The soil was fertile, and the production of
cotton, to which it is so eminently suited, was daily growing in
importance. Vicksburg was the market-point. Trade was increasing daily,
and rapidly filling up the town with mercantile men. The young and
enterprising were hurrying thither, and in a few years there was met
here more talent and more enterprise than at any other point in the
State. The Bar had Prentiss, John Guion, McNutt, Sharkey, the three
Yergers, Anderson, Lake, Brook, Burwell, and many others of
distinction, including the erratic H.S. Foote.
The entire population was a live one, and every branch of business was
pushed with a _vim_ commensurate with the abilities and enterprise of
the population. The planters of the immediately adjacent country were
men of intelligence and character, and were animated with the spirit of
the people of the town, forming on the whole a community of almost
reckless enterprise. It was at such a time and in the midst of such a
people that young Prentiss had made his selection of a home, and a
field for the future exercise of his professional abilities.
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