These Southern Rebels have their fate in their own keeping, and they are nursing their wrath to keep it warm.
Whitelaw Reid
The Public Record
Whitelaw Reid was an American politician, diplomat and newspaper editor, as well as the author of Ohio in the War, a popular work of history.
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Public sentiment was against the sale of lands to the Yankees; “Get white laborers,” they urged, “and in a year you’ll make enough to be able to hold on to your lands.
I would rather give up my crop to the negroes than the lives of my wife and children.
You see, General, this is alarming, and you must acknowledge that we are not safe.
We are all washed under, and the most of us only live peaceable lives by the sufferance of our Rebel neighbors.
That would be “jumping from the frying-pan into the fire,” indeed.
The people have generally more education and refinement than in other parts of the State; their public improvements are better, and their country is every way more attractive.
In November nothing could exceed the hatred which seemed everywhere felt to the freedmen.
Extravagant living left nearly every planter enormously in debt when the war came.
I never saw hands more cheerful or contented than some managed on this last plan were.
But, in the main, they are surprisingly orderly, and cases of serious violence among them are quite rare.
It will make an end forever of Spain in this hemisphere.