The South As It Is: 1865–1866

Chapter 26

XXVI ATLANTA, GA., December 31, 1865 AUGUSTA, the second city in Georgia, and said to be advancing rapidly towards the first rank, is a well-built town, well situated on the Savannah River. My stay there was only long enough for a walk through the principal streets, which are regularly laid out, level, and so exceedingly wide as almost to dwarf the rows of buildings on either side. They were cheerful with a busy press of pedestrians of various colors, and streams of vehicles; there was a vast display of goods in the warehouses and shops, and the newspapers were filled with advertisements of every kind. By its position Augusta is the seat of a large jobbing business, the river and the railroad connect it with the ports of Charleston and Savannah, and it is enabled to avail itself of these advantages, for it has received its full measure of the Northern capital which, since the surrender, has been poured into every Southern town. Concerning this investment of capital, I listened the other day to the opinions of a young gentleman from New York, a man of business, quite young, but with the appearance of a person perfectly well informed: "I'm posted about this thing," he said; "I'm acquainted in Wall Streetvery well acquainted for a man of my age-and I know their opinions there, and I've studied the working of it down here. A Northerner needn't come into this country to go into business unless he can put his money into something he can monopolize, or can buy into some Southern firm. You see if these people can trade with one of their own men, they're not going to trade with you and me. lt's all natural enough-I don't blame them; but it puts you and 264 The South As It Is: 1865-1866 me under an immense disadvantage there. Then New York is bound to favor the old houses in every kind of way, and we're under another disadvantage there. You know how it is with these countrymen and country dealers; they're used to coming in and hitching their horses to the same post year after year, and you can't change 'em to a new place; you couldn't if there hadn't been any trouble, and of course you can't now when they're down on us. I don't believe they'd speak to a man if they knew he'd ever passed through Boston. They know in New York that one of us can't compete with these fellows; can't begin to do it. Then, again, nine in ten of the Southern business men owe any quantity of money up there, lots of it, and New York is willing to take them and set them up again, and do a great deal better by them than it would by you or me, in order to get its old debts. Of course, it's all right; I'd do the same thing myself; but that's the way it is. I've got this far looking for a chance to invest $25,000 cash, and I'm going through to New Orleans; but I've made up my mind not to go into business unless I can get in with some old house. It would just amount to this-with their advantages they'd break a new man right down, and he'd just lose his time and money." Of mercantile and professional pursuits this may be true. But the inducements to Northern men to come here and engage in agriculture, lumbering, and similar branches of business which, being carried on mainly by the services of the freedmen and for a foreign market, are not subject to the drawbacks above-mentioned, seem to be very great. There is apparent a willingness, often an anxiety even, to secure Northern men as lessees of plantations, and large tracts of land, well improved and productive, are everywhere offered for sale at low prices, sometimes at prices that may be called ruinously low. "These freedmen will work a heap better for a Yankee than they will for one of us," it is frequently said. Other causes of this sacrifice of lands and rents are to be found in the belief that the free labor of the Negroes cannot be made profitable, and in the fact that many men who have much land have no money with...