... “A fence used to run right along here, and there were crops growing. No, not cotton; there was not the demand for cotton in those days, and not nearly so much grown in the State. Over on that side of the road there was a huge encampment of soldiers, and I remember stealing out to it to listen to the band. “The foragers came to the houses and took every bit of food—left us bone dry of food. They also took our horses and our mules and our cows and our chickens. Sometimes a family would have a yoke of oxen hidden in the wood, but that would be all that they had. Everyone had to flee, and all were destitute. It was a terrible time. But we all stood by one another and shared one another’s sorrows and helped one another as we could. “All colored folk also stood by us. I expect you’ve read, ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ and ‘The Leopard’s Spots,’ but the picture is terribly overdrawn there.” “I did not know these told the story of the march,” said I. “They do not. But they give an account of the Negroes that is entirely misleading. The North has queered the Negro situation by sending all manner of people down here to stir the Negro up against us. Till we said, ‘You and your niggers can go to the devil’—and we left them alone. “But that was a mistake, and we are realizing it now, and intend to take charge of the education of the Negro ourselves, and be responsible for him spiritually as well as physically. There never was a better relationship between us than there is now. “And I—I was brought up among them as a child, as an equal, played with them, wallowed with them in the dirt, slept with them. They’re as near to me as flesh and blood can be.” It was curious to receive this outpouring when I had not mentioned the Negro to him at all and seemed merely curious concerning Sherman’s march. It is, however, characteristic of the South: the subject of the treatment of the Negro recurs like _idée fixe_.