OR, THE WORLD HAS CHANGED. 141 



THE ANXIOUS ENQUIRER. 



pROM the surrender at Appomatox, I returned to Edgefield, 

 S. C, where my wife had remained during the war, with 

 her father. I had sold all the property I possessed, except 

 negroes, at the beginning of the war, and invested in Confed- 

 erate bonds; now, the war ended, I found the bonds worthless 

 and the negroes free. I had three silver watches, $7.50 in 

 silver and $15 in greenbacks, captured from the enemy when I 

 was a scout, and my horse. I swapped all but the cash for a 

 wagon and team from Johnson's returning soldiers, and moved 

 with my little family to Southwest Georgia, to start anew. 



I bought a plantation, with outfit complete — stock and im. 

 plements — on a credit, from John W. Jordan, Jr., near Smith- 

 ville, in Lee county, and started the business of cotton plant- 

 ing. I had been raised, as we then thought, above the cotton- 

 belt; although my father used to plant several patches of cot- 

 ton, I knew nothing of its culture. I had sold out a splendid 

 stock farm, to go to the war, and my teaching had been to 

 raise grass and not to destroy it. 



In starting a new business, I thought the best way to get 

 at it was to obtain all the information possible of the modus 

 operandi of planting cotton, and so set myself to work visit- 

 ing and pumping my neighbors for the coveted information. 

 I made frequent visits to the Wellses, Jordans, Jenningses, 

 Jays, Aliens, Birds, Kosses, etc., and as Lem Jay (who was 

 considered a crack cotton planter) remarked, got everybody's 



