Garth Wilkinson ("Wilky") James Discouraged by his failed attempt to run a Florida cotton plantation after the Civil War -- thereby attempting to put his family's abolitionist values to work and not merely to the page -- Wilky wrote to his parents of his distress in 1868. The following is an excerpt from one of his existing letters. I never appreciated home so much as I do now, and I never knew until this new year what it contained of upright, innocent, unprejudiced, unbiased human nature.... White men and negroes alike, whether they came from Massachusetts or South Carolina are all bent upon getting the best of each other.... Politically and privately, all men, with but few exceptions down here, are working for but one object, that of cheating everyone else in order to add a few dollars to their own possessions.