long half hour's wait, the second freight train came in sight, and Andrews was dismayed to see another red flag displayed. The railroad men said another train was following. The men on the captured train were compelled to wait more than an hour. To those shut up in the box cars this was a very trying time. They had no means of knowing what had happened, or what was about to happen, until Knight, the engineer, found an opportunity to saunter by and tell them what the trouble was. At the end of an hour the long wait was over. The freight trains had passed, and the captured locomotive, dragging the box cars, went swiftly out of Kingston. A short distance beyond, the usual stop was made, and the wires cut An attempt was made to tear up the track by some of the men, while others loaded the box cars with railroad ties. While engaged in this work, the men heard the screaming whistle of a locomotive in full pursuit. They were more than amazed: they were paralyzed. If a pursuing locomotive had sprung out of the ground at their feet with a full head of steam on, they could not have been more astonished. They had just passed three freight trains headed in the opposite direction, and now here was a pursuing locomotive coming after them at full speed, and with a full head of steam on. Making one spasmodic effort, they broke the rail they were trying to tear up.

Reaching Adairsville, Andrews and his men found that the passenger train had not arrived. But it was no time for waiting. They resolved to take every chance. The engineer had orders to send the locomotive along at full speed. He was very willing to do this. Calhoun was nine miles away, and if that station could be reached before the passenger train left, all would be well; if not, there was danger of a collision. But Andrews took all the chances. The throttle of the locomotive was pulled wide open, and the train started so suddenly and so swiftly that the men in the box cars were thrown from their feet. The distance to Calhoun was nine miles, and the train bearing Andrews and his men made it in seven minutes and a half,—pretty swift traveling, when it is remembered that the track was full of short curves, and not in the best condition.

As the locomotive neared Calhoun, Engineer Knight gave several loud blasts on the whistle; and it was well he did so, for the passenger train had just begun to pull out of Calhoun on its way to Adairsville. If the whistle had been blown a moment later than it was, the passenger train would have been under full headway, and the signal would not have been heard; but the passenger train had just begun to move, and was going slowly. The whistle was heard, and the engineer backed his train to Calhoun again. But when Andrews and his men arrived, they found a new difficulty in the way. The passenger train was such a long one that the rear end blocked the track. Andrews tried to get the conductor to move on to Adairsville and there meet the upbound passenger train; but that official was too badly scared by the danger he had just escaped to take any more chances, and he refused to budge until the other train should arrive. This would be fatal to the plans of Andrews, and that bold adventurer made up his mind that the time had come for force to be used. The conductor was finally persuaded to allow Andrews to go ahead with his powder train. He ran a little more than a mile beyond Calhoun, stopped his train, ordered the wire cut and another rail torn up. While they were busily engaged in this work, they were both amazed and alarmed to see a locomotive approaching from the direction of Calhoun. They had only bent the rail, and were compelled to leave it and get out of the way of their pursuers.

Andrews and his men were bold and intrepid, even reckless; but the man who had charge of the pursuit had all these qualities and more. Captain Fuller was possessed of an energy and a determination that allowed nothing to stand in their way.

We have seen how Captain Fuller sprang from the breakfast table at Big Shanty, and went running after the flying locomotive. Engineer Jeff Cain and Mr. Murphy followed after. The soldiers loitering about the station laughed and cheered at the queer spectacle of a conductor giving chase on foot to his locomotive which, with a part of his train, was running away under a full head of steam. All of Captain Fuller's energies were aroused to their highest pitch, and he easily distanced his companions. He ran fully three miles, and then came upon a squad of section hands who had been engaged in repairing the track. They were now very much excited. The captured locomotive had stopped with them long enough for the men on the box cars to seize all their tools and cut the telegraph wire, being careful to take away about fifty feet, so that the wire could not be promptly joined. From the demoralized section hands Captain Fuller learned of the number of men on the locomotive, and was given reason to suspect that they were Federals in disguise. The section hands had what was then called a pole car, a small affair which they pushed with poles from point to point. It had been derailed to make way for the up passenger train. Conductor Fuller had it lifted upon the track, and then debated with himself as to whether he should go back for his engineer, Jeff Cain, who, with Mr. Antony Murphy, had been left far behind. Concluding that it would be well to have his engineer with him, Captain Fuller pressed some of the section hands into service, and pushed down the road the way he had come, going more than a mile before he met Cain and Murphy. Once on the old hand car, Captain Fuller turned and again began the pursuit as energetically as before, although he knew that valuable time had been lost. Something of their leader's energy and dauntless spirit was imparted to the men with him, and they made tolerable speed with the pole car; but, suddenly, while they were poling along at a great rate, the car tumbled from the track. They had now come to the place where the would-be bridge burners had torn up the first rail. The pursuers were not hurt by the fall. They jumped to their feet, pushed the car over the obstruction, and were soon on their way again, going even more rapidly than before. In this way the pursuit led by Captain Fuller came to Etowah Station. Here he found the old "Yonah," a locomotive belonging to the Mark A. Cooper Iron Works. The "Yonah" was a superannuated engine, but Captain Fuller pressed it and its crew into his service. The rickety old "Yonah" seemed to enter into the spirit of the pursuit, for the distance to Kingston—thirteen miles—was made in twelve minutes.

As Andrews and his men had been delayed at Kingston for more than an hour waiting for the freight trains to allow him to pass, the pursuers, led by Captain Fuller, arrived at Kingston only ten minutes after the raiders left. The tracks were crowded with these freight trains when the "Yonah" arrived, and Captain Fuller saw at a glance that the locomotive would be of no further service in the chase. He leaped from the engine, and ran about two miles to the north angle of the Rome railway, where he knew he would find the locomotive of the Rome road standing at this hour. He pressed the engine and crew into service, and again took up the pursuit of the fleeing raiders.

Andrews and his men, in the meantime, had stopped and loaded their box cars with old cross-ties and discarded rails These they began to throw out of the rear end of their hindmost car as a measure of safety. They did not suspect pursuit at this time, but they took the precaution to obstruct the track in this manner. Six miles north of Kingston the raiders stopped and tore up several rails. Captain Fuller rode on the pilot of his engine, and removed such of the obstructions as were not knocked off by the cowcatcher.

When Captain Fuller reached the point where the rails had been removed, his locomotive was useless. But his blood was now up. He abandoned the engine, and ran on foot towards Adairsville, where he knew he would find a through freight train. In fact he met it after he had run about three miles, flagged it down, reversed it, and carried it back to Adairsville. There, taking the engine, tender forward, with its crew, he renewed the pursuit. The locomotive was run at an extraordinary rate of speed; but Captain Fuller felt it to be his duty to ride on the bumper of the tender, a precarious position even when there is no danger of obstructions. Beyond Calhoun, Andrews and his men stopped to cut the telegraph wire and tear up more rails. They had pried a rail above the stringers when they heard the pursuing locomotive, and saw it rounding a curve half a mile away. They scrambled into their cars in a hurry, leaving the rail bent but not removed. Captain Fuller saw the bent rail, but he had also seen the game, and he allowed his engine to be driven over it under a full head of steam.

From this point the chase was the most thrilling and reckless of which there is any record. Andrews resorted to his old trick of dropping cross-ties, but he soon saw that this would not do. Then he uncoupled one of his box cars. Captain Fuller picked it up, and pushed it ahead. Andrews uncoupled another. This was served the same way, and at Resaca the cars were run on a siding. The "General," commanded by Andrews, was now forward, with one car, while the "Texas," commanded by Captain Fuller, and driven by Peter Bracken, was running tender forward, with Fuller standing on the brake board, or bumper. The locomotives were about evenly matched. Both had five-foot ten-inch drivers, and both were running under all the pressure their boilers could carry.

All thought of danger was lost sight of. The pursued had no time to hatch any scheme calculated to delay pursuit. The pursuers forgot to look for obstructions. On one side it was capture or die; on the other it was escape at all hazards. The people of the towns and villages through which the road passes knew not what to make of the spectacle. Before they could recover from the surprise of seeing a locomotive with one box car dash wildly past the station, they were struck dumb with amazement by the sight of another locomotive thundering by, tender forward, a tall man standing on the bumper and clinging to the brake rod.

They were going at a terrific rate of speed, but Peter Bracken, the brave engineer of the "Texas," knew his locomotive so well, and handled her with such a nice eye for her weak as well as her strong points, that the pursuers gradually shortened the distance between them and the raiders. The "General" was a good locomotive in its day and time, but it was in unfamiliar hands. Any locomotive engineer will tell you that a man must be thoroughly acquainted with his machine, and somewhat in love with it to boot, to get the best speed out of it, when speed is necessary.

The raiders were pushed so closely that they soon found it necessary to abandon their engine and car. Three miles north of Ringgold, they slowed down a little, and, seizing a favorable opportunity, tumbled out, and fled through the woods in all directions. It might be supposed that Captain Fuller would be satisfied with recapturing his locomotive, which was in all respects a remarkable achievement. But he had other views. He knew that there would be no safety for the road with the bridge burners at large, and so he made up his mind to be satisfied with nothing less than their capture. In passing through Ringgold, three miles back, he had noticed a company of militia drilling in an old field. So he sent word to the commanding officer by his engineer, Peter Bracken (who, with his fireman, took the two locomotives back to Ringgold), to mount his men as promptly as possible, and join in the chase of the fugitives. This message dispatched, Captain Fuller and two of his men, Fleming Cox and Alonzo Martin, ran into the woods after the fleeing raiders. Jeff Cain, the engineer of the "General," had been left with the Rome locomotive. Mr. Antony Murphy remained in the chase until the "General" was recaptured, and returned to Ringgold with the two locomotives.

All the raiders were caught and imprisoned. Andrews was known to be a spy, and he, with seven of his men who could establish no connection with the Federal army in any branch of the service, was hanged. Six escaped, and made their way to the Federal lines. The rest were regularly exchanged.

Perhaps those that were hanged deserved a better fate. They were brave to recklessness, and were engaged in the boldest adventure of the war. Their scheme was most skillfully planned, and courageously undertaken, and if it had succeeded,—if the bridges had been burned and the door of the Confederate granaries closed,—the result would have been what it was when Sherman, with a large army, and at the sacrifice of many men and much treasure, closed the State Road to the Confederates in Virginia.

Andrews and his men came near accomplishing, by one bold stroke, pretty much all that Sherman accomplished in crippling the Confederates. It was only by the merest chance that they had such a man as Captain Fuller to oppose them. If they had arrived at Marietta the day before or the day after, the probability is that they would have succeeded in their daring venture. Captain Fuller was more than the equal of Andrews in all those qualities that sustain men in moments of great emergency, and greatly his superior in those moral acquirements that lead men to take risks and make sacrifices on behalf of their convictions, and in the line of their duty.



THE RECONSTRUCTION PERIOD.

The people of the State had not recovered from the chaos and confusion into which they had been thrown by Sherman's march to the sea, when the news came that Lee had surrendered in Virginia, and General Joseph E. Johnston (who had been restored to his command) in North Carolina. Thus a sudden and violent end had been put to all hopes of establishing a separate government. General Sherman, who was as relentless in war as he was pacific and gentle when the war was over, had, in coming to terms with General Johnston, advanced the theory that the South never had dissolved the Union, and that the States were restored to their old places the moment they laid down their arms. This theory was not only consistent with the views of the Union men of the North, but with the nature and character of the Republic itself. But in the short and common-sense cut that Sherman had made to a solution, he left the politicians out in the cold, and they cried out against it as a hideous and ruthless piece of assumption on the part of a military man to attempt to have any opinions after the war was over. Any settlement that left the politicians out in the cold was not to be tolerated. Some of these gentlemen had a very big and black crow to pick with the South. Some of them, in the course of the long debate over slavery, had had their feelings hurt by Southern men; and although these wrangles had been purely personal and individual, the politicians felt that the whole South ought to be humiliated still further.

The politicians would have been entirely harmless if the life of President Lincoln had been spared. During the war, Mr. Lincoln was greatly misunderstood even at the North; but it is now the general verdict of history, that, take him for all in all, he was beyond all comparison the greatest man of his time, the one man who, above all others, was best fitted to bring the people of the two sections together again, and to make the Union a more perfect Union than ever before. But unfortunately Mr. Lincoln fell by the hands of an assassin, and never had an opportunity to carry out the great policy of pacification which could only have been sustained at that time by his great influence, by his patience, that was supreme, and by his wisdom, that has proved to be almost infallible in working out the salvation of the Union. After Lee's surrender, the interests of the South could have sustained no severer blow than the death of Lincoln. His successor, Andrew Johnson, was a well-meaning man, but a very narrow-minded one in some respects, and a very weak one in others. It is but justice to him to say that he did his best to carry out Lincoln's policy of pacification, and his failure was no greater than that of any other leading politician of his time would have been.

It would be impossible to describe the condition of the people at this time. There was no civil law in operation, and the military government that had been established was not far-reaching enough to restrain violence of any sort. The negroes had been set free, and were supported by means of a "freedmen's bureau." They were free, and yet they wanted some practical evidence of it. To obtain this, they left the plantations on which they had been born, and went tramping about the country in the most restless and uneasy manner.



A great many of them believed that freedom meant idleness, such as they had seen white folks indulge in. The country negroes flocked to the towns and cities in great numbers, and the freedmen's bureau, active as its agents were, had a great deal more than it could attend to. Such peace and order as existed was not maintained by any authority, but grew naturally out of the awe that had come over both whites and blacks at finding their condition and their relations so changed. The whites could hardly believe that slavery no longer existed. The negroes had grave doubts as to whether they were really free. To make matters worse, a great many small politicians, under pretense of protecting the negroes, but really to secure their votes, began a crusade against the South in Congress, the like of which can hardly be found paralleled outside of our own history. The people of the South found out long ago that the politicians of the hour did not represent the intentions and desires of the people of the North; and there is much comfort and consolation to be got out of that fact, even at this late day. But at that time the bitterest dose of reconstruction was the belief that the best opinion of the North sustained the ruinous policy that had been put in operation.

The leading men of the State were all disfranchised,—deprived of the privilege of voting, a privilege that was freely conferred on the negroes. A newspaper editor in Macon was imprisoned, and his paper suppressed, for declaring, in regard to taking the amnesty oath, that he had to "fortify himself for the occasion with a good deal of Dutch courage." The wife of General Toombs was ordered by an assistant commissioner of the freedmen's bureau to vacate her home with only two weeks' provisions, the grounds of the order being that the premises were "abandoned property," and, as such, were to be seized, and applied to the uses of the freedmen's bureau. The superior officer of this assistant commissioner, being a humane and kindly man, revoked the order.

These were the days when the carpet-bagger and the scalawag flourished,—the camp followers of the Northern army, who wanted money and office; and the native-born Southerner, who wanted office and money. There is no doubt that the indignities heaped on the people led to acts of retaliation that nothing else could excuse; but they were driven to desperation. It seemed, in that hour, that their liberties had been entirely withdrawn. Governor Brown, who had formerly been so popular, was denounced because he advised Georgians to accept the situation. He, with other wise men, thought it was a waste of time and opportunity to discuss constitutional questions at a moment when the people were living under bayonet rule. Joe Brown's plan was to accept the situation, and then get rid of it as quickly as possible. Ben Hill's plan was to fight it to the last. There was a fierce controversy between these two leaders; and such strong expressions were used on both sides, that General Pope made them the subject of a curious letter to his commander in chief, General Grant.

General Pope seemed to be afraid that war was about to break out again, and he assumed charge of everything. He removed and appointed mayors of cities, solicitors, and sheriffs. He closed the State University because a student made a speech which was in effect a defense of civil law. After a while the general said he would reopen the institution if the press of the State would say nothing about the affair. In 1867, General Pope ordered an election to be held for delegates to a State convention. The polls were kept open five days, and voters were allowed to vote in any precinct in any county upon their making oath that they were entitled to vote. The convention met, but, in the nature of things, could not be a representative body. Thousands of the best and most representative men of the State were not allowed to vote, and thousands of other good men refused to take part in an election held under the order of a military commander: consequently, when the convention met, its membership was made up of the political rag-tag-and-bobtail of that day. There were a few good men in the body, but they had little influence over the ignorant negroes and vicious whites who had taken advantage of their first and last opportunity to hold office.

The authority of this convention was not recognized by the State government, and this contest gave rise to a fresh conflict between the State officials and the military dictators who had been placed over them. The convention needed money to pay its expenses, and passed an ordinance directing the treasurer of the State to pay forty thousand dollars for this purpose to the disbursing officer of the convention. General Pope issued an order to the treasurer to pay this amount. The treasurer declined to pay out the money, for the simple reason that he was forbidden by law to pay out money except on an order or warrant drawn by the governor, and sanctioned by the comptroller general.

About this time General Meade was appointed to rule in Georgia in place of General Pope, and he found this matter unsettled when he took charge. So he wrote to Governor Jenkins, and requested him to draw his warrant on the treasury for forty thousand dollars. The governor could find no authority in law for paying over this sum, and he therefore refused. But civil government was not of much importance to the military at that time; so, when he had received the governor's letter, General Meade drew a sheet of paper before him, called for pen and ink, and issued "General Order No. 8," in which the announcement is made that "the following-named officers are detailed for duty in the district of Georgia: Brevet Brigadier General Thomas H. Ruger, Colonel 33d Infantry, to be Governor of the State of Georgia; Brevet Captain Charles F. Rockwell, Ordnance Corps U. S. Army, to be Treasurer of the State of Georgia."

In this way the rag-tag-and-bobtail convention got its money, but it got also the hatred and contempt of the people; and the Republican party,—the party that had been molded and made by the wise policy of Lincoln,—by indorsing these foolish measures of reconstruction, and putting its influence behind the outrages that were committed in the name of "loyalty," aroused prejudices in the minds of the Southern people that have not died away to this day. Some of the more vicious of the politicians of that epoch organized what was known as "The Union League." It was a secret political society, and had branches in every county of the State. Through the medium of this secret organization, the basest deception was practiced on the ignorant negroes. They were solemnly told that their old masters were making arrangements to reenslave them, and all sorts of incendiary suggestions were made to them. It was by means of this secret society that the negroes were made to believe that they would be entitled to forty acres and a mule for voting for the candidates of the carpet-baggers.

The effect of all this was to keep the blacks in a constant state of turmoil. They were too uneasy to settle down to work, and too suspicious to enter into contracts with the whites: so they went wandering about the State from town to town and from county to county, committing all sorts of crimes. As the civil system had been entirely overthrown by the military, there was neither law nor order; and this condition was very seriously aggravated by the incendiary teachings of The Union League. The people, therefore, in some parts of the South, offset this secret society with another, which was called the "Ku Klux Klan." This organization was intended to prevent violence and to restore order in communities; but the spirit of it was very frequently violated by lawless persons, who, acting in the name of the "Klan," subjected defenseless negroes to cruel treatment.

There is no darker period in the history of the State than that of reconstruction. The tax payers were robbed in the most reckless way, and the rights of citizens were entirely disregarded. Even when the Republican Congress, responsive to the voice of conservative Northern opinion, turned its back on the carpet-bag government of Georgia, these men made a tremendous effort to extend their rule unlawfully. The carpet-bag Legislature was in session three hundred and twenty-eight days, and cost the State nearly one million dollars; whereas the cost of legislation from 1853 to 1862, nine years, was not nine hundred thousand dollars. In one year the State Road took in a million dollars and a half; and of this immense sum, only forty-five thousand dollars was paid into the treasury. Added to this, the road had been run into debt to the amount of six hundred thousand dollars, and it had been run down to such an extent that five hundred thousand was needed to place it in good condition.

During this trying period, Joseph E. Brown, who had been so popular with the people, was under a cloud. He had advised accepting the reconstruction measures in the first instance, so that they might be carried out by men who had the confidence and the esteem of the State; but this wise proposition brought upon his head only reproaches and abuse. The public mind was in such a state of frenzied uneasiness, the result of carpetbag robbery and recklessness, that the people would listen to no remedy except passionate defiance and denunciation. When the name of Brown was mentioned only as a handle of abuse, Benjamin H. Hill became the leader and the idol of the people. When, in 1870, Hill issued an address declaring that the reconstruction must be accepted by the people, he was at once made the object of the most violent attacks. But Brown was right in 1864, and Hill was right in 1870, and the people were wrong. They paid dearly for their blindness in the wrongs imposed on them by men who were neither Republicans nor reconstructionists at heart, but public plunderers.

In 1871 the carpet-bag government began to totter. The governor left the State, and staid away so long that the State treasurer, a man of stern integrity, refused to pay warrants that were not signed by a resident governor. Finally the governor returned, but almost immediately resigned. In a short time the real representatives of the people took charge of affairs, and since that time the State has been in a highly prosperous condition.



"THE NEW SOUTH"

When the people of Georgia had once more gained control of their State government, the political tempest that had been raging slowly quieted down. A pot that has been boiling furiously doesn't grow cool in a moment, but it ceases almost instantly to boil; and though it may cool slowly, it cools surely. There was not an end of prejudice and unreason the moment the people had disposed of those who were plundering them, but prejudice began to lose its force as soon as men had the opportunity to engage in calm discussion, and to look forward hopefully to the future. In the midst of bayonet and carpet-bag rule, the State could not make any real progress. It is only during a time of peace and contentment that the industrial forces of a community begin to display their real energy.

No State in the South had suffered so severely as Georgia during the war. She placed in the field more than a hundred and twenty thousand soldiers,—twenty thousand more than her voting population at the beginning of the war. The taxable wealth of the State in 1867 was more than four hundred and eighty-one millions less than it was in 1861,—a loss of more than three fourths. After the reconstruction period, all the State had to show, in return for the treasure that had been squandered by the carpet-bag politicians, was a few poorly equipped railroads that had been built on the State's credit. In some instances railroad bonds were indorsed when there was no road to show for them; in others, bonds were issued in behalf of the same road under different names; so that the people lost by fraud as much or more than the amount of improvement that had been made. The "developers" who had connected themselves with the bayonet administration were much more interested in "developing" their own private interests than they were in developing the resources of the State.

But when the bayonet administration had been driven out, not less by Northern opinion, which had become disgusted with the reckless dishonesty that was practiced under the name of republicanism, than by the energetic opposition of all good citizens of the State, there came a welcome end to the bitter controversy that had been going on. The fierce rancor and prejudice that had been aroused gradually died out; so that in 1872, shortly after the State had been rescued from misrule, Horace Greeley, the great abolition editor, received in Georgia a majority of more than seventy-one thousand votes over the straight-out Democratic candidate. This, more than any other event, showed the improving temper of the people, and their willingness to make compromises and concessions for the purpose of restoring the Union and burying the spirit of sectionalism.

With this improved temper there came an improvement in the material conditions of the State. Free negro labor was a problem which the planters had to meet. For a time it presented many difficulties. It was hard to make and enforce contracts with the negroes, who had been demoralized and made suspicious by The Union League and by the harsh and unjustifiable acts of men who acted under the name, but not under the authority, of the Ku Klux Klan. But gradually all these difficulties were overcome. The negroes settled down to work, and with them a good many white men who had been left adrift by the fortunes of war and the prostration of industries. This vast change was not brought about in a day or a month, or even in a year, but was the gradual outgrowth of a bitter feeling,—the slow awakening to the fact that matters were not as bad on a better acquaintance as they had seemed. There was, of course, the negro problem; but the wiser men soon saw that this problem, such as it was, would settle itself sooner or later. The result was that everybody began to take a day off from politics occasionally, and devote themselves to the upbuilding of the resources of the State.

At first, and for several years, the negro problem seemed to be a very serious matter indeed. All the statesmen, all the politicians, all the historians, and all the newspaper editors, discussed it morning, noon, and night for a long time. Some wanted it settled one way, and some another. At the North the men who had indorsed and approved the bayonet governments of the South thought that laws ought to be passed giving the negroes social equality with the whites. Finally a compromise was made with what is called the "Civil Rights Law," which was intended to give the negroes the same privileges at the hotels, theaters, and other public places, that the whites had. The Northern politicians pretended to believe that the efforts they were making were for the benefit of the negroes, though no doubt the majority of them knew better. Of course, the Southern people resisted the pressure thus brought to bear by the Northern sectionalists, and the result was what might have been expected. The condition of the negro was made more uncomfortable than ever, and the color line was more closely drawn. To show how shortsighted the politicians were and are, it is only necessary to call attention to one fact, and it is this: that while the Civil Rights Law has kept negroes out of public places both North and South, they ride on the street cars side by side with the white people, and it frequently happens that an old negro woman who comes into a crowded car is given a seat by some Southerner who has tender recollections of his negro "mammy."



It is worthy of note, that while the politicians on both sides were fighting the shadows that the "negro problem" called up, the problem was solving itself in the only way that such vast problems can be settled in the order of Providence,—by the irresistible elements of time and experience. A great deal of misery, suffering, and discontent would have been spared to both races, if, after the war, the conservative men of the North had either insisted on the policy that Abraham Lincoln had mapped out, or had said to the pestiferous politicians who were responsible for carpet-bag rule, "Hands off!" No doubt some injustice would have been done to individuals if the North had permitted the negroes to work out their political salvation alone, but the race itself would be in a better condition every way than it is today; for outside interference has worked untold damage and hardship to the negro. It has given him false ideas of the power and purpose of government, and it has blinded his eyes to the necessity of individual effort. It is by individual effort alone that the negro race must work out its destiny. This is the history of the white race, and it must be the history of all races that move forward.

When Georgia, with the rest of the Southern States, had passed safely through the reconstruction period, the people, as has been seen, found themselves facing new conditions and new possibilities. Slavery had been abolished utterly and forever; and wise men breathed freer when they saw that a great obstacle to progress and development had been abolished with it. Instinctively everybody felt that here was cause for congratulation. A few public men, bolder than the rest, looking out on the prospect, thanked God that slavery was no more. They expected to be attacked for such utterances, but they were applauded; and it was soon discovered, much to the surprise of everybody, that the best sentiment of the South was heartily glad that slavery was out of the way. Thus, with new conditions, new prospects, and new hopes,—with a new fortune, in fact,—it was natural that some lively prophet should lift up his voice and cry, "Behold the New South!"

And it was and is the new South,—the old South made new by events; the old South with new channels, in which its Anglo-Saxon energies may display themselves; the old South with new possibilities of greatness, that would never have offered themselves while slavery lasted. After these hopes, and in pursuit of these prospects, Georgia has led the way. Hundreds of miles of new railroads have been built in her borders since the dark days of reconstruction, hundreds of new factories have been built, immense marble beds and granite quarries have been put in operation, new towns have sprung into existence, and in thousands of new directions employment has been given to labor and capital. In short, the industrial progress the State has made since 1870 is more than double that of the previous fifty years.

It was natural, that, out of the new conditions, new men should arise; and, as if in response to the needs of the hour and the demands of the people, there arose a man who, with no selfish ends to serve and no selfish ambition to satisfy, was able to touch the hearts of the people of both sections, and to subdue the spirit of sectionalism that was still rampant long after the carpetbag governments in the South had been overthrown by the force of public opinion. That man was Henry Woodfin Grady. He took up his public work in earnest in 1876, though he had been preparing for it since the day that he could read a school history. In that year he became one of the editors of the "Atlanta Constitution," and at once turned his attention to the situation in which his State had been left by the war, and by the rapacity of those who had come into power by means of the bayonet. Whether he used his tongue or pen, the public soon found out that he had control of that mysterious power which moves men. Whether he wrote or whether he spoke, he had the gift and the inspiration of eloquence; and from first to last he could never be induced to use this great gift for his personal advancement, nor could he be induced to accept a political office. With a mind entirely sincere and unselfish, he addressed himself to the work of restoring unity between the North and South, and to putting an end to the sectional strife which the politicians were skillfully using to further their own schemes. He was asked to be a United States senator, and refused; he was asked to be a congressman, and refused. For the rest, he could have had any office within the gift of the people of Georgia; but he felt that he could serve the State and the South more perfectly in the way that he had himself mapped out. He felt that the time had come for some one to say a bold and manly word in behalf of the American Union in the ear of the South, and to say a bold and manly word in behalf of the South in the ear of the North. He began this work, and carried it on as a private citizen; and the result was, that, though he died before he had reached the prime of his life, he had won a name and a popularity in all parts of the country, both North and South, that no other private citizen had ever before succeeded in winning.

It was Henry Grady that gave the apt name of "The New South" to the spirit that his tireless energy and enthusiasm had called from the dark depths of reconstruction. Of this spirit, and the movement that sprang from it, he was the prophet, the pioneer, the promoter. He saw the South poor in the midst of the most abundant resources that Providence ever blessed a people with, and he turned aside from politics to point them out. He saw the people going about in deep despair, and he gave them the cue of hope, and touched them with his own enthusiasm. He saw the mighty industrial forces lying dormant, and his touch awoke them to life. He saw great enterprises languishing, and he called the attention of capital to them. Looking farther afield, he saw the people of two great sections forgetting patriotism and duty, and reviving the prejudices and issues that had led to the war, and that had continued throughout the war; and he went about among them, speaking words of peace and union,—appealing to the spirit of patriotism which held the Northern and Southern people together when they were building the Republic, when they stood side by side amid the sufferings of Valley Forge, and when they saw the army of a mighty monarch surrender to the valor of American soldiers at Yorktown. With the enthusiasm of a missionary and the impetuous zeal of an evangelist, he went about rebuking the politicians, and preaching in behalf of peace, union, and genuine patriotism.

Such was the mission of Henry W. Grady, and the work that he did will live after him. "The New South" will cease to be hew, but the people will never cease to owe him a debt of gratitude for the work that he did in urging forward the industrial progress of this region, and in making peace between the sections. He was the builder, the peacemaker.

THE END