A Year in the South: Four Lives in 1865 Essay

Prompt How did the different punctuates of magic trick, Cornelia, Lou, and surface-to-air missileuel run into their abilities to adjust to the block up of the war? How did the fetch up of the war affect their fooling screws? Explain, do sure to support your answer with peculiarityorse and quotes from the text.A Year in the southernmost quaternion Lives in 1865The backsideground of an respective(prenominal) completelyows the individual to suit to refreshful mess no matter how radical the dislodge may be. It is in truth apparent that in the book, A Year in the south Four Lives in 1865, that raft whether they were inkiness or white suffered different hardships, n maventheless their scene was what en fitd them to succeed or omit subsequentlyward the war. There were four people which this book was focused upon Louis Hughes, who was an educated slave in the Deep South, in Tombigbee, atomic number 13 Cornelia McDonald, who was the wife of a accomplice spend, and the produce of 7 children in Lexington, Virginia surface-to-air missileuel Agnew, who was a non-Christian priest exempted from military service re hold able to his range in the church, in Tippah County, Mississippi, and conjuration Robertson, who was an ex- assistant soldier facial expression to settle set bulge out and live a religious life evaluate defeat as a companion soldier, in East Tennessee. Although the backgrounds of distributively of these individuals were different, their skills gained from their background is what led them to be able to hold or fail to alter to the end of the war.Louis Hughes was an educated slave who was taught m some(prenominal) skills by his check whom he refers to as boss, and skills he lettered from various jobs but not limited to nursing, running(a) in the field, and working(a) the salt works. Louis Hughes was very highly arch(prenominal) for a slave. Nursing was and unmatchable of m some(prenominal) skills Lou acquired in th e McGehee household. He could devolve on a carriage, cultivate an ornamental garden, and change surface operate a stitchery machine, not to mention serve expertly as butler and body servant. (Ash 25) This shows how well round Lou was as a slave and as an individual. Lou was also of an entrepreneurial mindset and is shown when he was in the salt works, where he borrowed gold from the an different(prenominal)(prenominal) slaves and bought tobacco plugs to betray. Having discerned that the s sleep together could only produce salt, he was highly roaring and procured a fifty dollar realize from the sales which granted attention from N.S. digest.Brooks then obtained five hundred plugs for Lou to sell in which he make a huge profit from. Lou had noticed that it was all rebel specie but was sagacious enough and bought up all the liquid medal he could get his considers on. (Ash 21) This learn to believe that Lou would buy something that will arrive at got its treasure if the confederacy were to lose or win. That charge he could keep his assets safe. As soon as the first compact of invasion was near Madam had move for all her slaves. Lou had been sent out to the fields for the remainder of the time of the invasion was upon arrival, yet though there was hardly a presence in the remote area he was in. During the time he was working in the field he remembered how his track had shown two sides of his master. On one side, his master had been seen as a benevolent and would go out and cure people.On the other hand, there was one where he was seen as temperamental and aggressive. Lou has held much resentment towards this side, and recalls a time where Boss gave him a whipping. This made Lous yearning for freedom dismantle greater than it was before. Eventually in the summer, Lou and another slave named George had trenchant to escape, not cunning that the war had ended and they were granter freedom. The two unknowingness freedmen then made their w ay to Memphis, by and large by foot with fear that they mightiness be caught and sent back. The last bit, aft(prenominal) they felt more(prenominal) secure was by train, Lou had purchased use his earnings from the plugs. There they were sullen down by the rancidicial in charge, institute that the war had ended in the alliance victory and traveled back Senatobia.On their way there, with a rented water ouzel and two bottles of whiskey presumably bought with the silver that Lou had obtained by selling plugs, ran into two essence soldiers. He bartered to have the Union soldiers go to Madams house to herald the confederate defeat in swop for a whisky bottle. The union soldiers did scarcely that. After doing so the freedmen and their wives along with other freedmen headed to Memphis, escorted some of the way by the equal soldiers. There they made a living, or idled about enjoying their new freedom.However, Lou and his comp whatsoever had decided to go to Cincinnati to see if they could find Matildas mother which eventually they did. Lou was able adapt and succeed in almost any job he was given collectable to his background of working with similar jobs he had held before. Lou was able to adapt in much(prenominal) a way to where it is believed he was happy after the war in the cost of the new freedom he had attained. Lou was able to supersede adversity of the changing political and economic crisis of the south after the war.surface-to-air missileuel Agnew was a priest in Tippah County, Mississippi. His family were avid supporters of the Confederate cause, running and hiding at the affright of Yankee invasion. Sam was exempted from the war because he was a minister, although accosted he was a fewer clock under the presumption that he was avoiding the draft. He had heard of the devastation that the confederate soldiers had endured, and kept a keen refer in news about the war, and the policies that the league was putting in his free time. He tr ied to cultivate opium and tobacco, as a hobby and to sell to make funds to use to buy provisions. In times of heavy depression, and where prices kept going up and money and supply were scarce. Even though the war was everywhere and Sam had real that fact he still had a strong sense of confederacy patriotism which came from his family holding a small plantation, and using slave hands to tend to it. His arrest, Enoch had listed the value of his plantation as $23,500, which he Union via President flush toiletson had declared that along with the generals and officials of the Confederacy, any citizen with more than twenty thousand dollars in assets.That provision was clearly aimed at the planters, a class whom Johnson despised and whom he infernal for the breakup of the Union. This was something the Agnews would have to reckon with. (Ash 145) This was one of the hardships that could not be avoided by Sam as to see that living with his father and his small plantation would be grea tly affected by this. Eventually, Sam had to advance the slaves and announce that they were freedmen, however none of them go away immediately, they stayed and did only the necessary work, but did not work as efficiently as they did when they were slaves. Sam dictates that the freedmen were doing as they please they go off in daylight on their own business and are not giving their masters concerns any attention.As a consequence, Sam found himself taking on unaccustomed chores nigh the plantation making a new rope for the well bucket, gathering and change the loose bits of cotton scattered rough the floor of the gin house. (Ash 151) This shows that even though he had little practice cultivating, he was ill prepared for the jobs that he had his slaves at the time do. Sam could not adapt to the end of the war. He had no picture in the work that the slaves did thus was attempt to meet ends meet, which is also dis nobbleed in their death livestock. Later on he would study t he freedmen to work in the fields and pay them to do so. Disgusted at the take aim he was at negotiating with what used to be his familys property.Eventually this disdain, and losing assets would offer him with no freedmen come New Years Day of the following year after the war. This would leave his family in ruins and unable to share with the post war times ahead. indeed Sam Agnew was not prepared for the end of the war economically, and with the lack of skills seeing as how they were ruined with no workers or livestock that would help them with the plantation that his father had owned. Sam after having lost everything had failed to change with the finale of the war and the new policies of the United States and had suffered economically.John Robertson was a young ex-confederate soldier whom after being captured in the war and compel to surrender to get out of prison, was looking for a religious revival and to have a normal life. He plan to become a minister as he professed t o Tennie, and John was an old hand at raising wheat during the eld John was growing up in Greene County. (Ash 172) Showing he had some skills to go upon and would have self-sufficiency. Even though he had surrendered and allowed to go back home he remains bitter and still harbors hate towards the union after the confederate loss. As soon as the Unionist realised dominance in East Tennessee, he realized that he hated the aborigine unionist more than the Unionist that came from other states. This is mainly due to the fact that he was a Confederate from Tennessee and saw the intrinsic unionists as traitors.This played a monster role in making his daily life really difficult especially in the church due to governor Brownlow, who had resented all of the confederates that imprisoned him. Later on, John would pay the price for his war acts. The Lincolnites were laid to kill him, there was nothing he could do to stop themnothing, that is, except go where they could not find him. Throu gh the wane days of August, he agonized over his plight. By September, he had decided he must leave. (Ash 180) This shows that Johns olden would dictate how he would live his future and that he would have to evade the Unionists that were looking for revenge for his past sins, thus pressured him to leave Tennessee and retreat to Springfield. He colonised down and immersed himself in education and religion. Although he had settled there with an uncle he was determined to go back, thus Johns background is preventing him from having a successfully way to cope with the end of the war emotionally due to his inability to see his love, Tennie.Cornelia McDonald was the wife of a wealthy confederate army officer. Cornelia had relied hard on her husbands fee thus when she died everything went downhill very fast. She had no basic house skills except for sewing and mending clothes. She lacked basic skill so she had to hire someone to do the cookery for the same reason she had to pay f or carding, spinning, and twine as a well-bred cleaning lady who had always had money and slaves, she had never learned those skills because she never had to perform those chores. (Ash 38) This will play into account when the war comes around as those are necessities and will affect and drainage the money from Cornelia in the latter fractional of the year.She would have to pay someone else for these indwelling skills. As for the skill she did have was to instruct for painting and foreign languages, these seem more of a luxury than a fatality as will be seen in at the end of the book. She is barely able to support herself and her family after her husband dies and the meagre earning she gets goes to food and not enough is left(a) over rent and she engrossed in debt and eventually becomes ruined financially. Cornelia is struggling emotionally as well and claims to see her noble sons, little daughter, and pretty little boys dragged down so low. (Ash 158) This was one of her gre ater struggles as she could not believe that just a few years ago they were so prosperous and now doing jobs that were so beneath them. This is just a clear power that she was not able to adapt to the batch of a changing political clime and her lack of ability to adapt is shown very clearly financially and emotionally.All in all most of the Southerners had a subtle time coping with the end of the war because of their inability, and lack of essential self-sustaining skills. Lou and John were the only ones to see progress in their life although not in meaningful amount but they were better off than those of the rich white plantation and slave owners. The reason was their ability to cope with hardships way before the end of the war and these times of hardships helped them transition into the post war era, whereas Cornelia and Sam were ruined, because they lived a life where they had enough money to sustain themselves, and did not need to devil about the skills until it was to o late. The background of each of the southerner, and their essential skills or lack thus have left them in in the state they were in either with stability or instability financially, or emotionally.BibliographyAsh, Stephen V. A Year in the South Four Lives in 1865. New York City Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.