At one or two points along the line were rows of boxcars, run off on unused side-tracks, and filled with families of refugees. Dirty, frowzy women, with half-clad, tow-headed children, filled the doors, but over their heads we could catch glimpses of filthy interiors that not even negro cabins could equal. Doubtless the poor whites of the South are far better material for voters than intelligent negroes, for we have it on the best of authority—their own—but for dirt, and for utter ignorance of all the decencies of civilized life, no people in America, of any color, can compare with them.[51] I grieve to add that, in many regions in the South, they are almost the only Unionists. The intelligent people hereabouts are loyal, but in States further South the most loyal are too often the most ignorant. “How do the negroes get along here?” I asked of an ancient Tennessee matron, looking benevolently down upon us through a pair of brass-mounted spectacles, with an offer of “snacks” for a quarter. “What? O, you mean the niggahs. They’s doin well enough, fur’s I hear.” “Are any of them suffering, hereabouts?” “Sufferin? No more’n other folks, I rekon. Everybody gits along well enough heah.” “Do the negroes behave well?” “Well’s anybody else, I guess. I don’t see much of ’em nor don’t want to, the nasty black things.” * * * * * The scenery had changed somewhat as we neared the chief town of East Tennessee. It was not quite so hilly; and there were more evidences of careful farming. Good wheat and corn-fields lined the road; and one caught many a peep at picturesque mountain residences, embowered in the abounding orchards. We had passed out of one great zone of the war into another. Sheridan, Grant, Lee, were all strange names, that suggested remote operations. We were nearer the theater on which Bragg, Johnson, Rosecrans, and Sherman had been the actors. John Morgan’s name was a charm to still the demon of mischief in naughty children. “This is whar they both belong,” said a native, as we were coming out from the dining-room at Greenville. It was to President Johnson (whose home was in this dilapidated little village,) that the reference had been made. Who the other notability of the place was, no one understood; till the native explained that he “meant Andie Johnson and John Morgan, of co’se.” Broken bridges had grown more and more frequent; and the train crept slowly over long lines of trestle-work which timid passengers fancied they could see swaying beneath us. The road led across Strawberry Plains, where Longstreet was driven back, and wound near several of the forts.