Part One, Chapter Eight: Learning's Altar Summary

March writes to his wife to tell her about the cotton harvest's progress and to say that he has chosen his schoolroom: the old carriage house. March is amazed by the worker's excitement to learn, despite the fact that they must study after working in their fields for at least fourteen-hours a day. As he prepares lesson plans, March often walks around the estate, and one day comes across a bonfire of Union soldiers on the lookout for guerrilla fighters. March joins them for a meal of baked beans while discussing the effect these guerrilla gangs have had on the freed plantations. The soldiers are rough around the edges, but seem to be fighting for the same causes as March, so he is shocked when one of these soldiers teases a starving child with the pot of...