Report on the Condition of the South | Page 8

commander,
has become generally known through the newspapers. (Accompanying
document No. 19.) It is not improbable that many cases similar to those
above mentioned have occurred in other parts of the south without
coming to the notice of the authorities.
It is true these are mere isolated cases, for which it would be wrong to

hold anybody responsible who was not connected with them; but it is
also true that the apprehensions so widely spread among the Unionists
and northern men were based upon the spirit exhibited by the people
among whom they lived. I found a good many thinking of removing
themselves and their families to the northern States, and if our troops
should be soon withdrawn the exodus will probably become quite
extensive unless things meanwhile change for the better.
ASPECT OF THE POLITICAL FIELD.
The status of this class of Unionists in the political field corresponds
with what I have said above. In this respect I have observed practical
results more closely in Mississippi than in any other State. I had
already left South Carolina and Georgia when the elections for the State
conventions took place. Of Alabama, I saw only Mobile after the
election. In Louisiana, a convention, a legislature, and a State
government had already been elected, during and under the influence of
the war, and I left before the nominating party conventions were held;
but I was in Mississippi immediately after the adjournment of the State
convention, and while the canvass preparatory to the election of the
legislature and of the State and county officers was going on. Events
have since sufficiently developed themselves in the other States to
permit us to judge how far Mississippi can be regarded as a
representative of the rest. Besides, I found the general spirit animating
the people to be essentially the same in all the States above mentioned.
The election for the State convention in Mississippi was, according to
the accounts I have received, not preceded by a very vigorous and
searching canvass of the views and principles of the candidates. As I
stated before, the vote was very far from being full, and in most cases
the members were elected not upon strictly defined party issues, but
upon their individual merits as to character, intelligence, and standing
in society. Only in a few places the contest between rival candidates
was somewhat animated. It was probably the same in Alabama,
Georgia, and South Carolina.
The Mississippi convention was, in its majority, composed of men
belonging to the first two of the four classes above mentioned. There

were several Union men in it of the inoffensive, compromising
kind--men who had been opposed to secession in the beginning, and
had abstained from taking a prominent part in the rebellion unless
obliged to do so, but who had, at least, readily acquiesced in what was
going on. But there was, as far as I have been able to ascertain, only
one man there who, like the Unionists of East Tennessee, had offered
active resistance to the rebel authorities. This was Mr. Crawford, of
Jones county; he was elected by the poor people of that region, his old
followers, as their acknowledged leader, and his may justly be looked
upon as an exceptional case. How he looked upon his situation appears
from a speech he delivered in that convention, and especially from the
amended version of it placed into my hands by a trustworthy gentleman
of my acquaintance who had listened to its delivery. (Accompanying
document No. 13.) But several instances have come to my knowledge,
in which Union men of a sterner cast than those described as
acquiescing compromisers were defeated in the election, and, aside
from Mr. Crawford's case, none in which they succeeded.
The impulses by which voters were actuated in making their choice
appeared more clearly in the canvass for State officers, Congressmen,
and members of the legislature, when the antecedents and political
views of candidates were more closely scrutinized and a warmer
contest took place. The population of those places in the south which
have been longest in the possession of our armies is generally the most
accommodating as to the new order of things; at least the better
elements are there in greater relative strength. A Union meeting at
Vicksburg may, therefore, be produced as a not unfavorable exponent
of Mississippi Unionism. Among the documents attached to this report
you will find three speeches delivered before such a meeting--one by
Mr. Richard Cooper, candidate for the attorney generalship of the State;
one by Hon. Sylvanus Evans, candidate for Congress; and one by
Colonel Partridge, candidate for a seat in the legislature.
(Accompanying document No. 14.) The speakers represented
themselves as Union men, and I have learned nothing about them that
would cast suspicion upon the sincerity of