Chapter xv.
German Immigration and Rural Life in Virginia After the War.
fY\ ORE than a quarter of a century has elapsed since the 1 y I army of ^Northern Virginia grounded their arms at r Appomattox Court House and the soldiers returned to the plough and harrow to restitute the devastated land. The progress of building up the waste places however has been slow. During the war farming was brought to a partial standstill and for some years thereafter it was in a state of extreme depression. The determination and physical endurance of the planters and the former slave-owners appeared seriously broken ; only in those sections of the State which were settled by Germans, especially the Wiley, the farmers went to work with renewed energy and enterprise. The Anglo-American land-owners, disheartened and in a state of dejection, were almost helpless. Burdened with debt, without money to pay wages or taxes, their houses, farm implements and stock reduced or demolished; unaccustomed to work and also too proud to sell a part of their large estates in order to procure the necessary means for repairs and improvements, no progress in tilling the soil ivas made and their fields and meadows turned into a state of wilderness. Very singular circumstances resulted. The formerly wealthy slave- and land-owners were drifting into poverty, the amount of unpaid taxes was increased to exorbitant amounts, and finally the large estates of many were sued by the executive officers and offered at public sale. Very frequently no purchaser able to pay appeared, and consequently the indebted estates were left in the hands of the old