THE SOUTH BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR.

[FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.]

New York, June 17, 1865. 'DEE dull placidity of the past week was hardly ruffled by the arrest on Wednesday of John Mitchell—your John—who, after having been the most rampant and foul-mouthed of the Southerners for four years, during which he was supposed to have edited the Richmond Examiner, had the impudence to come to New York and assume chief control of the Daily .News. The News has been all through the war an outspoken secession paper, and within a day or two it has been proved that the worthy Mr. Benjamin Wood, its proprietor, received 25,000 dols. and more from the Rebel Government. The Richmond Examiner, as I find by an extract from it made at the time, and now before me, recommended, October 30, 1863, that the Yankee prisoners of war "be put where the cold weather and scant fare will thin them out, in accordance with the laws of nature." It is surmised that Mr. Mitchell's con- nection in some manner with the fate of our prisoners is the ground of his arrest. What an outrage upon Mr. Mitchell, an Irishman, who has come here to teach us civilization ! Neverthe- less he was sent on the instant to Fortress Monroe, and we do not think that our liberty is thereby endangered.

Facts and direct evidence are worth much more than speculation, however ingenious, or hearsay, however well-informed and trust- worthy the reporter. Therefore I give you the following extracts, which I have been allowed to make from two letters received by Mends of mine from two friends of theirs, one in South Carolina, the other at present in Georgia, although his home is in Alabama. Thefirst is from a staid old gentleman of much intelligence and force of character, who before the war was a man of wealth, as his. letter shows. Brimful of South Carolina confidence and assump- tion, he yet never was a "fire-eater" (I myself know his family

well), for he is altogether too shrewd, as well as too sober a man for that. But his brother was a furious nullifier in Jackson's time (1832), and his daughter was one of the subscribers to the cane- which the Charleston ladies presented to Mr. Brooks in honour of his assault on Mr. Sumner. I preserve his capital letters and hin contractions, as marks of the old style of writing to which he was. accustomed in his youth, and to which he still adheres :—

" Aiken, S.C., May 27th, 1865..

"The sudden cessation of Hostilities has enabled me once more to Communicate with my friends at the North. The late unfortunate. War has been most disastrous to the South. Everybody nearly ruined,. nearly all the means of Banks and Individuals invested in Confederate' Bonds. The Planters' Interest also nearly destroyed by the emancipation_ of the negroes. The whole South is ruined for the present. We are. truly democratic ; every one has lost nearly all; all stand on the same. Platform of Poverty. When the sudden Collapse of the currency took place, I had about 10,000 dole. in notes in hand, and a large am't or Benda, all of which to day would hardly buy me a dinner.

"My Bank and Insurance Stock, and am'ts due from Individuals; are also not available at present, and hardly any Specie in Circulation.

"The U. S. Taxes on my Houses in Town are now called for,. and I have not 5 dols. in Specie or Greenbacks on hand, and tam told by- e friend just from Charleston that 100 dols. in Specie can not be bor- rowed from the richest man in the City.

"If it is quite convenient, I want you to loan me 200 dols., Two- hundred dollars, until Jan'y. to pay my Taxes. I may be able to. return it before. This goes to give you some Idea of things at the South at present, when I have to send to N. Y. to borrow 200 dole- in Greenbacks.

"We have been living, or existing, in Aiken for 3 years ;. have enjoyed good health, not being enervated by Luxury. At present our mode of Living Consists of Bartering Salt and Shirting (which we happened to supply ourselves with) for Country provisions, Bacon, Lard, &c.

"Give my love to Mrs. — and tell her I had great difficulty in preserving Fanny and Katie from friend and foe ; and, they are still an handsome as ever. They go under the names she gave them. We are now reaping the bitter fruits of Nullification."

I suspect that this old gentleman's daughter, who is really w kind-hearted, well-bred woman, does not admire the Preston- Brooks style of dealing with political questions so much as she- did ten, or even five years ago. And yet she may, for those slaveholding women are a stiff-necked generation, tenacious of what they fancy is their superior position, and ambitious of one still higher. This very lady wrote to friends of mine in New York, soon after the passage of the Seces- sion ordinance, in great glee; because, she said exultingly, "Now you know we're all going to be My Lady." I have known her, when on a visit to the North, express great dissatisfaction with the mariners of the men, because the gentleman who saw. her to her carriage did not take off his hat and lead her down the steps by the tips of her fingers, as she said any well-bred boy would do in South Carolina. But she omitted to mention that tho boymight five minutes after kick a negro woman, and that the coach- man had probably bare feet. And she has complained that the carts and carriages which throng our thoroughfares did not stop to let her cross the street, because "in Charleston any gentleman or any coachman would pull his horses down upon their haunches to let a lady pass ; " the fact being that in that sleepy, tumble-

down little place, there was a respectful distance of about a quarter of a mile between the vehicles. Poor thing ! now, instead of being "My Lady," she lives by bartering salt and shirting for bacon and lard, and of the gallant slaveholders who handed her so daintily to her carriage, and reined their horses upon their haunches to let her pass, a large proportion have fallen in their futile effort to withstand a power for which they solicitously cherished a con- tempt. Do not suppose that I exult over her. I now mourn her sad fate, as I once smiled at her folly. And it appears to me, by the way, that the policy which makes the writer of the above letter a borrower is not a wise one. The war is but just well over, and the United States taxes are demanded. The first indication of peace and the resumption of authority is a summons to an impoverished people to pay a tax unknown before the war—a tax levied to pay the cost of subduing them. It seems as if this haste had not much in it of sagacity or speed.

The other letter is from a wealthy and well-educated professional man, who represents fairly that large class in the Slave States, the Union men, whose existence we have always asserted, and our belief in whose numbers has been not a little laughed at in Europe. These men, in the beginning, throughout the war, and now at heart devoted to the Government and the interests of the whole country, were yet, most of them, forced into the insurrection by external and internal pressure after hostilities began. This the leaders knew would be the case. "Strike a blow," said Mr. Roger Pryor, of Virginia, when the South Carolina people expressed sur- prise and disgust at the backwardness of Virginia in seceding, "strike a blow, and you will rouse all the Southern States to arms with you." They did, and thus were able to "precipitate the South into revolution." But I am keeping you from this little epistolary confession :—

" W—, near Augusta, May 23r4 1865.

"For the past year or two I have been residing at my place near A—, without relinquishing my residence in Alabama, chiefly prac- tising law and trying to make peace.

"Well, peace has come, not just in the way it was looked for; but

peace has come, and I am profoundly thankful for it. My individual taus Deo ascends to Heaven amid the tumultuous shoats of a nation.' Yes, a nation now, if never before. I trust that you comprehend my position. Let me state it in brief. Utterly opposed to secession, I strove to avert it. When it came I retired to my library until the war proclamation was issued. Then I took part with my people, as an Indian goes to his tribe with his blanket and rifle. Still all the while I was unconquerably for the Union when proper terms could be had. The men who preci- pitated the South into revolution persisted in the wild struggle until everything was lost, and we had nailing to settle with. Now that the elements are once more serene, I shall decide as to my future."

It may interest my readers to be told, as indicative of the temper of the conquerors in our civil war, that although both these letters were written to men who think that Mr. Jefferson Davis, General Lee, and a few others of their sort, ought to be hanged, I happen to know that in each instance the reply was kind, considerate, and sympathizing, without any allusion what- ever to the triumph of the national arms.

The condition of affairs in the western South is even more de- plorable than that revealed by these gentlemen in the East. Society there, always more loosely held together and more sub- ject to violence than in the East, has for the past two years been in a state of utter disorganization, except within garrisoned towns and military camps. Robbery has become a trade and murder a pastime. For this statement my authority is a Mississippi planter who has recently visited this city. The country there has long been at the mercy of deserters from the rebel armies, and despe- rate fellows who joined themselves to the former. These men formed themselves into bands under a chief. They took armed possession of certain districts, and within those districts they robbed indiscriminately. But the caterans rigidly respected both their word given in the way of business and each other's juris- diction. They never trespassed upon each other's territory. The planters finally paid them not only for protection against them- selves, but to act as their protectors against others. The gentle- man in question said that the band whom he enlisted served him faithfully. They robbed everybody that passed on the road ; that he could not help. They lived on his neighbours ; that did not

trouble him much, because previously his neighbours had lived on him. He saw little or nothing of his protectors ; they gave him no trouble ; he only knew that he lived in quiet and in safety, and could go wherever he pleased without fear of harm, whereas before his life and his property had been in constant peril. This is the condition of affairs at the

dko Forbes of Hologkri. By George Itsodonild. 3 Tole London Hurst end Blaokeit. South, with the addition of the negro trouble, the manage- ment of between three and four millions of embruted and enfranchised slaves, and the formation of new relations between them and their late masters, or, still more difficult, between them and the mean whites, who furnish the rank and file of those bands whose practices I have briefly told. But in this the impoverish- ment of the country will aid efforts which must be directed rather toward a re-organization of society than a reconstruction of the Union. And thus the evil is not entirely without its compensa- tion.

Vice-President Stephens and General Lee have sued to the President—to Andy Johnson— for pardon. Truly this "indomit- able, utterly unconquerable people" seem not to meet the expecta- tions of their particular friends in Europe, and some one keeps a

very unwise " owl " in London. A YANKEE.