Cotton Kingdom by Frederick Law Olmstead

Chronicle of Olmstead's tour through the antebellum South, as he takes the measure of the slave culture. Some of the fascinating things that come out: Just how much poor whites hated slavery, seeing it (rightly) as impoverishing them by displacing their labor; the number of Southerners who frankly acknowledge the immorality of slavery, but are at a loss at how to end it due to the practicalities involved; the differences in the attitudes toward slavery among the states (fireeaters in South Carolina vs a skeptical North Carolina). Olmstead had a keen eye for detail and his descriptions of slave life are well worth the effort. There are also a few very disturbing episodes, none more so than when Olmstead witnesses the savage beating of an 18 year old slave girl by an overseer.