the invasion by "loyal" hordes, rushing under "sealed orders" on the
mission of "Reconstruction," and eminently successful in
"reconstructing" their individual fortunes, an anomaly presented
itself for the consideration of political economists. The wealthy
classes of ante bellum days were the most destitute paupers that the
newly-risen Union sun shone upon.

The French Revolution and its subsequent eruptions of Communism
failed to destroy the value of land; and the emancipation of Russian
serfs may have stimulated agricultural activity, but that political
and social Communism which the Pandora of "reconstruction" let loose
throughout the conquered States of the South, accomplished all that
the victors could have desired.

Abandoned by the laborers God had fitted to endure toil under
climatic conditions peculiar to the soil, vast silent fields of
weeds stared blankly, and the richer a man found himself in
ancestral acres, the more hopelessly was he manacled by taxes.
"Reconstructionists" most thoroughly inoculated with "Loyal" rabies,
held in lofty disdain the claims of widows and orphans, and the
right of minors was as dead as that of secession. In the general
maelstrom, Colonel Gordon's large estate went to pieces; but after a
time, Judge Dent took lessons from his new political masters in the
science of wrecking, and by degrees, as fragments and shreds
stranded, he collected and secreted them. Certain mining interests
were protected, and some valuable plantations in distant sugar
belts, were secured. As guardian of his sister's daughter, he
changed, or renewed investments in stocks which rapidly increased in
value, until an unusually large fortune had accumulated: and
verifying figures justified his boast, that his niece and ward was