Year: 1866

Correspondence Gin. Commercial.


... WASHINGTON, May 81.
| A gentleman connected with the Post
office Department has recently returned to
Washington from an extended tour thro'


the Southern States. He is an intelligent.


educated and observing man, with political


opinions decidedly Republican, vet still ca
pable of taking fair and impartial view


of passing events, and of looking at sur


rounding circumstances without the use of


party spectacles. Within the last 6 months


he has visited nearly every town and village


in the Southwest, and has taken especial


pains to get a correct photograph Of the


South as it is. His opinions are worth far


more than those of any little whipper-snap-
per dandy belonging to General Howards $
staff, sent to hold migratory Court of
Oyer and Terminer on the affairs of the
South, with the understanding beforehand
akin to that with which the upstart literary
critic sits down to descant upon the merits
OF book-that in order to discharge his
duty he must find fault. .rg


The gentleman to whom refer and with
whom | have had long conversation for
the purpose of learning his views on the
condition of the South, utterly repudiates





on The Rs9ble 81 e MnlGn are waited North


He says that in all his travels he failed to
meet single man who did not "accept the
situation in the true sense and meaning
of that phrase, and that the United States
Government has no trucr friends than the
men who a year and a half ago composed
the rebel armies. All talk Of Southern
cruelty to the negroes is falschood. The
Southern people express willingness to
treat the blacks honorably and fairly, and
the farther removed from the Frcedmen's
Bureau Offices the better contcntcd and bet
ter off the blacks are. Every trouble in
regard to labor or wages is traceable to the
Freedmen's Bureau and its agents, many
of whom have embarked in a species of
"negro- dumping" similar to the bounty
are kidnapping the laborers of one planter
and selling them at a premium of a few
dollars to another, from whom in turn they
ent:cc them, to make another transfcr.-
''Remove the Frecdmens Bureau says
my informant, ''and you'll hear of no more
hardships among the blacks And we all
know this to be true. He relates an incl
dent which will do to tell in illustrating
the 'rebellious spirit of the Southern peo
ple." While in New Orleans he made the
acquaintance of an ex-confederate officer,
in whose company he soon after entered
one of the fashionable restaurants of the
Crescent City. Observing card with the
words sour own Southern Bitters" con-
spicuously printed on it, and alluding to it,
he said to his new made friend, ''Why do
you try in this way, even in such place
as this, to pcrpctuate the memory of the
WARP


The ex-rebcl smiled, and replied:
i" Really, l don't like such things, and
though that is but trlie, | would not
have even it displayed so, if could have
my way. But that is the device of New
England, and the Southern Bitters are
made and labeled in New England, and
the keeper of this saloon is Il Yankee. who
came here since the war, and is about the
only man in New Orleans who is not
subjugated, as your people call it, and who
says he can't be subjugated. If we took
his advice, we would raise another rebel
lion tomorrow.


Passing by book store some time after,
with the same Officer, my informant saw a
picture of Stonewall jackson draped in
mourning with some heroic motto printed
underneath it, and he remarked, " There's
more of it. These are things they magni-
fly to your disadvantage in the North


Well,' said the ex-rebel, 'that's an
other of your own sort. The owner of
that store is q yankee who never tread the
sod of the South until the war was over.
He's what you'd call the worst kind of a
traitor now. Such men come here and
they think by appealing to the passions
created by the war, they can drive a big
business. They succeed very often, be-
cause our people are easily excited by such
things, they cannot forget Stonewall
even when he is put before them
in the form Of a Yankee trick like this.


Other illustrations to the same point
might be given, all tending to show, first
that the feeling of the Southern people |
toward the Government is grossly misrep-
resented by parties interested in the post
ponement of the day of restoration; and,
second, that Northern men are, to a great
extent, responsible for whatever bitterness
toward the Government exists in the
South. MACK.