Sumter, S. C.
May 31, 1867

Dear Fuller,

Miss Breck &ct. are all dressed and awaiting the whistle of the train which is to carry us to Lynchburg--that land of the robbers & murderers. I [?] a letter from you this morning. The messenger brought me back a nice long letter from you, written at various dates, as this will be. I have plenty to say in reply, which the time will probably be too short for me to say now, and then I shall forget it. About my coming home, which gives you so much concern. I am sure I do not know. I suppose I might come at any time;--events must decide, as they probably will. I think I ought to stay during the vacation, even if I go home in October when the other teachers come back, for the freedmen will have hardly any counsellors this summer,--nobody but Mr. Fleming, who is a trifle timid & moreover a Southron after all. On the other side is all the intelligence, & all the money. There will be plenty to lead them astray with horrid words.

Here is it the 5th day of [?] letter--the mouth of pleasure--beautiful June--& I have not extended my letter beyond those few lines above these. I went to Lynchburg as arranged, & staid till Monday morning. Mr. Whittemore was there, & we had a real pleasant time. Our friend, Mr. Tamblyn boards in the family of a Southerner--Mr. Wilson. By taking in Mr. Tamblyn to board Mr. Wilson has lost his business almost wholly, & everyone looks coldly upon him. None of the ladies of L. call upon Mrs. Wilson, or recognize her in the street. Yet Mr. Wilson was a soldier in the Confederate army nearly four years. It is so noble of him to take Mr. Tamblyn & to stand up for him so manfully as he does. That is being persecuted for righteousness' sake if there is any such thing.

The people of L. are very different from the Sumter people. You can feel the difference in a moment. They are much more outspoken & offensive in their hatred of the Yankees. Oh, they looked at us so insolently as we walked along the streets with Messrs. Tamblyn & Whittemore. Sunday evening there was no meeting at the colored church, so Mr. Whittemore proposed that we all go to the white Methodist church. In almost all the churches in this country it is the custom for the ladies to occupy one side of the church & the gentlemen the other. So, though we greatly dreaded being separated from our protectors, we complied with the custom, & went on the ladies' side. There was one lady (?) sitting in the slip we entered. As soon as we were seated she turned and whispered a moment with a lady behind her, & then rose hastily & bounced out into another slip. Such a cross-fire of eyes, shooting, angry, insulting glances as we had to undergo then! I was glad when the gentlemen sent for us before the service was out, for I don't know but some of them would have come to violence.

Is it not strange how every great charity gets greatly abused? The contributions so freely & generously poured in upon us by the North, do get strangely wrong sometimes. I heard the other day in Lynchburg of a a party of forty men who united in a petition for cases to the Baltimore Relief Society and received in return two hundred and fifty bushels. It was said that every man of them sold or traded away his corn before he went home--most of them for whiskey. In Kinsgtree, between here & Charleston, where a large quantity of corn was sent, within an hour after its arrival it is said not a pint of whiskey was to be found for sale in town--every drop was sold for corn. The story was told by one of the men who had drawn the corn, & who wanted the whiskey, but was too late. These are only rumors, it is true, but they are so widespread, & so general, that they must have foundation in fact. The truth is that the corn is almost invariably placed for distribution in the hands of the bitterest old rebels--Gov. Orr at the head. In the present political state of the country it is easy to guess how it will be used, & to whom it will be given.

If "where sin abounds grace doth much more abound;" there must be no end of grace in South Carolina, for surely there's no end of sin.

Sickles--our military commander--has just issued a new order which causes no small stir among copperheads. One article in it especially is a terrible blow to the exclusives. It provides that all public conveyances, such as railroads cars, steamboats, coaches, &tc. shall be free for any one to use "without distinction of caste or color." Up to this time every railroad train has a separate car entitled "Second-class" expressly for the colored people. The price of a seat was the same, and the car was really quite as comfortable as a first-class; still it was Second-class, and no colored man was tolerated for a moment anywhere else. So far did they carry the principle that a friend of ours, Rev. Mr. Randolph, a native of Ohio, who has received a liberal education (& does justice to it too) at Oberlin, and moreover whose skin is very few degrees removed from white, is nevertheless obliged to take a seat with the other black men. Now "nous avons changé tout cela"-- we (videlicit Gen Sickles) have changed all that. A man's a man, and if he pays his fare haws all the right that any other man has. It is amusing to hear these old rebels in their fiery indignation. We hard one say dolefully, "Ah we have no legal rights now!" Perhaps the time is coming when the white man shall have no rights that the black man is bound to respect. A "nigger" is as good as a white man. "Failte, & a dale better too," as an Irishman once observed.

South Carolina--and I suppose other states as well--is making her old grand mistake this year, and staking everything upon the cotton crop to the neglect of everything else. Comparatively little corn is planted--all the land goes to cotton. If that fails as it did last year, everything is lost; and in any case the people are foolish to plant all cotton, neglect & have to import the necessaries of life. It is strange that people will never learn wisdom by experience. They think their agricultural system is the best in the world. The "Charleston News" said last week that it could not be improved. Improved! I wish you could see it. But the farmers even the wealthy planters, are wretchedly poor. Some of them in this district have had to turn out their mules to grass, not having the wherewithal to feed them, & work the corp by hand. Oh, you can have no idea of the state of the country. It will take so many years to reach even its former degree of prosperity. Its curse now will be the immense estates. A very large part of South Carolina is owned by a very few planters who have sometimes five or six thousand acres in their plantations. When the march of mind has gone on to that degree that they will be wiling to sell on favorable terms to the freedmen, this will cure itself, but few of them will do it now. If they would only see how poorly they can afford not to be just.

Mr. Fleming is now in Massachusetts, I wish you could see him while he is there. He is fairly enchanted with the country in the Connecticut valley, and calls it fairy-land. He is very well received, & opportunity is afforded him to address the people in most places.

My brother speaks of a fine prospect for fruit this year. He says every plum--cherry--& pear-tree is loaded with blossoms, and every peach tree that has not been dead more than five years. Is your prospect as good? We have berries of various descriptions, plums, and early apples.

What you say of the education of the Southern people is very true, but is rather "abstract truth" for the present time. People can't be expected to educate themselves when they can't support themselves, and these people can't at present. Undoubtedly public education will receive very early attention as soon as they are able to stand alone, and have somewhat emerged from the social chaos in which they are at present. At present you have no idea how expensive a luxury an education is. I overheard a gentleman speaking of it in a shop the other day, and he said that the education of his three children cost him a thousand dollars a year. Just think what a privilege we enjoy in New England. I have been told on good authority that not half the white people in Sumter district could write their names. An education qualification for suffrage would make sad havoc among the enfranchised here.

Now this is a very wise letter. I think as I look back that it is about as wise a letter as I ever wrote, and I hope you will prize it accordingly. I received a letter from you yesterday which requires a great deal of answering so I can't begin upon it now. It is Friday night & our school will be done for this week, only that as we are going away to a church two miles off in the country on Sunday we have an extra session tomorrow to take the place of Sunday School. As there is no one quite competent to carry it on in our absence. So important have we become to Sumter, that the people can hardly reconcile themselves to let us go out of town at all. When we came back from Lynchburg after an absence of two days, we found a large delegation of people awaiting us at the station, some of whom had walked over two miles on purpose to meet us.

As ever yours

Janie B. Smith

Love to Mrs. Fisk