Last evening threatened snow but too cold. Today cold and
dry. P. M. 4 o'clock began to rain; may rain for a month now.
Charles, an honest-looking contraband — six feet high, stout-built,
thirty-six years old, wife sold South five years ago,— came in today from
Union, Monroe County. He gives me such items as the following: Footing boots $9
to $10. New boots $18 to $20. Shoes $4 to $4.50. Sugar 25 to 30 [cents a
pound], coffee 62½ , tea $1.50, soda 62½, pepper 75, bleached
domestic 40 to 50 [cents a yard.] Alex Clark [his master], farmer near Union
(east of it), Monroe County, one hundred and fifty (?) miles from Fayetteville
— fifty miles beyond (?) Newbern. Started Saturday eve at 8 P. M., reached
Raleigh next Monday night; crossed New River at Packs Ferry. (Packs a Union
man.)
Companies broken up in Rebel army by furloughs, discharges,
and sickness. Rich men's sons get discharges. Patrols put out to keep slaves at
home. They tell slaves that the Yankees cut off arms of some negroes to make
them worthless and sell the rest in Cuba for twenty-five hundred dollars each
to pay cost of war. “No Northern gentlemen fight — only factory men thrown out
of employ.” They (the negroes) will fight for the North if they find the
Northerners are such as they think them.
Union is a larger and much finer town than Fayetteville.
William Erskine, keeper of Salt Sulphur Springs, don't let Rebels stay in his
houses. Suspected to be a Union man. Lewisburg three times as large as
Fayetteville. Some Fayetteville people there. People in Greenbrier [County]
don't want to fight any more.
General Augustus Chapman the leading military man in Monroe.
Allen T. Capelton, the other mem[ber] of Legislature, Union man, had his
property taken by them. Named Joshua Seward, farmer. Henry Woolwine, ditto, for
Union, farmer, [living] near Union — three and three and one-half miles off.
Dr. Ballard a good Union man (storekeeper) on the road from Giles to Union,
twelve miles from Peterstown, also robbed by Floyd. Wm. Ballard and a large
connection, all Union men — all in Monroe. Oliver Burns and Andrew Burns
contributed largely to the Rebels. John Eckles in Union has a fine brick house
— a Rebel colonel. Rebels from towards Lynchburg and Richmond would come by way
of Covington, forty-five miles from Union. Landlords of principal hotel Rebels
— one at Manassas. Two large, three-story high-school buildings, opposite sides
of the street, on the hill this end of town. “Knobs,” or “Calder's Peak,” three
miles from town. A hilly country, but more cleared and better houses than about
Fayetteville.
They “press” poor folks' horses and teams not the rich
folks'. Poor folks grumble at being compelled to act as patrols to keep rich men's
negroes from running off. “When I came with my party, eleven of us, in sight of
your pickets, I hardly knew what to do. If you were such people as they had
told us, we would suffer. Some of the party turned to run. A man with a gun
called out halt. I saw through the fence three more with guns. They asked, ‘Who
comes there?’ I called out ‘Friends.’ The soldier had his gun raised; he
dropped it and said: ‘Boys, these are some more of our colored friends,’ and told
us to ‘come on, not to be afraid,’ that we were safe. Oh, I never felt so in my
life. I could cry, I was so full of joy. And I found them and the major (Comly)
and all I have seen so friendly — such perfect gentlemen, just as we hoped you
were, but not as they told us you were.”
SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and
Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 175-7
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