Gone with the Wind: Chapter 44 Summary & Analysis

On a cold afternoon in March, Scarlett drives out to Johnnie Gallegher’s mill. Driving alone has been dangerous ever since the legislature refused to ratify the amendment. The North has declared Georgia to be in a state of rebellion, and military regulations are tighter. Scarlett drives with Frank’s pistol in the buggy. She hurries past Shantytown, the camp of outcast Blacks and low-class whites. Horrible crimes happen there, but the Yankees don’t prevent them. Scarlett sees no one today but smells campfires and dirty privies.

Suddenly, a Black man appears from behind a tree. Scarlett grabs the pistol, but the frightened man calls out that he’s Big Sam. He comes out from behind the tree, leaps forward, and shakes her hand. She asks what he’s doing in a nasty place like Shantytown. Sam says he doesn’t live in Shantytown but has been hiding out there a while. Ever since she saw him building trenches during the siege, he’s been traveling. After the war, a Yankee colonel hired him to tend his horse. Sam says this colonel was too ignorant to know that Sam was only a field hand!

Sam says he’d tried out freedom. The Yankee colonel took him North and paid him good wages, but New York and Boston were so busy Sam had been scared. The colonel’s wife called him Mister O’Hara and treated him like an equal. She asked him about the cruelty of Southern enslavers, but Sam told her how kind Ellen was to him. He’d eventually gotten tired of freedom, and he missed being told what to do by Gerald and Ellen. Scarlett says Gerald and Ellen are dead. Sam starts to cry, and Scarlett tells him not to, or she’ll cry too.

Scarlett asks Sam if he’ll be her driver. Sam agrees that it isn’t safe these days but declines her offer, saying he must escape to Tara because he’s wanted for killing a man. A drunk Yankee soldier had insulted him, so Sam strangled him. He’s been hiding out ever since. Scarlett decides she must get Sam to Tara. She doesn’t care that he’s free; he’s family and she thinks he belongs to her still. She says she’ll get him to Tara that night and gives him money to buy a hat so he can hide his face. Scarlett promises she’ll be back at sundown and goes on her way.

The sun is setting when Scarlett reaches the mill. Johnnie Gallegher stands outside with the convict crew. The convicts were energetic when they came, but now they look hungry and desperate. She tells Johnnie she doesn’t like the look of the men and asks where the fifth one is. When Johnnie says he’s sick, Scarlett notices one of the crew give Johnnie a hateful look. She asks if he’s been whipping the men. Johnnie reminds her that he’s making her lots of money. Scarlett feels there is something sinister about the mill, with its shack for the convicts. Johnnie might be whipping the men and she’d never know.

Scarlett looks inside the shack. A “mulatto” woman that Scarlett knows lives with Johnnie is stirring a pot of black-eyed peas. When Scarlett asks her, the woman says there’s nothing else for the men and no meat in the beans. Scarlett looks in the pantry and finds none of the provisions she’d paid for. She shouts at Johnnie, accusing him of selling the provisions. She interrogates one of the prisoners about what Johnnie feeds them, but the man is too afraid to speak. Scarlett orders one of the hams from the pantry given to the men, ignoring the woman when she says it’s Johnnie’s private store of food. Scarlett tells Johnnie to come to the buggy with her while the convicts devour the ham.

At the buggy, Scarlett shouts at Johnnie, calling him a scoundrel and a cheat. Johnnie tells Scarlett to mind her own business or he’ll quit. Scarlett wants to say good riddance but hesitates; Johnnie is making her so much money at the mill. He realizes she’s on the fence and smooths it over. She knows he’s a brutal man and that it is awful to leave people to his mercy, but she can’t part with him. As she drives away, she can’t get the miserable faces of the convicts out of her mind.

By the time Scarlett passes Shantytown, the sun has set. She’s never been out this late by herself. Suddenly, a ragged white man and a Black man approach her. The white man asks her for money. Scarlett points the pistol at them. The white man tells the Black man to grab her, saying the money is probably in her bodice. She shoots at the Black man as he approaches her, but he grabs the pistol, tears open her bodice, and gropes between her breasts. Scarlett screams. The white man shouts at her to be quiet, and the Black man covers her mouth.

Then Big Sam charges the Black man, shouting for Scarlett to run. She whips the horse, and the cart’s wheels roll over the white man’s body. In her mad terror, she hears Big Sam shouting for her. She slows and he climbs in, his face covered in blood. He asks if they hurt her, noticing her exposed breasts. She covers herself and sobs. He takes the reins, saying he’ll kill that “black baboon.”