The Norfolk post. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 1865-1866, 1865-08-09
The Great Cavalry Expedition Through
Taxas
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Marshall. Texas. Cor. Dune III Y. .. Times

Texas.
|
Marshall, Texas Cor. (June III n. o. Times.
The head of the cavalry column passed
through Marshall yesterday evening,
marching toward the Sabine, distant
twenty miles; here they will cross at
! Ramsdale's Ferry. Though the scarcity
of forage has not been severely felt as
vet, citizens predict greater dearth as
the command progresses.
From Greenwood, a village located at
| the terminus of that part of the Shreve-
port and Vicksburg railway, yet in run
ming order through to Marshall Cotton
plantations have been given up to the
culture of corn and the cereals. The
owners do not part with their cotton on
hand except negotiated in cash prices
money paid down.
AS the cavalry command passes
through the country, negroes, notwith-
standing the order of the post command
ant at Shreveport, flock to it, stealing a
horse or mule; in lieu of these, what
ever they can lay their hands on to take
with them. The freedom of the negro
uproots the old established institutions
OF the country, tears them asunder, and
80 sudden does this blow come upon the
large mass that the people find them
selves ruined; no hopes to fill the mar
kets with their cotton, tobacco, or sugar;
he turns his own attention to labor, but
can only raise sufficient for his use.
AT least for short term of years the
Red River Valley sends not thousandth
part ofthe former raised cotton to mar.
ket The cotton districts of Texas, the
Eastern and the Southern, are ranked
in the same category. The suddenness
of freedom to the negro has shattered the
agricultural strength of this State
The freedom destroys them; mortuary
statistics show them to DO melting away;
the day of the negro is gone. AS the In.
dian fled before the steps of civilization
that, facing the setting sun, advances
in footsteps of civilization through these
States; as the Indian fled and disappear
ed, SO the negro, once happy, careless,
well to do, Is fast disappearing as the
army nears the Rio Grande.
All these evils arise from the sudden
ness of the blow. These calamitous
the lightning stroke, the instant shock
of the thunderbolt, than like the slow
and steady inroads made by that decay
which sooner or later attacks all institu-
tons. Unprepared for this change so
unforeseen, the people are outcasts from
their own homes.
The people do not meet strangers with
their wonted hospitality; they are mo-
rose in view of the present state of af-
fairs, and inclined to believe all strangers
as enemies they do not look upon this
| freedom to the negro as an act ofjustice 10
them, even considering them as rebels.
1t is scarcely justice, they say to de-
prive us at one blow of the property
wherein we had vested right, to give
us no opportunity of making the capital
we hadinvested, changeits location with
out loss. We are ridden of power to cul-
tivate our fields; we cannot be repre-
sented in the markets; the pillow stands
idle; the country is gone to ruin and
weeds; our country towns are changed
to contraband camp.
All things in Texas seem to be in a
state of confusion. There is neither
Legislature nor convention, the steps ta-
ken to call convention having been ar
rested in an order from General Gran
ger.
Emigration to Brazil is openly talked
Of; it is reported that an emigrating
agency has been established that offers
bounty of two or more hundred acres of
land to all emigrants DESTROYS of leaving
the land of their fathers. Your cores
pondent has heard that the Brazilian
| government has offered these induce
ments. Certain it is, there are hundreds
of families who are leaving the country,
Offering for sale their estates at less prices
for land than when it was entered, when
it was wilderness years ago.
The mania for emigration is called
the Brazil fever, and as it spreads it takes
| in its scope, all ages, sexes, and condi-
tons, manyof the negroes going along
| with their masters. The emigration fe-
yer is epidemic. One reason why the
| owners of farms are so anxious to sell
their estates is from the belief that they
will not pay the taxes on the land re-
naming uncultivated; to cultivate them
| they cannot afford, under the regime at
present in vogue.
The cotton-a great deal of it-that
| finds its way to market is four years old;
little there Is of later date. They who
had cotton are fortunate, for they have
the material with which to obtain sup
plies other than those products of the
spinning-wheel and farm. Coffee is
everywhere luxury.
The people have for the last three years
made their own clothes; even the ladies
making fine garment from the spin
ning-wheel. In every house the imple-
ments are seen, and are as ordinary as a
tea-kettle. Confederate money, coupons,
two per cent. bonds, are throughout the
country, as common as leaves inlthe for
rest. One lady in this section stuffed a
mattress with five hundred thousand
dollars of it, sleeping in it at night to
keep it in security from robbers.
! To this loss of currency and the loss
of hope for the future in the cotton dis
tricts, owing to the freedom of the me-