the crops and receives the payments, makes purchases, pays bills, and keeps peace between the tenants—­nor could any human being be more honorable or possess a finer, sweeter dignity.  As for devotion, when the little girls who were away returned after all the years as grown women, every ribbon, every pin in that house was where it had been left, and the place was no less neat than if the “white folks” had constantly remained there.

Before Georgia went dry it was customary for negroes of the rougher sort to get drunk in town every Saturday night.  Drunken negroes would consequently be passing by, all night, on their way to their homes, yelling and (after the manner of their kind when intoxicated) shooting their revolvers in the air.  Every Saturday night, when the ladies were at home, Uncle George would quietly take his gun and place himself on the porch, remaining there until the last of the obstreperous wayfarers had passed.

Uncle Abe and Uncle Wiley are two other worthy and venerable men who live in cabins on the place.  Both were there when Sherman’s army passed upon its devastating way, and both were carried off, as were thousands upon thousands of other negroes out of that wide belt across the State of Georgia, which was overrun in the course of the March to the Sea.

“Ah was goin’ to mill wid de ox-caht,” Uncle Abe told me, “when de soljas dey kim ‘long an’ got me.  Dey tol’ me, ’Heah, nigga!  Git out dat caht, an’ walk behin’.  When it moves you move; when it stops you stop!’ An’ like dat Ah walk all de way to Savannah [two hundred and fifty miles].  Den, after dat, dey took us ‘long up No’th—­me an’ ma brotha Wiley, ovah deh.”

I asked him what regiment he went with.  He said it was the Twenty-second Indiana, and that Dr. Joe Stilwell, of that regiment, who came from a place near Madison, Indiana ("Ah reckon de town was name Brownstown"), was good to him.  An officer whom he knew, he said, was Captain John Snodgrass, and another Major Tom Shay.

“All Ah was evvuh wo’ied about aftuh dey kim tuck me,” he declared, “was gittin’ somep’n t’ eat.  Dat kinda put me on de wonduh, sometahmes, but dey used us all right.  Dr. Pegg—­him dat did de practice on de plantation befo’ de Wah—­he tol’ de niggas dat de Yankees would put gags in deh moufs an’ lead ’em eroun’ like dey wuz cattle.  But deh wa’ n’t like dat nohow.  I b’longed to de Secon’ Division, Thuhd B’gade, Fou’teenth Co’ [corps].  Cap’n Snodgrass, he got to be lieutenant-cuhnel.  He was de highes’ man Ah evuh hel’ any convuhsation wid, but I saw all de gennuls of dat ahmy.”

Uncle Wiley is older than Uncle Abe.  He was already a grown man with three children when taken away by some of Sherman’s men.  He told me he was with the Fifty-second Ohio, and mentioned Captain Shepard.

The two brothers got as far as Washington, D.C.

“We got los’ togedduh in de U.S. buildin’ in dat city,” said Uncle Wiley.  “De President of de U.S. right at dat tahme he was daid.  He was kill’, Ah don’ s’pose it wuz a week befo’ we got to Wash’n, D.C.”