Morgan County Democrat. (McConnelsville, Ohio) 1886-1943, 1938-07-21

with him. At the surrender they
all marched to where the Union
troops were camped and after being
reviewed by their own officers and
the Union officers, marched along
and laid down their guns. AS they
Gid so Union officer handed to
each one of them a silver dollar
They were in southern Virginia and
the colonel wanted to get away and
back home as soon as possible. He
had taken eight of the best mules
his regiment had and hid them back
few miles in the woods with his
negro servant in charge of them.
Just as soon as he could get away.
he had to remain until the last man
OF his regiment had deposited his
gun and received his dollar, he
mounted his horse, which the Union
officer had kindly allowed him to
keep, and rode back to where he
had left the mules He found them
and away they went toward home.
He was just boy even then. He
said that he had heard of the loss
OF Atlanta and rumors of the de-
struction that had been done in the
surrounding country. but he had
never thought that they would get
so far from Atlanta as the planta-
tlon. He cut across the southwest
corner of Virginia and wanting to
avoid meeting any Union soldiers,
knowing they would claim the
mules, he kept away from any towns
and rode at night and rested during
the daytime At last they came to
p1,t
mans men, or some other Union
soIdlers, had been there, and all
that was left of the house were the
chlmneys, partly broken down. The
helds grown over with weeds. All
outbuildings destroyed. Nothing but
desolation faced him and he did not
know where any of the family might
be found. They took the mules in
to a small wood lot where the brush
would protect them and he started
to locate any of the family that he
could. He did find them, scattered
among the neighbors who had own
ed houses too poor for even the SOL
diers to bother with burning. Some
OF the old slaves We're with them,
and some of the household effects
and tools had been buried by the
slaves before the house was burned.
Ihey went back and dug them up
and started to cut some trees to
build log house to live in. The
younger slaves had all gone away
leaving only the old ones, but soon
these young ones came drifting
back. They found freedom not SO
sweet as it had been represented to
them. They had been used to hav-
ing someone look after them, feed
them and clothe them, and when
they got away from home they were
alien to the place they had gone,
and as most of the freed slaves
drifted to the towns and cities, they
became burden and the officials
ran them off Or put them to work
on rebuilding. They soon got enough
Of this and one by one drifted away,
back to their old masters homes,
knowing that, if any of the family
were there, they would be taken
care of.
Soon the colonel had enough
hands back to enable him to get his
cabin built and the fields cleared
and finding seed where they could,
were in the same economic condi-
tion each helped the others and
soon they had enough to feed them
selves, though he told me that
many time they could have eaten
few mouthfuls more than they
had. AS they were located in
rather out of the way place they
were not again bothered by any of
the reconstruction officials, as so
many were, and in time the old
place began to look. like a planta-
tion. AS time went on another
house was built and outbuildings
erected and life assumed it's accus-
toned course.
1t would be difficult to overdraw
the picture of the destruction and
subsequent suffering of the people
in many localities. Many thought
the picture overdrawn in "Gone
With the Wind" but from what !
learned from those who had gone
through the reconstruction period,
it was not, nor would many believe
what actually did happen in many