He
Was A Unionist During The War, And Is A Democrat Now, Though His
County (Greene) Has Been Republican.
We had been riding all the
afternoon through good land, and encountering a better class of
farmers.
Peach-trees abounded (though this was an off year for
fruit), and apples and grapes throve. It is a land of honey and of
milk. The persimmon flourishes; and, sign of abundance generally, we
believe, great flocks of turkey-buzzards - majestic floaters in the
high air - hovered about. This country was ravaged during the war by
Unionists and Confederates alternately, the impartial patriots as
they passed scooping in corn, bacon, and good horses, leaving the
farmers little to live on. Mr. Alexander's farm cost him forty
dollars an acre, and yields good crops of wheat and maize. This was
the first house on our journey where at breakfast we had grace before
meat, though there had been many tables that needed it more. From
the door the noble range of the Big Bald is in sight and not distant;
and our host said he had a shanty on it, to which he was accustomed
to go with his family for a month or six weeks in the summer and
enjoy a real primitive woods life.
Refreshed by this little touch of civilization, and with horses well
fed, we rode on next morning towards Jonesboro, over a rolling,
rather unpicturesque country, but ennobled by the Big Bald and Butt
ranges, which we had on our right all day.
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