Adventures of a Fair Rebel (1891)

IT was in the second year of the war that my uncle, Charles Dillingham, decided to sell his plantation in western North Carolina, and, with his family and slaves, return to the old homestead near Decatur, Georgia, a small town a few miles below Atlanta. There were only three of the Dillingham heirs—my mother, Uncle Charles and Uncle Reuben. On my mother's marriage her portion of the property had been given to her, but the two brothers lived together, even after Uncle Charles married a North Carolina girl. My cousins, Alicia and Nell, were ten and five years of age respectively when their mother grew homesick for the wilds of her native State, and pleaded to return. My parents were both dead, so I lived with my uncles. The brothers divided their property, Uncle Charles taking his portion in money and slaves, and we journeyed to the old North State to live. In a few years my aunt died, and we children longed to go back to the old home in Georgia, but it seemed hard for Uncle Charles to move again. Every year he put it off, until the war came on, and Uncle Reuben died, wife less and childless, leaving the homestead and family slaves to his brother. Even then Uncle Charles hesitated about returning, for he had a vein of weakness in his fine character which prevented him from ever being positive about anything—even his business affairs.