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XXXIII.

A VISIT TO THE HOME OF JUDGE LYNCH.

ALBANY, November 10, 1865.

HAVE reached the Southern point of my Southern trip. This town is in the southwestern corner of Georgia, about forty miles from the Alabama line, and about sixty miles above the Florida line.

Winter seems scarcely nearer now than when I left New York on the 1st of September. I write this afternoon in a room with northern exposure, without a fire, and with my two windows wide open. The landlord said to me this morning that he reckoned he would have to get a stove into the office of the hotel pretty soon if this cold snap continued. There has yet been but one frost here this fall, and that was so slight it did no damage. A dozen varieties of roses are in full bloom and fragrance in the gardens and dooryards of the town; wild-flowers blossom in the old fields and by the roadside; the grass still shows freshness and greenness; the leaves of the mulberry are beginning to fall, but those of the oak and china and willow have hardly lost any of their summer color.

Albany is the shire town of Dougherty County, and contains a population of twenty-five hundred persons. It is on the bank of the Flint River, and is the terminus of the Southwestern Railroad. A tri-weekly line of stage-coaches runs hence to Thomasville, ten miles above the Florida line, at which point connection is made with another line for Tallahassee and with the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad for Savannah. The town is reached from Milledgeville, one hundred and forty miles distant, by fourteen hours of railroad riding, in cars wretched beyond Northern conception, over a road

on which not more than an average of one train per day is disabled by breakage or being thrown from the track. The "accident" to the train on which I came down was trifling, and only detained us an hour. I expect, however, to be thrown from the track on my return. Albany has three small churches, two small hotels, half a dozen very large cotton warehouses, a good many groggeries, and one small schoolhouse. Its private residences are neither large nor pretty, and the general aspect of the town is dirty, slovenly, and shiftless. It has a filthy river on the east, and lowland piney woods on the south, west, and north.

During the war the town was a place of considerable importance. Its remote distance from any point held by our forces or easily accessible to them rendered it a safe storehouse; and the Confederate quartermaster and commissary departments had here, during the years 1863 and 1864, an immense bakery and many millions of dollars worth of supplies of all kinds. "If any of Sherman's raiding parties could have pushed through in the fall of 1863 or the spring of 1864, and destroyed what we had here," said an ex-Rebel quartermaster to me, "it would have crippled us more than the loss of half of Johnston's army." But none of our forces got here during the war, and so the town suffered no damage, and appears about as well, I understand, as it did four or five years ago.

I was told by several persons in the upper country that I would find Albany one of the worst places in the State both in regard to morals and Unionism. It was a rabid secession town in 1860-61, and sent many soldiers very early to the

war.

Such of the returned soldiery as I have met seem, as a general thing, quiet and well disposed; but many of the towns-people who did not go into the field are exceedingly bitter, and do not accept the new order of things in either a wise or kindly spirit. "I have my pardon in my pocket, and have taken the oath three times," said one of them in my

hearing last evening, "but I'll be d-d if I a'n't as big a Rebel as I ever was!" Whereunto another responded, "That's jest my case, only I ha'n't got my pardon yet." I judge that these two men are representatives of a considerable element in the population.

I reached the place at five o'clock last evening. Half an hour later I sat on the steps of the hotel waiting supper. There were five of us talking with each other as travelling acquaintances will. While we sat there up came an ex-Rebel colonel and a county judge. Both were tipsy. The colonel singled me out,—perhaps because I was the youngest and smallest of the party, and asked me to drink with him. I declined. He pressed his invitation, and the judge joined his importunity. I declined again and again, telling them that I never drank, and would not begin now. The colonel swore I should drink with them, and threw his arms around me as I sat in my chair. I rose and disengaged myself and stepped into the hotel. He asked each of the other gentlemen to drink, and each of them also declined. "I'll get my pistol, somebody shall drink with me," he added with an oath, as he started for his store five or six doors away. "He means you," said one of the gentlemen, as I resumed my seat. I answered that I thought he would n't trouble me. Directly he came out of the store with a revolver in his hand, exclaiming, "Now show me the man who won't drink with me!" The landlord seemed to anticipate trouble, for he stepped out and met the colonel, and persuaded him that some one on the opposite side of the street was calling him.

That the judge and one of the leading merchants should be on a drunken spree appeared a very good beginning, even for Albany. Another day was to show me that this was a small matter, albeit it involved the possibility of being shot at by a half-drunken colonel.

Last night there was a ball in the upper part of the town. One of the boarders at the hotel courteously invited me to

accompany him to it. Anxious as I was to see the beauty and grace of the town, I declined the invitation, pleading extreme weariness, that I might not again give offence. This morning we all learned that the dance broke up soon after midnight in a drunken row. Pistol-shots were fired, but no one was hit, though two or three persons were somewhat beaten with clubs, and one man was wounded with a knife.

I dodged from

This morning, while walking on one of the back streets, I was suddenly confronted by a man with bruises and blood on his face, and a stout dagger in his hand. "Now I've got ye!" he exclaimed, as we met at the corner. the encounter, and assured him he was mistaken in his man. "Be you Pete Beeson?" he inquired. "I told him I was not Mr. Beeson, and had not the honor of Mr. Beeson's acquaint"Then give me your hand and take a drink." I shook hands with him, declined the invitation to "try a little whiskey" which he pressed upon me, and left him making drunken apologies to the fence.

ance.

I began to suspect that Albany would be an excellent location for a temperance society. Yet all this was but the beginning of my experience.

About noon half a dozen of us sat on the hotel steps wait.ing dinner. I was talking with an ex-Rebel captain. Down the sidewalk, some twenty-five yards from where we sat, we suddenly became aware that a quarrel was progressing. It was between a negro man and a young fellow with his left arm in a sling. I noticed that the latter wore an army blouse, and of course supposed him to be a soldier. He struck out three or four times, but the negro was much the taller of the two and kept out of his reach. Nothing coming of this, he disengaged his arm from the sling and turned and seized a long-handled shovel from half a dozen in front of a store. The negro stepped into the store, the soldier striking a blow at him as he went, and following him up. In an instant he shuffled out, one of the clerks striking him about the head

and shoulders with a small stick. Thus far the matter had not become serious and no one interfered.

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The old negro walked down past the hotel, but soon stopped to excitedly explain the affair to three or four men standing there. While he was doing so, the soldier rushed out of the store above with a large and ugly looking knife in his hand. Seeing this, the clerk of the hotel said to the negro, Come, come, old Bill, if you don't want to get into trouble you'd better get out of town at once." Old Bill did n't heed the warning, however. Thinking he might be moved by a stranger, and desiring to prevent a possible conflict between the soldiers and the negroes, I stepped to him, took him by the arm, and said, "There, John, that'll do for this time; now go home." He at once started, while I resumed my seat, and half a dozen fellows rushed across from the opposite side of the street, shouting, "Kill him!” "Kill the d―n nigger!" "Somebody shoot him!" He soon turned the corner and was out of sight, the whole affair having occupied scarcely two minutes.

In a moment more one of the three or four men to whom the negro had volunteered his excited explanation stepped up in front of me and demanded why I had interfered in the business. I answered, "Simply to stop the quarrel." "What business was the quarrel to you?"

"The same as to every good citizen."

"Well, by G-d, we don't 'low any outside interference yerabouts, do you hear?"

"O yes, I hear very well."

He passed along a few steps, and I supposed he had concluded his advice. Not so, however, for he returned with, "Did you interfere for the white man or the nigger?"

"For neither. I simply interfered to stop a quarrel.” "Well, by G-d! I'm the responsible party in this business, and if you've got anything to say you kin jest say it to me."