The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1889-03-13
THE COTTON GRAB
MADE By THE UNITED STATES AUTHOR
TIES AFTER TEE WAR.

| L
MADE By THE UNITED STATES AUTHOR
TIES AFTER TEE WAR.
The Money Now in the Treasury, Which
| Should be in the Pockets Of the People
Of the Southern States-Eow It Iay be
Identified.
WASHINGTON, March 1.-THE records
of the Treasury Department are full OF
good material for You newspaper men: .
said an official to-day There is plenty
that will interest your Southern readers.
Take that bureau called the division
of abandoned lands and property, for
example. 1t has in itself one great
romance. It's history is fuller of the
marvellous than anything that was ever
written. Why, there are about S13,
900, 900 in its keeping belonging to peo-
pie in the South alone. During and at
the close of the war valuable property
of all sorts fell into the hands of army
officers, and was turned into the Trca-
sury. Finally the amoant became so
great that, when Bill Chandler was
Assistant Secretary, he created a division
that should have charge Of the entire
matter.
sOver s12, 100000 of the money
charged to that division is the proceeds
of cotton taken from plantations and
various towns all over the South and
sold. know of one case in which.
TWO MILLION DOLLARS WORTH OF COTTON
was taken from far South plantation,
when the staple was worth $500 l:ale,
and sold. The people to whom ii be-
longed were not rebels at all, and it
wouldn't be at all difficult for them to
make their case if they only knew what
to do. But 1t has been nearly twenty
seven years since the money was depos-
tied there. l don't know whether any OF
them are alive or not, and if they were
it is hardly probable that they will ever
get back what was really their OVID. All
the testimony in the case is in the DOS
session of the government, and it never
lets so anything it gets its hands on.
TDA agent who took this cotton is dead
long ago, as is the man who sold it. So
YOU see the owners could not prove their
case by either of them.
There are other instances similar to
this. In 1868 We received over $780,
900 from a government agent, which
vas the proceeds of cotton taken from a
foreigner, supposed to be a blockade
runner, in one of the larger cities OF the
South. When Secretary McCulloch
heard of this he said: This money is
only held in trust by the government.
Some day we shall be obliged to account
for it, for the United States really
HAS NO RIGHT TO KEEP IT.
But from that time until now no de-
mand has ever been made on Us for it,
and there it lies. l doubt if the owner
ever knew just where it did 90. When
General Sherman's army occupied the
towns of the South Atlantic seaboard the
Confederates destroyed all the cotton
possible before they surrendered. Mil
lions Of dollars worth was burned to
keep it from falling into our hands.
The real owners could not tell what was
thus burned and what was saved. But
we know, and this was the way: The
books we often captured showed that
James Brown, for instance, who was a
merchant, had go many bales burned
marked certain way. The bales not
burned could thus be easily identified
from the marks and names on them. In
all cases the books captured containing
the names of the consignors and owners
were sent forward to the treasury with
the paper relating to the capture.
''Where are these books and papers''
"Well, don't know, but | suppose
they are somewhere
IN THE TREASURY VAULTS.
Gas we never knew when the claim
ants might come forward and make
demand on the treasury for the proceeds
of their cotton, the money It brought
was never turned into The general fund.
but always remained in an account by
itself. But it has been so long ago, and
the testimony necessary to make case
that would be valid beng in so many
instances unattainable by the owners, 1t
is scarcely probable that any great por.
ton of this really enormous amount OF
money will ever leave the treasury. The
only very large SUMS that was ever
returned to its real owners was paid to
Gazaway B. Lamar, of Savannah, Ga,
which you must have heard Of.
s'Well, ex-Attorney General Williams
and General B. F. Butler of Massachu-
sets we're his counsel. They got back
for him S6O0,00O for cotton taken IN
the manner I have described. General
Butler said to me when that case was
pending. If I were a few years younger
and wanted TO make a vast fortune
quickly, could do it more easily and
certainly in the prosecution of these
cotton claims than in any other way
"If were a Southern man ard had a
case of this kind I would rather risk
General Buffers getting it than any
LAWYER in America. 1t was always a
wonder to me that after the action OF
the government in the Lamar case more
Southern people did not attempt to re-
cover their money from the treasury.
The principle OF repayment was then
established. The main difficulty would,
of course, be 10 prove that their partl-
cular ,:ton was taken, sold, and the
money surned into the treasury" ;"
JUDGE CULBERsoN's VIEWS.
The above was shown to Judge Cul-
berson of Texas, chairman Of the judi
ciary committee of the House, tonight
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