CHAPTER XLIV
THE MARCH AFTERNOON was windy and cold, and Scarlett pulled the lap robe high under her arms as she drove out the Decatur road toward Johnnie Gallegher's mill. Driving alone was hazardous these days and she knew it, more hazardous than ever before, for now the n*****s were completely out of hand. As Ashley had prophesied, there had been hell to pay since the legislature refused to ratify the amendment. The stout refusal had been like a slap in the face of the furious North and retaliation had come swiftly. The North was determined to force the n***o vote on the state and, to this end, Georgia had been declared in rebellion and put under the strictest martial law. Georgia's very existence as a state had been wiped out and it had become, with Florida and Alabama, "Military Dist
