The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1901-09-25
WHAT RECONSTRUCTION WAS.
Worse Than the Destruction
Wrought by The War.
From the Norfolk Landmark.

Jlon TO the SepCemOer numDer OF the
Atlantic Monthly shares with that of
Ex-Governor Chamberlain, OF South
Carolina, the distinction Of being the
most notable Of the Atlantic's fine Sc
ries on %sThe Reconstruction Period. -
We gave to our readers an abstract
Of Governor Chamberlain's S paper when
1t appeared Chamberlain was himself
one of the reconstruction" Governors
of South Carolina and was in Office
when Gen. Wade Hampton made the
mastery campaign which restored the
State to the control it's real people.
Governor Chamberlain Ia New Eng-
lander, who had moved to South Caro-
lima after the war, and who has since
moved back to his old home1 was
; quite a partisan in those days. He
fought hard on the wrong side. In
his article in the Atlantic he made a
clean breast of the whole thing, ad-
mitting that he had been wrong, that
the treatment Of the South during the
reconstruction period was shameful,
and that the administration Of the
carpet -baggers was as great an injury
TO the South as the war itself hac
been.
Dr.. Page approached the subject
from the point of view Of the native
Southerner. He writes in temper
ate vein; indeed, his reference to the
carpet baggers, while unmistakaDie IN
its import, is no more scathing than
was Governor Chamberlain's. After
remarking that the people outside OF
the South before the war had an ut
terly mistaken conception of the char
acter of the Southern planter and slave
owner, imagining him lazy fellow
who cared for nothing but MS pleas
ures, DR.. Page observes that the war
had not been in progress many days
before the North and the rest Of the
world was entirely relieved of this
wrong impression. But, as DR.. Page
says, the strength of the Southern
neonie was demonstrated more strik-
ingly in the wretched days after the
war than during the war itself. we
quote:
ssWhat the South really was she
gave no small proof Of during the war;
She gave even stronger proof after the
war. Without ships; without money;
without machinery that would pro-
duce a knife, blanket or tin cup:
without an ally: without even the
sympathy of single nation; without
knowledge of the outside world, or in
deed of her able and determined op-
ponent, she withstood to the final gasp
the vast forces thrown against her-en-
during all things, hoping all things,
until she was not only overthrown,
but actually destroyed. When Sher-
man marched across the South to the
sea he found it to be an empty she'll
At that same time the campaign from
the Rapidan to Appomattox cost
Grant 124, 600 men-about two men
for every man that Lee had IN his
army.
.'But as notable as were the intre
pidity of her soldiery in the field and
the endurance of her people at home,
they were not equal to the resolution
and courage that her people displayed
in the great and unrecorded struggle
afterwards. The one was fight Of
disciplined armies, with an open sky
and a fair field, the endurance of a
pTeople animated by hope; the other
was q long and desperate struggle,
with shackIed hands, against foe
that in the darkness, unknown to the
rest Of the world, or with sort of
blind approval on its part. fastened on
its vitals and slowly sapped its life
blood
The distinguished writer is sure that
if Mr. Lincoln had lived the country
would have escaped most Of the blum
ders and follies and crimes Of the re-
construction. Whatever may be said
of Lincoln. he had common sense and
applied it to the business of govern
ment. His death let loose upon the
Southern States a horde OF fanatics
and unprincipled schemers, against
whom the forces Of conservatism, de-
prived of their leader, were unable to
make any headway. Returning to the
impressive language of Mr.. Page:
.sThe white race were disfranchised
and were not allowed the franchise
again until they had assented to Civ
ing the black race absolute equality in
ali matters of civil right. This toe
leaders of the other side vainly imagin-
ed would perpetuate their power, and
for time it almost promised to do so.
The result Of the new regime thus es-
tablished in the South was such a riot
of rapine and rascality as had never
been known in the history of this
country and hardly ever in the history
of the world. It would seem incredi-
bic to any but those who have investi
gated it for themselves. The States
we're given over to pilIage at the
hands of former slaves, led largely by
adventurers whose only aim was to
crafty their vengeance or their cupid
ity. The measure of their peculation
and damage, as gauged by figures
alone, staggers belief. I'm
happily, the credulity and ignorance
of the negroes threw them into the
hands of the worst element among the
adventurers who were trying to be-
come their leaders. The mar who was
bold enough to bid the highest out
stripped the others. Under the teach
ing and with the aid of these leaders
the negroes showed signs of rendering
considerable parts of the Southern
States uninhabitable by the whites.
Had the latter given the slightest sign
of being cowed or of yielding they