Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1862-12-12
THE SOUTH AS SEEN BY THE Army.

THE SOUTH AS SEEN BY THE Army.
4 correspondent Of the Cincinnati Gazette
writing from Nashville gives an interesting
resume of the condition of the South, as found
and commented upon by The men OF the Fed
cral army. The eOors of the picture are dark
and IT'S features forbiddng Yet the assar-
ance is given that it faithfully represents the
scenes that three-quaTters ola miilioR Of Union
soldiers look upon every day. The South has
long appeared o the creGulous eyes of the
North as aristocratic cultivated and refined,
with clivalric hosts aud beautiful and accom-
p!ished women. That there arc such to be
found here and there is net disputed, but so
far as the mass CT the people are concerned,
there was never a greater sham. This false
glory has fallen from the gaze of the soldiers
Of the army and they see in its stead harbar-
ISM ignorance and vice. The views of the
writer have been formed, be says, with the
Army Of Ohio upon its long marches through
lour States, marching ia all directions, crossed
its richest tracts as well as the mountain re-
gions, and moving alike through its wealthy
districts and its poverty. And with all this
experience before him, he asserts that the ar
my will bear him out in the statement that
the South is farther behind the age in every
thing that belongs to true civilization, than
the Sandwich Islands.
These are his general conclusions. Some
facts leading to them will be Of interest. OF
all the houses passed By the army, more than
lhree-fourths were of logs and most Of tLem
poorly constructed. The writer does not re-
member of entering house which contained
either carpets or cooking stoves. The piows
barrows and other agricultural implements are
made Of wood. The army has passed through
sections There the inhabitants never saw
wagon. Utter "shiftlessness'' is written in
unmstakabe terms on the face Of all things.
As to public intelligence, there is nothing that
deserves the name. A majority Of those who
visit the camps for the purpose of getting Ger
tilted accounts Of property taken, cannot read
the papers presented to them. Tie mile posts
Of the South are constructed for the benefit of
the mass who cannot read. Instead of stating
how many miles to the points indicated. there
are number Of notches cut in the posts, but
no marks exist to show whether the notches
indicate the distance passed over or that still
in advance.
1t is from such evidences as these that the
mind Of the writer and of the army is made
up. Can it be wondered al? or course there
are exceptions, as in the North there are ex-
ceptional cases who cannot read, bat these
facts show the all-pervading ignorance and
demoralizIt ion.
now THINes LOOK IN VIRGINIA.
A correspondent of the New York Tribune
says:
The further we get into Virginia, tie more
am l struck by the utter desolation Of tie
country and the evident poverty Of its inhab-
itants. One must-if from Yankee lGLd-
see the degradation of the inhabitants to COM
prehend it, Used to smiling and productive
farms, cultivated with all the aids and appli
ances Of modern agriculture; TO thriving vii
lagos, where the mechanic arts flourish and
give wealth and ease to the citizens to the
welcome church spires that stand OIL every hill
and in each valley, the neatly painted school
houses at every flour corners" this utter want
of all the evidences of civilization is most
striking and depressing.
Here are no wall-cutivated farms, 500 acres
barely support a small family of ;he better
class of whites no school-houses at the cor
ners, for education would elevate class 10
whom the habits and customs of the ariStocry
forbid the opportunities for improvement; none
Of the mecanical or elegant arts, for the house
hold of the f. F. VS.. purchase, with bgoted
blindness, all their elevating necessaries and
enjoyments from the despised "mud-sills of The
North"
Slave breeding suppIies Tor has supplied
the purses of the upper classes, while their
farms, deteriorating from year to year barely
yielded them the commonest hog and bomi-
ny" required for the home diet of the section.
All books, all music, all wines, all iuxuries Of
every sort, have been the produce of trade
in souls; too frequently of a trade in the of
spring Of the trader. Now that all this is cut
off, even the wealthier citizens, the aristocrA.
cy Of the land, must revert to the original
hog and hOminy'' Of the country, and leave
Injuries to some dim, elysian future.
have often wondered how the white trash
live. They do not work, unless the planting
Of little corn, the grazing of a horse or mule,
and COW, and the raising of afew hogs and