return runaway Negroes to their masters. They were licensed to break up
Negro frolics, whip the men, and ravish the women. But in the main the
poor white subsisted by hunting and fishing. To him work was degrading,
and only for "niggers" to do. A squatter upon the property of others,
his sole belongings consisted of fishing tackle, guns, a house full of
children, and a yard full of dogs. In Virginia, North and South Carolina
he is known as "Poor Bocra," "Poor Tackie." In Georgia and Florida it's
"Cracker," and there are few readers of current literature who are not
familiar with that class of whites known as Clay Eaters of Alabama and
Mississippi. Looked down upon by the upper classes, the poor white
before the war was simply a tool for designing politicians. When war
between the North and South became iminent, the poor white increased in
value; for the aristocrat was adverse to being a common private. So they
sought the poor white, appealed to his patriotism, pictured to him the
wrongs heaped upon the South, and the righteousness of slavery. They
drew glowing pictures of the Southern army's invasion of the North to
thrash the Yankees, and pardon them in Faneuil Hall. The South freed,
was to open her markets to the world. Her wealth was to be untold, while
grass would grow on the sidewalks of Northern cities. Every poor white
who shouldered a gun was to be elevated out of serfdom, be given forty
acres of land, a "nigger" and a mule. Enthused by these glowing
promises, the Southern poor white shouldered his gun and waded in: and
no one reviewing the history of that immortal struggle would for a
moment question the bravery of the Southern soldiers. They fought like
demons. They invaded the North. They made the world wonder at
Gettysburg.

Here Mississippi flushed with pride
Met Pennsylvania's deadly tide
And Georgia's rash and gallant ride
Was checked by New York's chivalry.

Here Alabama's rebel yell
Rang through the valleys down to hell
But Maine's decisive shot and shell
Cut short the dreadful revelry.

But the South's victorious armies did not reach Faneuil Hall. The air
castles, the hopes of Southern prosperity and the poor whites elevation
and wealth were blasted, when two years after that gallant dash at
Gettysburg, that ragged, starved, wretched host surrendered at
Appomattox. The blasted hopes of the poor white caused him to drift
further away from the aristocrat who had fooled him i