side, wounded as I was, for three long weeks, but he gradually grew worse
and then he died. I went out with the body and saw it buried as decently
as I could, and then I went back to Jackson and told the young mistress
how brave he was in battle, how good he was to me, and told her all the
words he had sent her, as he lay there on that rude cot in the hospital.
That is my record as a Confederate soldier, and if you gentlemen care to
give me a certificate of registration, I would be much obliged to you."
It is needless to say that old Ed. Harris got his certificate.

It is insisted upon by the leaders of public opinion at the South, that
negroes should not be given equal political and civil rights with white
men, defined by law and enforceable by the courts; but that they should be
content to strive to deserve the good wishes and friendly feeling of the
whites, and if the South is let alone, they will see to it that negroes
get becoming treatment.

While there is a large number of the high-toned, chivalrous element of the
old master class yet living, who would stand by the negro and not permit
him to be wronged if they could prevent it, yet they are powerless to
control the great mass of the poor whites who are most bitter in their
prejudices against the negro. They should also bear in mind that the old
master class is rapidly passing way, and that there is constantly an
influx of foreigners to the South, and in less than fifty years the
Italians, or some other foreign nationality, may be the ruling class in
all the Southern States; and the negro, deprived of all political and
civil rights by the Constitution and laws, would be wholly at the mercy of
a people without sympathy for him.

In order to show the fallacy and the wrong and injustice of this doctrine,
and how helplessly exposed it leaves the negro to the prejudices of the
poor whites, I relate a tragedy in the life of a friend of mine, who was
well known and respected in the town of Rayville, Louisiana.

Sewall Smith, for many years ran the leading barber shop for whites in the
town of Rayville, and was well-liked and respected by the leading white
men of the entire parish. At the suggestion of his customers he bought
Louisiana state lands while they were cheap, before the railroad was put
through between Vicksburg and Shreveport; and as the road passed near his
lands he was thereby made a rich man, as wealth goes in those parts. His
good fortune, however, di