The Elk advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Elk Co., Pa.) 186?-1868, 1866-09-13
Condition of the South.
Important Report by Major-General Gordon
Granger.--The Southern People Everywhere
Loyal to the Government

SIR I'm obedience to instructions,
dated May 9th, 1866, directing me,
while carrying out specific mission,
examine carefully into the disposition Of
the people of the Southern States thro'
which I might pass, toward the United
States," 1 have the honor to report:
That in all the States I visited |
found no sign or symptom of organized
disloyalty to the general government
1 found the people taking our currency,
and glad to get it: anxious for North
ern capital and Northern labor to devel-
op the resources of their wasted coun-
try, and well-disposed toward every
Northern mau who came among them
with that object in view.
In some localities l heard rumors of
secret organizations, pointing to a re-
newal of the rebellion. On investigat'
ing these secret societies l could discov-
er in them nothing more than charitable
institutions, having for their principal
object the relief Of the confederate SOL
diers who had fallen in the war.
During the whole of my travels 1
found it to be as safe and as convenient
to mingle with the people of the South,
freely discussing any and every topic
that came up, as in other sections Of the
United States. I was often among
them unknown, and the tenor of their
acts and conversation was then the same
as when my name and official position
were thoroughly understood.
The people of the South may be di-
vided into two classes. There is the
industrious class, laboring earnestly to
build up what has been broken down,
striving to restore property to the coun-
try, and interested mainly in the great
question of providing food and clothing
for themselves aud families. These
form the great majority of the people,
Then there is another class, an utterly
irresponsible class, composed mainly of
young men who were the " bucks " Of
Southern society before the war, and
chiefly spent their time in lounging
round the court-rooms and bars, in
chicken.f ghting and gambling. These
have been greatly broken up by the
war; many of them have been killed p,
but those who remain are still disturb
ing elements in the community, and are
doing much mischief 1t is this class
of men and a number of the poorer
whites who have formed gangs for
horse stealing. 1t is they who, in some
instance, have made attacks on officers
of the Freedmen's Bureau, and have
ill-treated the freedmen. 1t is they
who afford the main pretext for saying
that there is among the people of the
South hostility towards the United
States government. But they are not
the representatives of the Southern peo-
pie. They form but an insignificant
minority in the community, and even
they are actuatod not so much by feel
ing of opposition to the government as
by reluctance to earn their own liveli,
hood by honest labor and individual ex-
ertion.
That cases of authentic outrage have
occurred in the South is patent to every
one familiar with the current news Of
the day. But these cases are few and
far between, and it is both unjust and
ungenerous to charge the responsibility
for such acts upon the whole Southern
people. For some malicious purpose
accounts of these isolated disorders have
been collected and grouped together
and sown broadcast over the North, SC
as to give to the public mind an utterly
erroneous impression as to the condition
of Southern society. The fact is, that
wherever disaffection and turbulence
have manifested themselves outside the
class to whom have above alluded
there has been some local or specific
cause to account for it. Lawlessness
like an epidemic, is equally traceable tc
some initiatory cause. Chief among
these causes must be named bad govern
ment, pillage, and oppression.
For five years the Southern peopl,
have been the subjects of gross misrule
During the war their government was
military despotism, dependent solely OIL
the dictum of an individual. Since tn
war they have been left more or less il
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