The times., 1898-09-10
SOLDIERS down SOUTH
A Genuine Yankee in a Camp
in Georgia.
A FRIENDLY "CRACKER'
The Entertaining Letter an Obsery-
ing New England Boy Wrote to
His People About Life and Scenes
in the SGuth-Progress of the Col
ored brother in Education.

following letter which appears in the
Traveller:
Dear Father: You must excuse me for
not answering your kind letters of July
81 and August II. because I've been SO
busy / couldn't find time. ! can't under
stand why they sent us here. for malaria
is as prevalent here at the fort. Quite
a number of our company are laid up.
and we have 10 do their work This is
the worst part of the State, and there
isn't place level enough to drill on in
side the reservation.
There are two hotels in this town, and
quite crowd of swell people come here
from all parts of the State to drink the
water. The hotel people pump the water
from the spring mile and half be-
low They also run a private road,
cookstove on wheels with an electric car
hitched behind to carry visitors from the
hotel 10 the springs. Most of the natives
here are the famous Crackers. and they
are very friendly.
About all they raise here is cotton,
corn, hogs, chickens and melons, and
have seen but few cows and sheep. What
ever potatoes, cabbages, onions, turnips
and the like they raise are for their
own use. They are lazy lot, and have
not yet learned to raise a diversity OF
crops so that when their cotton and
corn crop fail they go broke. They have
a peculiar dialect, hardly distinguishable
from that of the negroes.
Il halted a Cracker 1.-The other day and
asked him where certain party lived
He answered: About two sights and
half. l reckon, podner- Jump on, you'd a
heap sight rather ride than walk.
wouId't ye? Toted $50 melons to town
this mawnin and gottwo bits dozen Tor
them. Got some tobacco and corn Whis-
XIV for myself and some calico and sniff
for the old woman. There il is over yon-
der. Have drop before you go? Wtat
regiment youuns belong to? Slong,
buddy It was a powerful long drive.
even at a right smart gait. but the
Cracker had mighty fine mule, and We
covered il by two smokes.
The people are very friendly and say
they will give a soldier anything. This
has been a great fruit year, and melons,
peaches. apples, pears and grapes can be
had for the asking. Sometimes they VIII
give YOU wine and cider. but no solder
will drink corn whisky, because his
.bunkee' would compel him to drink chl0-
ride of lime for chaser.
I'VE have been living in tents un II
this week. when We moved into the
shacks which have just been competed.
We are just beginning TO get things run
ming in good shape. They have posted
guards and organized fatigue parties, so
that nobody can get outside without
pass.
This place was a famous resort, before
the war. and was run on the same plan
as the Oakland Garden. The old build
ings are now rapidly going TO decay, but
we use the dance hall as a guard house.
1t is a quaint building, low and long with
a square tower at one end. The outside
is lathed and plaster d, tie lower story
being filled full of pebbles. Aside from
this is Il newer, small, square box of a
building. which use as the canteen.
Across from this is the Theater, a large
open affair. semicrcular in shape with
seats running around il like the gallery
in the Howard it is surrounded with
round platform and balcony, with a
round cupola like an inverted turnip. We
hold our entertainments here, and the
show is worth seeing. There is plenty of
| talent in every regiment and we have
the cream of the lot. Joint debating,
buck and wing dancing. singing, speak
| ing and music are all the CO. but the
| Twenty-fifth (coloredl want to play
! Julius Caesar. Just fancy colored Bru-
tus, Verify jolly a coIored man, and he'll
! kill himself. There is one drawback.
| however; We can only use the theater in
| fair weather, and it rains fully half the
| time down here, while the average tenn
! perature is Ito in tie shade.
"The coons here are just as dressy
as the Boston ones. and just as intelli-
gent. All a common laborer gets (white
/ or black is 80 cents a day, while a car
/ penter gets a dollar. working from sun
| rise to sunset; but things are very cheap.
What do You think of this for 10 cents?
Fried chicken, corn tomatoes, onions, po-
! tatoes apple pie and a glass of milk
The whites who do not own their own
| farms are just as badly off as the ne
! groes and they are no better off than
| before the war, because the old masters
still own the land. But they are just as
friendly as they can be to each other,
and if there is any animosity they don't
show it.
When, however, work is slack the coon
has TO stel, and then the whites have
| to take the law into their own hands
THE coons are fast becoming educated.
and / think that there will be a mighty
change in the South in the next ten
years. The whites still manage to con-
troll elections and they enforce the law
just as energeucally as they do in New
England. But as this is a very large
State and very sparsely settled the Off
GERS can't be everywhere at once, and
negro who commits rape murder is
| lynched soon as he is caught. The
officers show no partiality, however and
| white man gets soaked just as quickly
This is a no-license county and Illegal
selling is severely punished, while moon
sinners who may be caught are handled
without gloves. You cannot buy fruit.
! cigars, tobacco or candy in Atlanta on
| Sunday. but they'll allow you to buy
soda and soft drinks. They'll not allow
d liquor dealer to go into his front door
after ! p. M, although his license costs
him $500.
Down at the lower end of the encamp-
ment is a large dirty pond where we
bathe and wash our clothes. The water
ought 10 be clean now, because | washed
my shirt in 1t last night and l swear
every bit of dirt that was in the pond is
now in that shirt.
There has been plenty of excitement
here The first week a negro stabbed
white man at the hotel, and crowd
chased him to his home, two miles up
the track The Twenty-fifth thought it
was a lynching bee and broke camp with
guns in hand and bayonets set Ga fragrant
violation of discipline) and followed
them When they got there they fou1d
him safe in the hands of the police. Moth
ing was done to the Twenty-tifth.
Last week we had a storm that blew
down our tents and flooded us out. Six
| fellows OF the Twenty-first We're struck
by lightning and laid up in the hospital,
but are all right now. About twenty guns
were stripped in the same storm.
Some of the fellows went up to wine
cellar two miles up the track last week
and got drunk. There We're three guards
stationed there, but they were drunken
than the rest. One of them ordered the
woman of the house to get him some din
10 how har