.OTQz.NTg5NTQ

119

- 97 - next Ch. VIII

   There now remain unmentioned only the three States of South

Carolina, Louisiana, & Mississippi. As far as I cd judge South Carolina was utterly & hopelessly crushed. Its best estates were in the Sea Islands, which as they were very fertile, & their produce fetched exceptionally high prices were densely inhabited with blacks; in many of them, however, no white man cd live, or even pass a night with impunity. Under these circumstances it might have been expected that as soon as the Negroes were emancipated they wd take possession of the land in these Islands. And so it happened in most of the unhealthy ones; while in those that were healthy the original proprietors equally lost their property by confiscation, or forfeiture, or by being ousted in some way or other. The ? result of this, & of the other losses that arose out of the war, & the utter overthrow of the Confederacy, is that throughout South Carolina the most abject & irrecoverable poverty reigns precisely where formerly there was most abundant wealth. I heard of one gentleman, who formerly was unable to spend the whole of his large income, being now a porter in a dry goods store; & of another, who formerly had possessed everything which riches cd supply, dying in such penury that his family had to beg of their friends contributions for his funeral. For this State there appears to be no resurrection, except in some new order of things, under which a new set of proprietors will occupy the land, & cultivate it with northern capital & somewhat in the northern fashion.