Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 09.djvu/220

?om? P,?m?? of ?he ,.qe?md of A?, 1865. 211 dent Davis, uu?l I met him some years afterwards in Louisville; for I got back to Louisville, Kentucky, from Greensboro, North Oarcigna, by this cirouitons rout, to-wit: From Greensboro to Charlotte N. O. on horseback, camping out at night on account of the large number in our party; from Oharlotte to Chester 8. O, by rail, carrying our horses on the cars; from Chester ? Newberry, where I bought a horse for ??,000, to Augusta, Georgia, on horseback, before reaching which we were met by the horrible intelligence of the _?s__ _?natiou of President Lincoln; stopping at the Planters' House, where I first paid ?50, then ?$100, and before I left only ?9..0 a day for board, and where I ordered of a merchant tailor a pair of cass?mere pantaloons, for wkioh I paid him ?1,000; from Augusta again on horseback to Halifax county, 'Virginia, poesing through South Carolina--where I ate of the first and only piece of kid I ever saw served upon a table as diet--and while passing through which an old lady told me she understood that Mr. Lincoln was in a stage with his wife going to the theatre when he was killed; from Halifax county, where I gave my horse away, to wkich county I had come directly from the generous home of my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Elisha Hean, in Pittsylvania, with whom I had spent about ten days, and kidding adieu to my dear friends, the Barkesdsles, I pro- ceeded by rail to Richmond, from Richmond by steamboat to Balti- more, thence by rail to Washington city, thence by rail to Cincinnati, and thence by a stemboat, commanded by the unfortunate Captain ?odman, to Louisville, where I lauded on the morning of the 19th of June, 1865, about two and a half months after the evacuation of Rich- mond, and nearly four years after I had left home to take part with my own people in resisting wrongful and unjust aggression, that people having made a gallant and heroic defense, but having been compelled to succumb to the overwhelming numbers and power of the Northern people, aided, as the latter were, by pretty much all the European nations; thus concluding a long, devastating and cruel war, for wkich, in my opinion, the North was wholly responsible, which saddled upon the people of this country a gigantic national debt, which for genera- tions unborn will probably not be paid, making the people to groan under such burthens of taxation as were never before known in tkis country, introducing such all-pervading corrupt practices in the admin- istratiou of the General Government as appalled the civilized world, and clotking the political party in cites with such vast powers as to make it impossible for the people to install in off]es a President of their own choice after they had elected him.