Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1899-09-20
HOME COMING SOLDIERS.

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| HOME COMING SOLDIERS.
How 1t Was In 1898 as Compared With
| 1S99..
From the New York Times.
At dinner party uptown the other
night several former Union soldiers
and one ex.Confederate sat down.
The latter had ridden with ]. E. B.
Stuart. He is now "riding" about for
d northern concern. The talk turned
on the homecoming of military heroes
and the southern man said:
81 was asked the other day In Pitts
bnrg as We watched the welcome of
the people to the Tenth Pennsylvania
back from the PHILIPPINES what sort of
reception we Johnny Rebs got when
we went home after the civil war.
Whipped soldiers are not often requir-
ed to march in bodies when they 60
home. The Confederates did not as a
whole. They did not in any way 80
far as 1 ever heard. They went back
in twos, or threes, but oftener one at
time. You will know some day that
the civil war was unlike any other
war of history. When the Confeder-
ates realized they were whipped they
were heartbroken. / am not making
any argument for the cause. But you
must consider the temperament of
southern man. to understand what de-
feat meant to him.
"You people il the north would
have recovered if the north had been
whipped. You would have been at
Richmond, if we had succeeded, with
your Yankee inventions and schemes.
You would have got the contracts for
the Confederate States public works.
You would have had the contracts for
building our navy, for making our
guns. You would have built our rail-
roads. You would have revived your
industries from our Golfers. You
would have become partners in our
commerce. All this would have been
characteristic of you.
"With the southern man it was diff
ferent. He was whipped, but he was
sullen. He moped and would not
play. You people had the advantage
of the play, of course, but you might
have given the sulker show for his
white alley if he had shown disposi-
ton to let you inside his yard. But he
barred the gate and scowled at you
through knot-hole. And this trait
clung to him for years, and be awoke
one morning to find some of you folks
in his field, and on his plantation
working his soil, while he was starving
Then he quit looking back and went
to work. And now when you have a
trade with a southern man you do not
take advantage of him as you did.
"But just after the surrender he was
| in no mood to be received. The town,
from which he had enlisted was in no
condition to turn out in welcome and
hurrah, even if regiment had return
ed, or any body Of men. Gentlemen,
believe me there was not healthy
hurrah in the whole south after Lees
surrender. 1t was nothing to brag
about for sometime before that. Some
of us saw the handwriting six. months
before the meeting of Grant and Lee
at Appomattox.
"Your soldiers returned home in
companies, battalions and regiments.
They were received by the populace,
as we are now receiving our returning
soldiery from the Philippines, and as
we recently received them from Cuba.
But the Confederate sneaked back, not
because he was ashamed of what he
had done, for to this day we are
mighty sensitive on that point; but
because be had been whipped. 1t
takes a brave man to acknowledge a
licking such as you gave US. We &C.
knowledged it all right to you, and at
home, but we did not want any hurrah.
made about it. Our people were in no
mood to ring the bells or fire the guns
when we went home. A man going
into his old home in the night, climb
ing the back fence and going through
the garden, making peace with the
dog, knocking at the kitchen door, is
not an inspiring spectacle. That's the
way most of us went back.
"Very often there were no bells to
ring. You Yankees shot them out of
the church steeples, or our people had
to melt them for ammunition. We
were mighty short toward the last.
There were few house guns in the
south during the war.
occasionally Confederate return
ed to find his town so battered that he
did not know it. He met strange
faces in the streets. Familiar land
marks had disappeared. Sometimes
he found the foundation of his old
home, and it was overgrown with
grass. Whole towns disappeared, and
communities removed, in some sections
of the south during the war.
II know many ex-Confederates to-
day who were never mustered out.
They punched US and told US to 60,
and we scattered in every direction.
I know man in my state who is hold
ing Federal Office who never surren-
dered, and who was never discharged
from the Confederate service. No
war ever had as many strange sltua-