CHAPTER XVII.
THE PLANTATION NEGROS--NOT STUPID TO BE LOYAL--THEIR DITHYRAMBIC MUSIC -- COPPERHEAD OPINION OF LONGFELLOW.
The stockade was not quite finished at the time of our arrival--a gap of several hundred feet appearing at the southwest corner.

A gang of about two hundred negros were at work felling trees, hewing legs, and placing them upright in the trenches.

We had an opportunity--soon to disappear forever--of studying the workings of the "peculiar institution" in its very home.

The negros were of the lowest field-hand class, strong, dull, ox-like, but each having in our eyes an admixture of cunning and secretiveness that their masters pretended was not in them.

Their demeanor toward us illustrated this.