"Window-glass has given way to thin boards, in railway coaches and in the cities.Furniture is marred and broken, and none has been replaced for four years.Dishes are cemented in various styles, and half the pitchers have tin handles.A complete set of crockery is never seen, and in very few families is there enough to set a table....A set of forks with whole tines is a curiosity.Clocks and watches have nearly all stopped....Hairbrushes and toothbrushes have all worn out; combs are broken....Pins, needles, and thread, and a thousand such articles, which seem indispensable to housekeeping, are very scarce.Even in weaving on the looms, corncobs have been substituted for spindles.Few have pocketknives.In fact, everything that has heretofore been an article of sale in the South is wanting now.At the tables of those who were once esteemed luxurious providers you will find neither tea, coffee, sugar, nor spices of any kind.Even candles, in some cases, have been replaced by a cup of grease in which a piece of cloth is plunged for a wick."This poverty was prolonged and rendered more acute by the lack of transportation.Horses, mules, wagons, and carriages were scarce, the country roads were nearly impassable, and bridges were in bad repair or had been burned or washed away.Steamboats had almost disappeared from the rivers.
Those which had escaped capture as blockade runners had been subsequently destroyed or were worn out..Postal facilities, which had been poor enough during the last year of the Confederacy, were entirely lacking for several months after the surrender.
The railways were in a state of physical dilapidation little removed from destruction, save for those that had been captured and kept in partial repair by the Federal troops.The rolling stock had been lost by capture, by destruction to prevent capture, in wrecks, which were frequent, or had been worn out.The railroad companies possessed large sums in Confederate currency and in securities which were now valueless.About two-thirds of all the lines were hopelessly bankrupt.Fortunately, the United States War Department took over the control of the railway lines and in some cases effected a temporary reorganization which could not have been accomplished by the bankrupt companies.During the summer and fall of 1865, "loyal" boards of directors were appointed for most of the railroads, and the army withdrew its control.
But repairs and reconstruction were accomplished with difficulty because of the demoralization of labor and the lack of funds or credit.Freight was scarce and, had it not been for government shipments, some of the railroads would have been abandoned.Not many people were able to travel.It is recorded that on one trip from Montgomery to Mobile and return, a distance of 360miles, the railroad which is now the Louisville and Nashville collected only thirteen dollars in fares.
Had there been unrestricted commercial freedom in the South in 1865-66, the distress of the people would have been somewhat lessened, for here and there were to be found public and private stores of cotton, tobacco, rice, and other farm products, all of which were bringing high prices in the market.But for several months the operation of wartime laws and regulations hindered the distribution of even these scanty stores.Property upon which the Confederate Government had a claim was, of course, subject to Confiscation, and private property offered for sale, even that of Unionists, was subject to a 25 percent tax on sales, a shipping tax, and a revenue tax.The revenue tax on cotton, ranging from two to three cents a pound during the three years after the war, brought in over $68,000,000.This tax, with other Federal revenues, yielded much more than the entire expenses of reconstruction from 1865 to 1868 and of all relief measures for the South, both public and private.After May 1865, the 25 percent tax was imposed only upon the produce of slave labor.None of the war taxes, except that on cotton, was levied upon the crops of 1866, but while these taxes lasted, they seriously impeded the resumption of trade.
Even these restrictions, however, might have been borne if only they had been honestly applied.Unfortunately, some of the most spectacular frauds ever perpetrated were carried through in connection with the attempt of the United States Treasury Department to collect and sell the confiscable property in the South.The property to be sold consisted of what had been captured and seized by the army and the navy, of "abandoned" property, as such was called whose owner was absent in the Confederate service, and of property subject to seizure under the confiscation acts of Congress.No captures were made after the general surrender, and no further seizures of "abandoned" property were made after Johnson's amnesty proclamation of May 29, 1865.This left only the "confiscable" property to be collected and sold.
For collection purposes the states of the South were divided into districts, each under the supervision of an agent of the Treasury Department, who received a commission of about 25 percent.Cotton, regarded as the root of the slavery evil, was singled out as the principal object of confiscation.It was known that the Confederate Government had owned in 1865 about 150,000 bales, but the records were defective and much of it, with no clear indication of ownership, still remained with the producers.Secretary Chase, foreseeing the difficulty of effecting a just settlement, counseled against seizure, but his judgment was overruled.Secretary McCulloch said of his agents: "I am sure Isent some honest cotton agents South; but it sometimes seems doubtful whether any of them remained honest very long." Some of the natives, even, became cotton thieves.In a report made in 1866, McCulloch describes their methods:
