The Savannah morning news., 1900-07-30
GEN. GoRDoN's BoYHooD.
Life in Georgia in the Old Days BE
TO- de Wah."
from the Youths COMPANION

My birthplace was my fathers planta-
ton in Epson county. Ga, on the banks
of the Flint river, and there my early
boyhood was passed in the days before
the war, when there were no railroads,
no telegraphs, no daily newspapers, and
few mails in that portion of the country
The cost of postage on a letter was )
or 10 cents. according TO its size and the
distance it was to CO. The mails were
carried in well settled districts on horse.
hack, and between important towns IN
stage coaches. AS the coaches. drawn by
teams of four horses. with bugles sound
ing their approach, swept along the roads,
they aroused in the country people more
interest than would now be excited by the
finest train Of Pullman cars. The driver,
mounted on their lofty seats were the
envy of aspiring boys.
The building of the first school that I
attended stood in a woodland not far from
the main highway 1t was built of hewn
logs, but was we'll finished inside and out.
AT each end of the room there was an i'm
mense chimney, and in those broad fire
places during the winter months great log
fires were kept burning. The logs for this
purpose were cut and brought in by de
tails of the larger boys.
The schoolmaSter was an lrishman
named Doster. with ruddy complexion,
clean shaver face. and hair as black as
a raven. He was man of medium size,
but when engaged in his favorite amuse-
ment of fogging, he seemed to grow to
huge proportions. His seat was near the
center of the room, and he kept eager
watch over the whole of it. The larger
students were seated at desks arranged
about the center. The small boys sat on
q bench which extended from one end of
the room to the other
At specified hours all the small boys
were required to spend a certain length Of
time in writing with pen and ink. The
pen was a goose quill, converted into
proper shape by Doster's sharp penknife.
During the time given to writing lessons.
we little penmen turned our faces to the
wall in order to use sloping desk which
was attached there Thus our backs were
turned toward the teacher.
Instead of requiring us 20 write words
and sentences. Doster compelled us TO
fashion fishhooks, tongs. scissors and
other objects of utility. The master
moved quietly behind this long line Of
youngsters and peeped over their should
ers. If be discovered a boy forming his
fshhook upside down or making some
other mistake, he would storm at him
from behind, what are you DOING" or
course the culprit's pen and the pens OF
half a dozen other startled boys shot
across the whole page. This nervousness
and waste of paper furnished Doster with
the opportunity for teaching greater skill
self poise and economy by the rod.
On the plantations of that day there was
no machinery for COMPRISING cotton into
bales. The long bag was hung under q
platform with a large round hole in the
floor, through which the lint cotton was
n Nv hn1 fF,fr he GurilNc yffan hae O.
below. The packing was done by the most
faithful and stalwart negro on the place
who stood inside the bag and tramped the
cotton with his feet as 1t came down, and
then pounded 1t with an iron bar.
The packer on my fathers plantation
was the negro foreman, known only as
"Captain''-a very impressive parsonage.
tall and straight. with side whskers. and
of austere bearing. He seemed to boss
not only the negroes, but everybody and
everything on the plantation. He would
come out of this packing process covered
from head TO foot with a thin coating OF
lint cotton, looking like a man of snow
with a black face. His habit was to get
rid of that fine fieecy lint by burning it
off. Applied near his ankles, the flames
ran over him in a second, cleaning off the
lint with no percepube damage 10 his
clothing.
ing by the fire, when Captain came out of
the cotton bag covered with an unusual
amount of lint. and ordered me, Touch
me off now" l obeyed The blaze swept
over him, cleaning off the lint from foot
TO head-and the sidewhiskers, too! This
cured him of that habit.
Several years after this my father NOV
ed to North Georgia. Although plan.a-
ton life there differed somewhat from
that peculiar to the cotton belt, there
were the same patrarchal and kindly re-
lations of the white master TO his black
slaves. the same free intercourse between
the white and black boys on the planta-
ton. The young white masters felt
themselves responsible for the protection
of their black followers in case of con-
fiicts with other boys; and l may add that
the black companions of my boyhood drew
me into a large number of pitched battles
In their defense than l afterward fought
IN my four years of service in the Con-
federate army.
The smaller boys. black and white
hunted rabbits in the daytime and pos
sums and coons at night with dogs. The
larger boys rode in the fox chase with
packs of carefully bred hounds, and in the
exhilarating pursuit of wolves when these
ravenous beasts had stolen into the sheep
folds at night. Thus Southern boys gem
orally became expert riders.