The Great South: a record of journeys in Louisiana, Texas, the Indian Territory, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia. ... Profusely illustrated from original sketches by J. W. Champney

Front matter

THE SOUTHERN STATES OF NORTH AMERICA: A RECORD OF JOURNEYS IN LOUISIANA, TEXAS, THE INDIAN TERRITORY, MISSOURI, ARKANSAS, MISSISSIPPI, ALABAMA, GEORGIA, FLORIDA, SOUTH CAROLINA, NORTH CAROLINA, KENTUCKY, TENNESSEE, VIRGINIA. WEST VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. By EDWARD KING. PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED BY ENGRAVINGS FROM ORIGINAL SKETCHES By J. WELLS CHAMPNEY. This work is the record of an extensive tour of observation through what were formerly the Slave States of North America during the whole of the year 1873 and the spring and summer of 1874.. It involved a journey of more than twenty five thousand miles and great expense; for the area covered by the fifteen ex-slave States amounts to more than 880,000 square miles, inhabited by fourteen millions of people. The journeys were undertaken at the instance of the publishers of Scribner's Monthly Magazine, who desired to present to the public, through the medium of their popular periodical, a series of illustrated articles giving an account of the material resources, and the present social and political condition, of the people of the States formerly subjected to the dominion of Slavery.

They were carried out by Mr. Edward King, a journalist most favourably known as a shrewd observer and pleasing writer, accompanied by Mr. J. Wells Champney, an able artist in the production of characteristic sketches. The work now offered to the public will contain not only all that was valuable in the series of articles that appeared in the Magazine, re-written and re-arranged, but will also embody a very large amount of valuable and picturesque description and many engravings not heretofore published. It will comprehend a detailed description of each of the fifteen ex-Slave States, their political, social, and material condition. People and places are sketched with spirit and fidelity; and the material has been so arranged and classified as to give a complete and symmetrical account of life in a section of country which is rich in beauty and resources.

The accuracy of those portions of the text and pictures which have appeared in Scribner's Magazine has received the warmest encomiums from both the Northern and Southern press and people. The studies with pen and pencil of the varied and picturesque life of New Orleans, St. Louis, Baltimore, Louisville, Savannah, Charleston, Wilmington, and Rich mond, are alone sufficient to form an interesting volume. Much attention is given to the peculiarities and condition of the negro as a freedman; his career as a legislator, and as an humble labourer on rice, sugar, and cotton plantations, has been fully described. The difficult and vexatious aspects of the labour question have been carefully considered, and the advantages of the country as an outlet for manufactures fully set forth. The course of reconstruction is traced from the close of the war to the present time.