Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama Part 15

After the blockade became effective, drugs became very scarce and home-made preparations were subst.i.tuted. All doctors became botanical pract.i.tioners. The druggist made his preparations from herbs, roots, and barks gathered in the woods and fields. Manufacturing laboratories were early established at Mobile and Montgomery to make medical preparations which were formerly procured abroad. Much attention was given to the manufacture of native preparations, which were administered by pract.i.tioners in the place of foreign drugs with favorable results.

Surgeon Richard Potts, of Montgomery, Alabama, had exclusive charge of the exchange of cotton for medical supplies, and when allowed by the government to make the exchange, it was very easy for him to get drugs through the lines into Alabama and Mississippi. But this permission was too seldom given.[643]

Quinine was probably the scarcest drug. Instead of this were used dogwood berries, cotton-seed tea, chestnut and chinquapin roots and bark, willow bark, Spanish oak bark, and poplar bark. Red oak bark in cold water was used as a disinfectant and astringent for wounds. Boneset tea, b.u.t.terfly or pleurisy root tea, mandrake tea, white ash or p.r.i.c.kly ash root, and Sampson's snakeroot were used in fever cases. Local applications of mustard seed or leaves, hickory leaves, and pepper were used in cases of pneumonia and pleurisy, while sumac, poke root and berry, sa.s.safras, alder, and p.r.i.c.kly ash were remedies for rheumatism, neuralgia, and scrofula. Black haw root and partridge berry were used for hemorrhage; peach leaves and Sampson's snakeroot for dyspepsia and sa.s.safras tea in the spring and fall served as a blood medicine. The balsam cuc.u.mber was used for a tonic, as also was dogwood, poplar, and rolled cherry bark in whiskey. Turpentine was useful as an adjunct in many cases. Hops were used for laudanum; may-apple root or peach tree leaf tea for senna; dandelion, pleurisy root, and b.u.t.terfly weed for calomel. Corks were made from black gum roots, corn-cobs, and old life preservers. Barks were gathered when the sap was running, the roots after the leaves were dead, and medicinal plants when they were in bloom.[644] Opium was made from the poppy, cordials from the blackberry, huckleberry, and persimmon, brandy from watermelons and fruits, and wine from the elderberry.[645] Whiskey made in the hills of north Alabama, in gum log stills, formed the basis of nearly all medicinal preparations. The state had agents who looked after the proper distribution of the whiskey among the counties. The castor beans raised in the garden were crushed and boiled and the oil skimmed off.[646]

Social Life during the War

Life in the towns was not so monotonous as in the country. In the larger ones, especially in Mobile, there was a forced gayety throughout the war.

Many marriages took place, and each wedding was usually the occasion of social festivities. In the country "homespun" weddings were the fashion--all parties at the wedding being clad in homespun. Colonel Thomas Dabney dined in Montgomery in November, 1864, with Mr. Woodleaf, a refugee from New Orleans. "They gave me," he said, "a fine dinner, good for any time, and some extra fine music afterwards, according to the Italian, Spanish, and French books, for we had some of each sort done up in true opera fashion, I suppose. It was a _leetle_ too foreign for my ear, but that was my fault, and not the fault of the music."[647] The people were too busy for much amus.e.m.e.nt, yet on the surface life was not gloomy. Work was made as pleasant as possible, though it could never be made play. The women were never idle, and they often met together to work. There were sewing societies which met once a week for work and exchange of news.

"Quiltings" were held at irregular intervals, to which every woman came armed with needle and thimble. At other times there would be spinning "bees," to which the women would come from long distances and stay all day, bringing with them in wagons their wheels, cards, and cotton. When a soldier came home on furlough or sick leave, every woman in the community went to see him, carrying her work with her, and knitted, sewed, or spun while listening to news from the army. The holiday soldier, the "bomb-proof," and the "feather bed" received little mercy from the women; a thorough contempt was the portion of such people. "Furlough" wounds came to receive slight sympathy.[648] The soldiers always brought messages from their comrades to their relatives in the community, which was often the only way of hearing from those in the army. Letters were uncertain, the postal system never being good in the country districts. Postage was ten to twenty cents on a letter, and one to five cents on small newspapers. Letters from the army gave news of the men of the settlement who were in the writer's company or regiment, and when received were read to the neighbors or sent around the community. Often when a young man came home on furlough or pa.s.sed through the country, there would be many social gatherings or "parties" in his honor, and here the young people gathered.

There were parties for the older men, too, and dinners and suppers. Here the soldier met again his neighbors, or rather the feminine half of them, anxious to hear his experiences and to inquire about friends and relatives in the army. The young people also met at night at "corn shuckings" and "candy pullings," from which they managed to extract a good deal of pleasure. At the social gatherings, especially of the older people, some kind of work was always going on. Parching pindars to eat and making peanut candy were amus.e.m.e.nts for children after supper.

The intense devotion of the women to the Confederate cause was most irritating to a certain cla.s.s of Federal officers in the army that invaded north Alabama. They seemed to think that they had conquered entrance into society, but the women were determined to show their colors on all occasions and often had trouble when boorish officers were in command. A society woman would lose her social position if seen in the company of Federal officers. When pa.s.sing them, the women averted their faces and swept aside their skirts to prevent any contact with the hated Yankee.

They played and sang Confederate airs on all occasions, and when ordered by the military authorities to discontinue, it usually took a guard of soldiers to enforce the order. The Federal officers who acted in a gentlemanly manner toward the non-combatants were accused by their rude fellows and by ruder newspaper correspondents of being "wound round the fingers of the rebel women," who had some object to gain. When the people of a community were especially contemptuous of the Federals, they were sometimes punished by having a negro regiment stationed as a garrison.

Athens, in Limestone county, one of the most intensely southern towns, was garrisoned by a regiment of negroes recruited in the immediate vicinity.[649]

For the negroes in the Black Belt life went on much as before the war.

More responsibility was placed upon the trusty ones, and they proved themselves worthy of the trust. They were acquainted with the questions at issue and knew that their freedom would probably follow victory by the North. Yet the black overseer and the black preacher, with their fellow-slaves, went on with their work. The master's family lived on the large plantation with no other whites within miles and never felt fear of harm from their black guardians. The negroes had their dances and, 'possum hunts on Sat.u.r.day nights after the week's work was done. There was preaching and singing on Sunday, the whites often attending the negro services and _vice versa_. Negro weddings took place in the "big house."

The young mistresses would adorn the bride, and the ceremony would be performed by the old white clergyman, after which the wedding supper would be served in the family dining room or out under the trees. These were great occasions for the negroes and for the young people of the master's family. The sound of fiddle and banjo, songs, and laughter were always heard in the "quarters" after work was done, though Sat.u.r.day night was the great time for merrymaking. In July and August, after the crops were "laid by," the negroes had barbecues and picnics. To these the whites were invited and they always attended. The materials for these feasts were furnished by the mistress and by the negroes themselves, who had garden patches, pigs, and poultry. The slaves were, on the whole, happy and content.

The clothes for the slaves were made under the superintendence of the mistress, who, after the war began, often cut out the clothes for every negro on the place, and sometimes a.s.sisted in making them. Some of the negro women had spinning-wheels and looms, and clothed their own families, while others spun, wove, and made their clothes under the direction of the mistress. But most of them could not be trusted with the materials, because they were so unskilful. It took a month or two twice a year to get the negroes into their new outfits. The rule was that each negro should have two suits of heavy material for winter wear and two of light goods for summer. To clothe the negroes during the war time was a heavy burden upon the mistress.

To those negroes who did their own cooking rations were issued on Sat.u.r.day afternoon. Bacon and corn meal formed the basis of the ration, besides which there would be some kind of "sweetening" and a subst.i.tute for coffee.[650] Special goodies were issued for Sunday. The negroes in the Black Belt fared better during the war than either the whites or the negroes in the white counties. When there were few slaves or in the time of great scarcity, the cooking for whites and blacks was often done in the house kitchen by the same cooks. This was done in order to leave more time for the negroes to work and to prevent waste. Where there were many slaves, there was often some arrangement made by which cooking was done in common, though there were numbers of families that did their own cooking at home all the time. When meat was scarce, it was given to the negro laborers who needed the strength, while the white family and the negro women and children denied themselves.

As the Confederate government did not provide well for the soldiers, their wives and mothers had to supply them. The sewing societies undertook to clothe the soldiers who went from their respective neighborhoods. Once a week or once a month, a box was sent from each society. One box sent to the Grove Hill Guards contained sixty pairs of socks, twenty-five blankets, thirteen pairs of gloves, fourteen flannel shirts, sixteen towels, two handkerchiefs, five pairs of trousers, and one bushel of dried apples. Other boxes contained about the same. Hams and any other edibles that would keep were frequently sent and also simple medicine chests. When blankets could not be had, quilts were sent, or heavy curtains and pieces of carpet. With the progress of the war, there was much suffering among the soldiers and their dest.i.tute families that the state could do but little to relieve, and the women took up the task. Besides the various church aid societies, we hear of the "Grove Hill Military Aid Society" and the "Suggsville Soldiers' Aid Society," both of Clarke County; the "Aid Society of Mobile"; the "Montgomery Home Society" and the "Soldiers'

Wayside Home," in Montgomery; the "Wayside Hospital" and the "Ladies'

Military Aid Society" of Selma; the "Talladega Hospital"; the "Ladies'

Humane Society" of Huntsville,[651] and many others. The legislature gave financial aid to some of them. Societies were formed in every town, village, and country settlement to send clothing, medicines, and provisions to the soldiers in the army and to the hospitals. The members went to hospitals and parole camps for sick and wounded soldiers, took them to their homes, and nursed them back to health. "Wayside Homes" were established in the towns for the accommodation of soldiers travelling to and from the army. Soldiers on sick leave and furlough who were cut off from their homes beyond the Mississippi came to the homes of their comrades, sure of a warm welcome and kind attentions. Poor soldiers sick at home were looked after and supplies sent to their needy families.

The last year of the war a bushel of corn cost $13, while a soldier's pay was $11 a month, paid once in a while. So the poor people became dest.i.tute. But the state furnished meal and salt to all[652] and the more fortunate people gave liberally of their supplies. Many of the poorer white women did work for others--weaving, sewing, and spinning--for which they were well paid, frequently in provisions, which they were in great need of. Some made hats, bonnets, and baskets for sale. The cotton counties supported many refugees from the northern counties, and numerous poor people from that section imposed upon the generosity of the planting section. The overseers, white or black, had a dislike for those to whom supplies were given; they also objected to the regular payment of the tax-in-kind, and to impressment which took their corn, meat, horses, cows, mules, and negroes, and crippled their operations. The mistresses had to interfere and see that the poor and the government had their share.

In the cities the women engaged in various patriotic occupations,--sewing for the soldiers, nursing, raising money for hospitals, etc. The women of Tuskegee raised money to be spent on a gunboat for the defence of Mobile Bay. They wanted it called _The Women's Gunboat_.[653] "A niece of James Madison" wrote to a Mobile paper, proposing that 200,000 women in the South sell their hair in Europe to raise funds for the Confederacy. The movement failed because of the blockade.[654] There were other similar propositions, but they could not be carried out, and year after year the legislatures of the state thanked the women for their patriotic devotion, their labors, sacrifices, constancy, and courage.

The music and songs that were popular during the war show the changing temper of the people. At first were heard joyous airs, later contemptuous and defiant as war came on; then jolly war songs and strong hymns of encouragement. But as sorrow followed sorrow until all were stricken; as wounds, sickness, imprisonment, and death of friends and relatives cast shadow over the spirits of the people; as hopes were dashed by defeat, and the consciousness came that perhaps after all the cause was losing,--the iron entered into the souls of the people. The songs were sadder now. The church hymns heard were the soul-comforting ones and the militant songs of the older churchmen. The first year were heard "Farewell to Brother Jonathan," "We Conquer or We Die;" then "Riding a Raid," "Stonewall Jackson's Way," "All Quiet Along the Potomac," "Lorena," "Beechen Brook,"

"Somebody's Darling," "When the Cruel War is O'er," "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah." "Dixie" was sung and played during the entire time, whites and blacks singing it with equal pleasure. The older hymns were sung and the doctrines of faith and good works earnestly preached. The promises were, perhaps, more emphasized. A deeply religious feeling prevailed among the home workers for the cause.

The women had the harder task. The men were in the field in active service, their families were safe at home, there was no fear for themselves. The women lived in constant dread of news from the front; they had to sit still and wait, and their greatest comfort was the hard work they had to do. It gave them some relief from the burden of sorrow that weighed down the souls of all. To the very last the women hoped and prayed for success, and failure, to many of them, was more bitter than death. The loss of their cause hurt them more deeply than it did the men who had the satisfaction of fighting out the quarrel, even though the other side was victorious.[655]

PART III

THE AFTERMATH OF WAR

CHAPTER V

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DISORDER

SEC. 1. LOSS OF LIFE AND PROPERTY

The Loss of Life

The surviving soldiers came straggling home, worn out, broken in health, crippled, in rags, half starved, little better off, they thought, than the comrades they had left under the sod of the battle-fields on the border.

In the election of 1860 about 90,000 votes were cast, nearly the entire voting population, and about this number of Alabama men enlisted in the Confederate and Union armies. Various estimates were made of Alabama's losses during the war, most of which are doubtless too large. Among these Governor Parsons, in his inaugural address, gives the number as 35,000 killed or died of wounds and disease, and as many more disabled.[656]

Colonel W. H. Fowler, for two years the state agent for settling the claims of deceased soldiers and also superintendent of army records, states that he had the names of nearly 20,000 dead on his lists and believed this to be only about half of the entire number; that the Alabama troops lost more heavily than any other troops. He a.s.serted that of the 30,000 Alabama troops in the Army of Northern Virginia over 9000 had died in service, and of those who were retired, discharged, or who resigned, about one-half were either dead or permanently disabled.[657] These estimates are evidently too large, and they probably form the basis of the statements of Governors Parsons and Patton. Governor Patton estimated that 40,000 had died in service, while 20,000 were disabled for life, and that there were 20,000 widows and 60,000 orphans.[658] A _Times_ correspondent places the loss in war at 34,000.[659] The strongest regiments were worn out by 1865. At Appomattox, when three times as many men surrendered as were in a condition to bear arms, the Alabama commands paroled hardly enough men in each regiment to form a good company. Though the average enlistment had been 1350 to the regiment, one of the best regiments--the Third Alabama Infantry--paroled: from Company B, 8 men; from Company D, 7 men; Company G, 4; Company E, 7; while the Fifth Alabama paroled: from Company A, 2; B, 7; C, 2; E, 2; F, 1; K, 3. The Twelfth Alabama: Company A, 4; C, 6; D, 6; E, 4; G, 3; I, 5; M, 4. Sixth Alabama (over 2000 enlistments): D, 2; F, 2; I, 5; M, 4. Sixty-first Alabama: B, 2; C, 4; E, 1; G, 5; I, 4; K, 3. Fifteenth Alabama: C, 8. Forty-eighth Alabama: C, 6; K, 7. Ninth Alabama: 70 men in all--an average of 7 to a company.

Thirteenth Alabama: 85 men in all. Forty-first Alabama: 74 men in all.

Forty-first, Forty-third, Fifty-ninth, Sixtieth, and Twenty-third: 220 men in all. Some companies were entirely annihilated, having neither officer nor private at the surrender. A company from Demopolis is said to have lost all except 7 men, that is, 125 by death in the service.[660] The census of 1866 contains the names of 8957 soldiers killed in battle, 13,534 who died of disease or wounds, and 2629 disabled for life.[661]

These are the only facts obtainable on which to base calculations, yet the census was very imperfect, as hundreds of families were broken up, thousands of men forgotten, and there was no one to give information regarding them to the census taker.

The white population decreased 3632 from 1860 to 1866, according to the census of the latter year. But for the war, according to rate of increase from 1850 to 1860, there should have been an increase of 50,000. In 1870 the census showed a further decrease of 1415, due, perhaps, to the great mortality just after the war. In other words, the white population was about 100,000 less in 1870 than it would have been under normal conditions, without immigration. Contemporary accounts state that the negro suffered much more than the whites in the two years immediately following the war, from starvation, exposure, and pestilence, and the census of 1866 showed a decrease of 14,325 in the colored population, when there should have been an increase of nearly 70,000 according to the rate of 1850 to 1860, besides the 20,000 that it has been estimated were sent into the interior of the state from other states to escape capture by the raiding Federals. The census of 1866 was not accurate, for the negroes at that time were in a very unsettled condition, wandering from place to place. However, in 1870, the number of negroes had increased 37,740 over the numbers for 1860, while the number of whites had decreased several thousand, which would seem to indicate that the census of 1866 was defective. But there is no doubt that the negroes suffered terribly during this time.[662]

Destruction of Property

Governor Patton, in a communication to Congress dated May 11, 1866, gives the property losses in Alabama as $500,000,000,[663] which sum doubtless includes the value of the slaves, estimated in 1860 at $200,000,000, or about $500 each.[664] The value of other property in 1860 has been estimated at $640,000,000, the a.s.sessed value, $256,428,893, being 40 per cent of the real value.[665]

A comparison of the census statistics of 1860 and of 1870 after five years of Reconstruction will be suggestive:--

1860 1870 Value of farms $175,824,032 $54,191,229 Value of live stock 43,411,711 21,325,076 Value of farm implements 7,433,178 5,946,543 Number of horses 127,000 80,000 Number of mules 111,000 76,000 Number of oxen 88,000 59,000 Number of cows 230,000 170,000 Number of other cattle 454,000 257,000 Number of sheep 370,000 241,000 Number of swine 1,748,000 719,000 Improved land in farms, acres 6,385,724 5,062,204 Corn crop, bushels 33,226,000 16,977,000 (35,053,047 in 1899) Cotton crop, bales 989,955 429,482 (1,106,840 in 1899)

Not until 1880 was the acreage of improved lands as great as in 1860.[666]

Live stock, valued at $43,000,000 in 1860, is still to-day $7,000,000 behind. Farm implements and machinery in 1900 were worth $1,000,000 more than in 1860, having doubled in value in the last ten years.[667] Land improvements and buildings, worth $175,000,000 in 1860, were in 1900 still more than $30,000,000 below that mark. The total value of farm property in 1860 was $226,669,511; in 1870, $97,716,055;[668] and in 1900, $179,339,882. Though the population has increased twofold since 1860[669]

and the white counties have developed and the industries have become more varied, agriculture has not yet reached the standard of 1860, the Black Belt farmer is much less prosperous, and the agricultural system of the old cotton belt has never recovered from the effects of the war. From the theoretical point of view the abolition of slavery should have resulted in loss only during the readjustment of industrial conditions. Yet $200,000,000 capital had been lost; and, as a matter of fact, the statistics of agriculture show that, while in the white counties in 1900 there was a greater yield of the staple crops,--cotton and corn,--in the black counties the free negroes of double the number do not yet produce as much as the slaves of 1860.[670]

The manufacturing establishments that had existed before the war or were developed during that time were destroyed by Federal raids, or were seized, sold, and dismantled after the surrender because they had furnished supplies to the Confederacy. The public buildings used by the Confederate authorities in all the towns and all over the country were burned or were turned over to the Freedmen's Bureau. The state and county public buildings in the track of the raiders were destroyed. The stocks of goods in the stores were exhausted long before the close of the war. All banking capital, and all securities, railroad bonds and stocks, state and Confederate bonds, and currency were worth nothing. All the acc.u.mulated capital of the state was swept away; only the soil and some buildings remained. People owning hundreds of acres of land often were as dest.i.tute as the poorest negro. The majority of people who had money to invest had bought Confederate securities as a patriotic duty, and all the coin had been drawn from the country. The most of the bonded debt was held in Mobile, and that city lost all its capital when the debt was declared null and void.[671] This city suffered severely, also, from a terrible explosion soon after the surrender. Twenty squares in the business part were destroyed.[672]

[Ill.u.s.tration: DEVASTATION BY INVADING ARMIES 1861-1865.]

Thousands of private residences were destroyed, especially in north Alabama, where the country was even more thoroughly devastated than in the path of Sherman through Georgia. The third year of the war had seen the destruction of everything destructible in north Alabama outside of the large towns, where the devastation was usually not so great. In Decatur, however, nearly all the buildings were burned; only three of the princ.i.p.al ones were left standing.[673] Tusc.u.mbia was practically destroyed, and many houses were condemned for army use.[674] The beautiful buildings of the Black Belt were out of repair and fast going to ruin. Many of the fine houses in the cities--especially in Mobile--had fallen into the hands of the Jews. One place, which was bought for $45,000 before the war, was sold with difficulty in 1876 for $10,000. Before the war there were sixteen French business houses in Mobile; none survived the war. The port of Mobile never again reached its former importance. In 1860, 900,000 bales of cotton had been shipped from the port; in 1865-1866, 400,000 bales; in 1866-1867, 250,000 bales; in 1876, 400,000 bales. There was no disposition on the part of the Washington administration to remove the obstructions in Mobile harbor. They were left for years and furnished an excuse to the reconstructionists for the expenditure of state money.[675]

Nearly all the grist-mills and cotton-gins had been destroyed, mill-dams cut, and ponds drained. The raiders never spared a cotton-gin. The cotton, in which the government was interested, was either burned or seized and sold, and private cotton, when found, fared in the same way. Cotton had been the cause of much trouble to the commanders on both sides during the war; it was considered the mainstay of the South before the war and the root of all evil. So of all property it received the least consideration from the Federal troops, and was very easily turned into cash. All farm animals near the track of the armies had been carried away or killed by the soldiers (as at Selma), or seized after the occupation by the troops.

Horses, mules, cows, and other domestic animals had almost disappeared except in the secluded districts. Many a farmer had to plough with oxen.

Farm and plantation buildings had been dismantled or burned, houses ruined, fences destroyed, corn, meat, and syrup taken. The plantations in the Tennessee valley were in a ruined condition. The gin-houses were burned, the bridges ruined, mills and factories gone, and the roads impa.s.sable.[676] In the homes that were left, carpets and curtains were gone, for they had been used as blankets and clothes, window gla.s.s was out, furniture injured or destroyed, and crockery broken. In the larger towns, where something had been saved from the wreck of war, the looting by the Federal soldiers was shameful. Pianos, furniture, pictures, curtains, sofas, and other household goods were shipped North by the Federal officers during the early days of the occupation. Gold and silver plate and jewellery were confiscated by the b.u.mmers who were with every command. Abuses of this kind became so flagrant that the northern papers condemned the conduct of the soldiers, and several ministers, among them Henry Ward Beecher, rebuked the practice from the pulpit.[677]

Land was almost worthless, because the owners had no capital, no farm animals, no farm implements, in many cases not even seed. Labor was disorganized, and the product of labor was most likely to be stolen by roving negroes and other marauders. Seldom was more than one-third of a plantation under cultivation, the remainder growing up in broom sedge because laborers could not be gotten. When the Federal armies pa.s.sed, many negroes followed them and never returned. Numbers of them died in the camps. When the war ended, many others left their old homes, some of whom several years later came straggling back.[678] Land that would produce a bale of cotton to the acre, worth $125, and selling in 1860 for $50 per acre at the lowest, was now selling for from $3 to $5 per acre. Among the negroes, especially after the occupation, there was a general belief, which was carefully fostered by a certain cla.s.s of Federal officials and by some leaders in Congress, that the lands would be confiscated and divided among the "unionists" and the negroes. When the state seceded, it took charge of the public lands within its boundaries and opened them to settlement. After the fall of the Confederacy those who had purchased lands were required to rebuy them from the United States or to give up their claims. Some lands were abandoned, as the owners were able neither to cultivate nor to sell them, for there was no capital. In c.u.mberland, a village, at one time there were ninety advertis.e.m.e.nts of sales posted in the hotel. The planters often found themselves amid a wilderness of land, without laborers, and often rented land free to some white man or to a negro who would pay the taxes.[679] Many hundreds of the people could see no hope whatever for the future of the state, and certainly the North was not acting so as to encourage them. Hence there was heavy emigration to Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, the northern and western states, and much property was offered at a tenth of its value and even less.

The heaviest losses fell upon the old wealthy families, who, by the loss of wealth and by political proscription, were ruined. In middle life and in old age they were unable to begin again, and for a generation their names disappear from sight. Losses, debts, taxes, and proscriptions bore down many, and few rose to take their places.[680] The poorer people, though they had but little to lose, lost all, and suffered extreme poverty during the latter years of the war and the early years of Reconstruction.

No wonder they were in despair and seemed for a while a menace to public order. To the power and influence of the leaders succeeded in part a second-rate cla.s.s--the rank and file of 1861--upon whom the losses of the war fell with less weight, and who were thrown to the front by the war which ruined those above and those below them. They were the sound, hard-working men--the lawyers, farmers, merchants, who had formerly been content to allow brilliant statesmen to direct the public affairs. Now those leaders were dead or proscribed, for poverty, war, reconstruction, and political persecution rapidly destroyed the old ruling element, and deaths among them after the war were very common. The men who rescued the state in 1874 were the men of lesser ability of 1860, farmer subordinates in the political ranks.[681]