“...And after the army of the northerners another army came. These people came in hundreds, although each of them traveled alone. They came on foot, they came on mules, on horseback, in creaking vans and beautiful phaetons. The people were very different in appearance and nationality. They wore dark suits, usually covered with road dust, and wide-brimmed hats that protected their white faces from the hot, alien sun. Strapped behind their backs, over the saddles or on the roofs of the wagons, were always colorful bags made from frayed, tattered scraps of bedspreads, in which their belongings were placed. From these bags the name “carpet bags” came to them. And they wandered along the dusty roads and streets of the tormented South, their mouths tightly clenched, their eyes searching everywhere, assessing and counting the value of property abandoned and lost in the fire of war. But not all of them were scoundrels, since in general not all people are scoundrels. Some of them even learned to love the land they came to plunder, settled on it and became respected citizens...”