 One published on April 30, 1878 provides insight into his experiences in the post-Reconstruction South;

A person traveling among the Southern people realizes that though they have been whipped by the North, yet there is a feeling of enmity existing in their bosoms, which only needs a little breeze to inflame their passions to deeds of carnage and strife.Local opposition to Mormonism increased as Standing and other elders increasingly gained converts in rural areas in North Georgia.Mormon missionaries were seen by some as spiritual carpetbaggers, deceivers who preyed on the poor and uneducated.