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Letters from Port Royal

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Title: Letters from Port Royal

Editor: Elizabeth Ware Pearson


        
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LETTERS FROM PORT ROYAL

Written at the Time of the Civil War

[1862-1868]


Edited by

ELIZABETH WARE PEARSON

1906







Copyright 1906 by Elizabeth Ware Pearson




CONTENTS


INTRODUCTION               xi

1862                        1

1863                      128

1864                      243

1865                      291

1866, 1867, 1868          325

CONCLUSION                333

FOOTNOTES                 335

INDEX                     337




INTRODUCTION


With Commodore Dupont's capture, on November 7, 1861, of two earth
forts which the rebels had recently thrown up at Hilton Head and Bay
Point, South Carolina, the Sea Island region became Union territory.
The planters and their families having fled precipitately, the United
States Government found itself in possession of almost everything that
had been theirs, the two chief items being the largest cotton crop
ever yet raised there, nearly ready for exporting, and several hundred
demoralized, destitute slaves, the number of whom was daily being
increased by refugees and returned fugitives. The negroes were plainly
a burdensome problem, the cotton a valuable piece of property. The
first thing to do was obvious, and fortunately the same
"cotton-agents" who were despatched by the authorities at Washington
to collect and ship the property were able, by employing negroes for
the purpose, to make a beginning towards solving the problem.

In another month the next step was taken; the Secretary of the
Treasury sent down Edward L. Pierce, of Milton, Massachusetts, as a
special agent charged with the duty of getting under way some method
of managing the negroes and starting a cotton crop for 1862. Mr.
Pierce, who the summer before had had charge of the contrabands at
Fortress Monroe, did his work quickly and well, and his suggestions
for organization were promptly adopted and put into practice by the
Government. Meanwhile he had written to "benevolent persons in
Boston," setting forth the instant need of the negroes for clothing
and for teachers, meaning by the term "teachers" quite as much
superintendents of labor as instructors in the rudiments of learning.
The response to this appeal was immediate. An "Educational Commission
for Freedmen"[1] was organized in Boston, New York and Philadelphia
were quick to follow, and on March 3, 1862, there set sail from New
York for Port Royal[2] a party of men and women who were almost
without exception inspired purely by the desire to help those who had
been slaves. Government made them an allowance of transportation,
subsistence, and quarters; and, since few could afford to give their
services, the Commissions paid them salaries of from $25 to $50 a
month.

There was a good deal of courage in what these people did. The climate
of the Sea Islands is unwholesome; the rebels were more than likely,
from across the narrow Coosaw River, to invade the territory held by
Northern troops; it was not improbable that the negroes might refuse
utterly to work; it was not impossible that they might wreak vengeance
for their wrongs on every white man who should try to control them.
Furthermore, as a rule these men and women knew little of any kind of
agriculture, and still less of the local conditions under which they
were to do their work, or of the people with whom they were to deal.
They had, in fact, no other guides to action than enthusiasm and good
sense, and of the latter, in particular, they carried widely differing
amounts. Some, who went supplied with too little of either, were back
in their Northern homes before summer was under way; the majority,
making what they could of the means, or lack of means, at their
disposal, had within the same period of time got about thirty-eight
hundred laborers at steady work on fifteen thousand acres of corn,
potatoes, and cotton. For the first time in our history educated
Northern men had taken charge of the Southern negro, had learned to
know his nature, his status, his history, first-hand, in the cabin and
the field. And though subsequently other Southern territory was put
into the hands of Northern men and women to manage in much the same
fashion, it was not in the nature of things that these conditions
should ever be exactly reproduced. The question whether or not the
freedman would work without the incentive of the lash was settled once
for all by the "Port Royal Experiment."

Of the many thousand letters that must have been written by these
people to their Northern homes, those of one small group only are
represented by the extracts here printed. The writers were New
Englanders and ardent anti-slavery people; W. C. G. and C. P. W. were
Harvard men just out of college, H. W. was a sister of the latter. A
few of the later letters were written by two other Massachusetts men,
T. E. R., a Yale graduate of 1859, and F. H., who remained on the
islands longer than the three just mentioned. All five are still
living. Richard Soule, Jr., now dead for many years was an older man,
a teacher, a person of great loveliness of character and justice of
mind. The principal figure in the letters, Edward S. Philbrick of
Brookline, who died in 1889, was in one sense the principal figure in
the Sea Island situation. He began by contributing a thousand dollars
to the work and volunteering his services on the ground, where he was
given charge by Mr. Pierce of three plantations, including the largest
on the islands; being a person of some means, with an established
reputation as an engineer and a very considerable business experience,
he was from the first prominent among the volunteers. When, in the
following year, he became personally and financially responsible for a
dozen plantations, this prominence was increased a hundredfold. Thus
he found himself the victim of the vituperation hurled by many
Northern friends of the blacks at the "professed philanthropists" who
went to Port Royal to "make their fortunes" out of the labor of the
"poor negro." The integrity of Mr. Philbrick's motives stands out in
his letters beyond the possibility of misinterpretation. This record
is a witness of what sort of thing he and his kind were ready to do to
redress the wrongs of slavery.

The extracts have been arranged in chronological order, except in a
few cases where chronology has seemed less important than
subject-matter. They tell a complete story, the greater part of which
falls within the period of the Civil War. They give a vivid notion of
the life from the midst of which they were written; of the flat,
marsh-riddled country, in which few Northerners saw any lasting charm;
of the untidy, down-at-the-heels plantations; of the "people," wards
of the nation, childish, irritating, endlessly amusing; of the daily
toil of Northern men in managing farms and of Northern women in
managing households under Southern and war-time conditions; of the
universal preoccupation with negro needs; of the friendly interchange
of primitive hospitality; of the underlying sense in the writers'
minds of romantic contrast between their own to-day and the yesterday
of the planters,--or a possible to-morrow of the planters. It is not
with matters military or political that these letters deal. They
record the day to day experiences of the housekeeper, the teacher, the
superintendent of labor, and the landowner. For this reason they form
a new contribution to the history of the Port Royal Experiment.




[Illustration: THE SEA ISLANDS OF SOUTH CAROLINA.]




KEY TO MAP OF THE SEA ISLANDS OF
SOUTH CAROLINA


PLANTATIONS.

  Cherry Hill (T. A. Coffin)         16
  Coffin's Point (T. A. Coffin)      12
  Corner (J. B. Fripp)                5
  Eustis                              2
  Alvirah Fripp (Hope Place)         18
  Edgar Fripp                        20
  Hamilton Fripp                     10
  J. B. Fripp (Corner)                5
  Capt. John Fripp (Homestead)        8
  Capt. Oliver Fripp                 22
  Thomas B. Fripp                     9
  Fripp Point                        11
  Frogmore (T. A. Coffin)            19
  Rev. Robert Fuller ("R.'s")         4
  Hope Place (Alvirah Fripp)         18
  Dr. Jenkins                        21
  Mary Jenkins                       28
  Martha E. McTureous                14
  James McTureous                    15
  Mulberry Hill (John Fripp)         17
  The Oaks (Pope)                     3
  Oakland                             6
  Pine Grove (Fripp)                 13
  Pope (The Oaks)                     3
  "R.'s" (Fuller)                     4
  Smith                               1
  Dr. White                          27
BRICK CHURCH (Baptist)               24
WHITE CHURCH (Episcopal)             23
ST. HELENA VILLAGE                    7
FORT WALKER                          26
FORT BEAUREGARD                      25
CAMP OF THE FIRST SOUTH CAROLINA
  VOLUNTEERS (COLONEL HIGGINSON)      1




LETTERS FROM PORT ROYAL

1862

    _Arrival of the "missionaries" at Port Royal.--The household
    at Pine Grove.--First impressions of the blacks.--General
    Hunter's attempt to recruit a negro regiment.--The Planter
    episode.--The labor situation.--Establishment at Coffin's
    Point.--Hunter's proclamation of freedom.--Details of
    plantation work.--Lincoln's preliminary proclamation of
    emancipation.--Unwillingness of the negroes even to
    drill.--General Saxton's efforts to raise a negro
    regiment.--The cotton crop of 1862.--Mr. Philbrick's plans
    for buying plantations._


FROM E. S. PHILBRICK

_Boston, February 19, 1862._ Dear ----: I think you will not be
greatly astonished when I tell you that I am off for Port Royal next
week. I go under the auspices of the Educational Commission to make
myself generally useful in whatever way I can, in reducing some amount
of order and industry from the mass of eight or ten thousand
contrabands now within our lines there. Boston is wide awake on the
subject, and I am determined to see if something can't be done to
prove that the blacks will work for other motives than the lash.

The Treasury Department offer subsistence, protection, transportation,
and the War Department offer their hearty coöperation to the work
undertaken here by private citizens, but can't take any more active
part at present for reasons obvious. They ridicule the idea that
these blacks can ever again be claimed by their runaway masters, which
is a satisfactory foundation for our exertions in overseeing their
labor and general deportment.

You don't know what a satisfaction it is to feel at last that there is
a chance for me to _do something_ in this great work that is going on.

    The next letter describes the sailing of the first party of
    superintendents and teachers.


E. S. P. TO MRS. PHILBRICK

_New York City, Sunday, March 2._ We have a rather motley-looking set.
A good many look like broken-down schoolmasters or ministers who have
excellent dispositions but not much talent. As the kind of talent
required where we are going is rather peculiar, the men may be useful,
but I don't believe there will be a great deal of cotton raised under
their superintendence.

_Str. Atlantic, March 5._ We all repaired to the Collector's[3] house
Sunday evening, and were sworn in squads of half a dozen with our
hands on the Bible, after which our passports were made out and signed
by Mr. Barney in his library with the whole thirty-three of us
standing about.

[The next morning] I found Collector Barney on the pier with his Bible
and papers, swearing in the rest of the New York delegation. The last
of the cargo was slung aboard about eleven, and we started off at
quarter past, in a drizzling rain, freezing fast to everything it
touched. Our Boston party consisted of twenty-nine men and four
women; the New York one of twenty-three men and eight women, including
those from Washington, making sixty-four in all. At dinner (2 P. M.)
we found some one hundred and twenty cabin passengers, besides a lot
of recruits, perhaps one hundred in all, who live forward. The larger
part of the _Atlantic's_ staterooms have been taken out to make room
for stowing troops or cargo, leaving enough for only about half our
number. These rooms were assigned by the Steward and Mr. Pierce[4] to
the ladies and the oldest of us gentlemen; so I got one with Uncle
Richard,[5] for most of our party are quite youthful. Half a dozen
ladies sat on the bare deck (no other seats provided), during most of
the evening, singing Methodist hymns and glory hallelujah till after
nine o'clock. I have talked with several of our party, and got
slightly acquainted, chiefly with Messrs. Hooper,[6] G----,[7] and
Mack; also with Mr. Forbes.[8] There is a general medley of cabin
passengers, recruits, sutlers' and quartermasters' agents, and crew,
the latter not being dressed in uniform, but in nondescript old
garments such as can be found at any old Isaac's shop. Those
passengers who are outside our party are coarse-looking and
disagreeable,--Mr. Forbes and Mr. Augustus Hurd of Boston being almost
the only exceptions. I had some talk with Mr. Pierce yesterday about
your coming on, and he said as soon as I found it advisable he would
send you a pass, but I am very glad you are not here now, for I don't
believe these ladies will find anything but bare boards to sleep on.

_Thursday evening, March 6._ We had a sort of lecture from Mr. Pierce
before dinner, consisting of some very appropriate and sensible advice
and suggestions, expressed simply and with a good deal of feeling. Mr.
French[9] followed in his vein of honest, earnest Methodism. He is the
head of the New York delegation, and a worthy man, though not so
practical as Mr. Pierce.

Our Boston party improves upon acquaintance, and the longer I think of
the matter the more wonderful does it seem that such a number of
disinterested, earnest men should be got together at so short a notice
to exile themselves from all social ties and devote themselves, as
they certainly do, with a will, to this holy work. It must and with
God's help it _shall_ succeed! The more I see of our fellow-passengers
and co-workers, the more do the party from Boston stand eminent in
talent and earnestness, as compared with those from New York, and I
can't help thinking that the former were more carefully selected. The
Boston Commission acted with more deliberation than that of New York,
and I think the result will be shown in the end. But it's early to
form any such opinions, and out of place to draw any comparisons in
disparagement of any of our colleagues. We are all yoked together and
must pull together. The work is no trifle. It is Herculean in all its
aspects--in its reactive effects upon our country and its future
destiny, as well as in its difficulties. Yet never did men stand in a
position to do more lasting good than we, if we act with a single eye
to the object in view and pray God to guide us aright.

_Friday, March 7._ We waked this morning still adrift off Port Royal
Bar, where we had been tossing all night, near the lightship. The wind
was blowing cold and clear from the northwest just as it does at home
in March, almost cold enough for a frost. We continued to drift till
the tide was near the flood, about noon, when a pilot came out and
took us in to Hilton Head. Here in this magnificent harbour, larger
than any other on our coast, lay some fifty transports and steamers at
anchor, and here we dropped our anchor, almost directly between the
two forts[10] taken by Dupont last November. These forts, by the way,
are so inconspicuous as to be hardly perceptible to a passer-by, and
would certainly fail to attract the attention of a person not on the
lookout for them. The shore is as flat as flat can be, sand-banks and
beaches being the only variety, backed by long dark green masses of
foliage of the pitch-pine, reminding me forcibly of the coast of
Egypt, with its sand and palm forests. Yet even Egypt was sufficiently
enterprising to line its coast with windmills, while this state has
not yet arrived at a stage of civilization sufficiently advanced to
provide them. So, there being no water-power and no steam, every negro
grinds his peck of corn in a handmill as in the year one. We came to
anchor about one P. M. and have been waiting for the necessary passes
from the quartermaster to enable us to proceed up to Beaufort, the
only town in possession of our forces. Here we lie in the still
harbour under the splendid moon, surrounded by the regiments encamped
on the neighboring islands, with the prospect of another day afloat,
before we can begin to be distributed over our field of labor.

8 P. M. The acting Provost Marshal has just come aboard with our
passports viséed, enabling us to land here, but I don't care to do
that to-night, there being nothing but sand-banks to sleep on, while
we have tolerable berths aboard. To-morrow I may go, if there is time
before going upstream to Beaufort, though I imagine there is little to
see but sand and tents, which look quite as well at a distance.

_March 8._ We spent the greater part of the day transferring freight
and baggage to the _Cosmopolitan_, a white river-steamer. We got
started at last about three P. M. The distance to Beaufort can't be
more than fifteen miles, and we had already made half of it at a
tolerable rate of speed when we ran aground in the mud, about two
hours before ebb tide. We were in the middle of a creek called
Beaufort River, between Cat Island and Port Royal Island, whose flat
shores did not look very inviting. I fell to reading about
cotton-culture in my book, but some of our companions got a boat and
went ashore on St. Helena Island, bringing back their hands full of
beautiful flowers from some private garden, peach-blossoms,
orange-blossoms, hyacinths, fleur-de-lis, etc. We succeeded in getting
afloat about 9.30 P. M. and arrived at Beaufort about midnight, after
poking slowly along the crooked channel under the glorious moonlight.
On getting up in the morning, which we did betimes, we found the deck
slippery with hoarfrost, and are told that it is the coldest night of
this winter. Somebody has told me that Beaufort was on a bluff, and
that its environments were not so flat as the rest of the islands.

_Beaufort, Sunday, March 9._ But I can't find any place over ten feet
above tide-water, and no hill over six feet high. So things are judged
of by comparison. We all went ashore soon after sunrise and walked
about the town, which is laid out in rectangular streets, lined with
pleasant but weedy orange-gardens and often shaded by live-oak and
sycamore trees, _i. e._, when the latter leave out, as they will soon.
The soil is a fine sand, very like ashes, and the streets are
ankle-deep with it already, wherever the grass doesn't grow.
Dilapidated fences, tumble-down outbuildings, untrimmed trees with
lots of dead branches, weedy walks and gardens and a general
appearance of _un_thrift attendant upon the best of slaveholding
towns, was aggravated here by the desolated houses, surrounded by
heaps of broken furniture and broken wine and beer bottles which the
army had left about after their pillage. Quantities of negro children
lay basking in the morning sun, grinning at us as we passed. We saw a
chain-pump in a yard and walked in to wash our faces, there having
been no chance on the steamer, and were waited upon by an old negro,
who brought us bowls, soap, and towels. Mr. Pierce succeeded in
getting us some bread and coffee from one of the regiments, having no
time to go to headquarters. They were carried to an old negro cabin in
the remotest corner of the town, where the coffee was made and served
up in the poultry-yard in our tin mugs.

Our quarters are in a very fine house in the east end of the town,
bordering on the river, against which is a garden wall, built of
oyster-shells and mortar, there being no stone to be had here.

We are to wait here till our positions are assigned to us by Mr.
Pierce, which will be done in a few days. He told me he wanted me to
take the most important one, which I suppose means Coffin's.[11] I am
to have W---- G---- for my clerk and assistant. He is a very
agreeable, quiet fellow, and works like a beaver, but like several
others, is too young to take charge of the organization of the labor
to good advantage.

There is something very sad about these fine deserted houses. Ours has
Egyptian marble mantels, gilt cornice and centre-piece in parlor, and
bath-room, with several wash-bowls set in different rooms. The
force-pump is broken and all the bowls and their marble slabs smashed
to get out the plated cocks, which the negroes thought pure silver.
Bureaus, commodes, and wardrobes are smashed in, as well as
door-panels, to get out the contents of the drawers and lockers, which
I suppose contained some wine and ale, judging by the broken bottles
lying about. The officers saved a good many pianos and other furniture
and stored it in the jail, for safe-keeping. But we kindle our fires
with chips of polished mahogany, and I am writing on my knees with a
piece of a flower-stand across them for a table, sitting on my camp
bedstead.

I am anxious to get to work, as I hope to in a few days. Mr.
Eustis[12] has gone to his plantation, a few miles distant on Ladies
Island, and Mr. Hooper is spending a few days with him. The latter is
to be Mr. Pierce's private secretary at present.

_Beaufort, March 10._ I can't tell until I get settled at my post what
to say about your coming on here. If my post should be exposed to any
of the rebels' scouting-parties you had better stay at home. I must
say it seems rather _near_ to live within rifle-shot of their
outposts, as some of the plantations are.

_March 11._ We had a visit from the Provost Marshal last evening. He
has had a good deal to do with the contrabands and came to give us
some advice about them. He thinks that rebel spies may come among us,
but don't apprehend any trouble, says we can govern the negroes easily
enough by firm and judicious treatment, and says the officers in
charge are very glad to have them taken off their hands.

_Hilton Head_,[13] _March 13._ This is a most desolate-looking place,
flat and sandy, and covered with camps and storehouses for a mile
along the river. A line of intrenchments encloses the whole, some
seven miles long, resting on the river at each end. There is a long
wharf just built out to deep water, at the end of which the _Atlantic_
is discharging. This is the general dépôt for stores for the whole
army on the Atlantic coast and the blockading fleet.

_March 14._ A fortnight has passed since I left Brookline, without my
being able to get at my work. This loafing about and waiting upon the
movements of Government officials is the hardest work I ever tried to
do.

If you can't come early in April you had better not come at all, for
it will be too hot for even me to live on the plantations later than
June 1. They say the planters never lived on the plantations in summer
months, though they were acclimated, for fear of fevers. Beaufort is
the healthiest place on these islands and their resort when leaving
their plantations. Yet, if H---- W---- will come with you, _and not
without_, and you think it will pay, come as soon as you can. I shall
probably be on Coffin's plantation then, about fifteen miles east of
Beaufort, on St. Helena Island, coast of St. Helena Sound. This
plantation is one of the most secure from any interference from the
rebels, so I don't feel the slightest uneasiness on that score, for
the whole circumference of the island is picketed, and our forces also
occupy the opposite or northeasterly coast of the sound.

Now as to outfit. Not over $5 each in money, _silver_, for you are
supplied with transportation and food by Government and there's
nothing here to buy. Bed-sacks and pillow ditto. Three umbrellas with
light covers, fly-paper, tin cups, bowls, and tea-pot, set of wooden
boxes for rice, sugar, and other stores furnished by army rations.
Spring-balance that will weigh about twenty pounds, knife, fork, and
spoons for each of you, _plated_, thermometer, three pounds of tea in
one of the boxes. We now have plenty of rice, sugar, molasses,
vinegar, hominy, potatoes, coffee, and beans, from army stores, and on
plantations can get fresh lamb, mutton, chickens, eggs, milk; so we
shall fare better than I thought.

_Beaufort, March 17._ I don't think they would let you take a servant;
it's difficult enough to get you here alone, and there are plenty of
servants here which you are supposed to teach not only to read
but--what is more immediately important--to be _clean_ and
industrious. If you feel any hesitation about coming in contact with
them you shouldn't come, for they are sharp enough to detect apathy or
lurking repugnance, which would render any amount of theoretical
sympathy about worthless. Tell your father their nature and
disposition is nothing new to me. I was with them in Egypt long enough
to get pretty well acquainted, and though these sons of Western Africa
are not exactly of the same stock as the Nubians, they are certainly
no more degraded or lazy. In fact, from what I have already seen here
I am agreeably disappointed. Think of their having reorganized and
gone deliberately to work here some weeks ago, without a white man
near them, preparing hundreds of acres for the new crop! The Irish
wouldn't have done as much in the same position.

    This comparison of the negroes with the Irish is made by the
    letter-writers, as will be seen, more than once,--almost
    always to the disadvantage of the Irish. Forty years ago the
    Irish were still merely immigrants, and, further, they were
    practically the only people in this country who suggested
    comparison with negroes.

    The next letter is the first from W. C. G., whom Mr.
    Philbrick has already mentioned as destined to be his
    assistant.

_March 24. Coffin's Point._ It is the largest plantation on the
Islands, numbering in its full days over 250 hands, or head, as the
negroes call themselves.

A large amount of cotton is still in store here, for which the boat I
hope will call this week; meanwhile the cotton-agent[14] and a guard
occupy the house with us. The former has been on the place three or
four months in charge of a large district with several plantations; he
is a smart young fellow, very dashing and jockey-like. We were
received by the guard with shouldered arms and by this agent, who did
their best to induce or rather bluff us into leaving the premises and
taking possession of another house; for we have two plantations
besides this,--estates belonging to William Fripp's sons.[15] We
stayed, however, and are now occupying two rooms, with plenty of
furniture of different kinds stored by the agent, probably for
removal. The whole business of our Commission and all its agents are
much disliked by the cotton-agents, partly because they don't
sympathize with our purposes,--partly because we seem about to usurp
their authority, to which of course we do succeed.

The cotton-agents have started the corn-planting on most of the
estates,--and almost everywhere the whole condition of people and land
is much better than I expected to find it. The present state of a
plantation depends on the previous character and age of the people,
the influence of the drivers,[16] and the circumstances to which they
have been exposed since the soldiers came. If the people are on the
whole old and steady, if the drivers are intelligent and
strong-minded, if their masters have been humane and fatherly, and if
they have seen few soldiers,--then the work has usually been kept up
pretty well and the negroes are still at home and willing to go
a-field,--and their condition varies as those items vary. On the
larger number, as I have said, things are much better than I expected
to see them. As is proper, more attention has as yet been paid to the
_corn_ lands, and very little to the cotton. Two precious months have
been lost for that crop. On most of the plantations corn enough
remains to last through the next crop,--so there is little danger of
much suffering for want of food. But everything except corn, and their
own eggs and poultry, is wanting,--no molasses, no sugar, no salt, no
tobacco,--and no clothing.

On two of our three plantations things are doing well, but this big
Coffin place is in a very miserable, demoralized condition. It used to
be very successful in cotton--and of late, especially, the hands have
been worked very hard. There are many _young_ people--so all the more
likely to leave. They are within a few miles of Bay Point opposite
Hilton Head, so the temptation to leave is very pressing, for smart
fellows can get money there,--one York with whom I was talking
yesterday got over $30 a month by cooking for two or three messes; he
is sick now and thinks he had better come home for the good of his
_soul_. And perhaps as evil an influence as any was the early presence
of the guards from the 19th N. Y. V., a regiment rather notorious for
wild ways, I believe,--certainly one which greatly injured these
people by their talk about _freedom_ and no need of work, etc., and
their rampant deeds. We are therefore in a hard place here,--and shall
take pretty energetic measures and do the best we can. Mr. Philbrick
has charge of the farming, etc.,--I of the teaching. We were not all
sent out two by two; small plantations had single men. Some men are
expected to overlook several estates lying near each other.

_March 29._ The women work much better than the men, but very few are
faithful. Nor can we hope for any regularity and real improvement till
we are delivered from our cotton-agent and the influences which
emanate from him and his interests.

The people are very discontented here, and as they have logic and need
on their side, it is hard to meet their complaints. In fact, they
can't be met,--very few do full work, many half or none. They need
_clothing_ very badly. They need salt and tobacco,--this summer they
need a little molasses and some bacon. These things[17] they have been
accustomed to receive in stated quantities at stated times,--at
Christmas, and in April or May. If we could supply them simply as they
have been supplied by their masters, the majority I think would be
contented and would work well. The _promises_ to pay to which they
have been treated by the agents of the Government for the last three
months haven't kept them warm. The agent here will probably soon give
them some cloth in part payment. Money they don't know the value
of--and especially now can't spend it to advantage; besides, as I
said, I think few desire it.

    The following fragment of a letter, from which the date and
    the beginning are missing, was written from Pine Grove at
    about this time; its subject is, of course, the negroes.


FROM E. S. P.

They have not yet got any diseased appetite for alcoholic stimulants,
and are happy in their comparative ignorance of such things.

They are a simple, childlike people, almost ignorant of malice,
patient and easily influenced by an appeal to their feelings. There is
far less family feeling and attachment to each other than among the
ignorant Irish, apparently, though I don't know how much allowance to
make for their being so much less demonstrative in their emotions, and
more inured to suffering. They are most eminently a religious people,
according to their light, and always refer their sufferings to Divine
Providence, though without the stoical or fatalist ideas of their
Mohammedan brethren, whom I got to know pretty well in Nubia and
Egypt.

We find it very difficult to reach any motive that will promote
cleanliness as a habit. It requires more authority than our position
gives us as employers to make any police regulations very effectual in
their quarters. This plantation is the neatest one I have seen
anywhere in respect to their houses and yards, but there is room for
great improvement here. They have the same dread of fresh air in
sickness which is common to poor people at home, but there is very
little sickness among them. Only one death has occurred since we came
here, among a population of 420, and that was an infant. They place
great trust in our doctors and keep them pretty busy jogging about.

    The next letter, the first from H. W., records her arrival
    with Mrs. Philbrick.

_Beaufort, April 15._ The sail up was very beautiful, the green beyond
description brilliant, and now and then the deeper shade of palmetto
or live-oak. Some of the plantations were very picturesque. Roses and
azaleas were plainly visible. An hour and a half, very quickly passed,
brought us to the wharf, where Mr. Pierce and Mr. Hooper met us with
the information that we were to go to Mr. Forbes's, whither we walked
a long half-mile, a sentry at the street-corners, darkies bowing in
every direction, birds and the scent of flowers filling the air,
everything like a June day after a shower. Mr. Philbrick hopes to be
ready for us on Saturday. A cotton-agent in his house prevents us from
going just yet to the Coffin house, but we shall be established for
the present on one of the smaller plantations adjoining.

    The letter that follows, written at Pine Grove several days
    later, narrates the events of these days, beginning with
    April 16, in Beaufort.


FROM H. W.

_Pine Grove, St. Helena, April 21._ H.[18] and Miss Towne[19] carried
the letters to the post-office, Caroline, Mr. Forbes's chamber-girl,
following to show them the way there, take them to the schools and
into some negro quarters. They were derided by the soldiers, they
said, who called after them, "See the Southern Aristocracy with their
nigger behind them!" which amused Caroline very much.

Mr. Forbes took me in his open wagon, a tumble-down affair he has from
a negro to avoid the annoyance of always having to make a requisition
upon Government, the only owner in these regions of anything, and
drove me down the river to a plantation[20] we had noticed as we came
up on the boat, and where there was a cotton-gin Mr. Forbes wanted me
to see. The greater part of the way our road was shaded by woods on
the water-side, live-oaks with their ornamental moss, gum-trees and
pines with quantities of cat-brier and trumpet honeysuckle in full
bloom. The cotton-fields were unshaded, of course, and very large,
containing from one to three hundred acres. We passed some freshly
planted, but most of them were covered with the old bushes, dry and
dead, at which I was much surprised until I found that it was the
habit to leave the fields as they are after the cotton is picked, for
a year, planting on the same land only every other year. It makes
dreary, desolate-looking fields, for though a few weeds spring up, no
grass grows in this region, and they are brown instead of green all
summer. The Smith Plantation is about five miles from town, the house
in the centre of a live-oak grove, beautiful and beyond description,
open underneath, and so hanging with moss that you can scarcely see
any leaves as you look up. A little chapel on the place I got out to
look at, made very roughly of boards whitewashed, inside an earth
floor covered with straw, rough wooden benches, the pulpit and altar
made in the same way, but covered entirely with the grey moss, as we
trim for Christmas. The house looked rough and ordinary to us, as they
all do, except a few in the town; we did not go in. I believe there
are cotton-agents there attending to the ginning, which process we saw
in a little house by itself, where a steam gin worked four stands
tended by one hand each. The funny thing was to see them pack the
bales. There was a round hole in the second-story floor and a bag was
fastened to the edges, into which a man gets and stamps the cotton
down. I saw it swinging downstairs, but did not know what it was till,
on going up, I found a black head just above the floor, which grinned
from ear to ear with pleasure at the sight of a white lady, and ducked
and bobbed in most convulsive fashion.

We drove through the negro quarters, or "nigger-house," as they
themselves call the whole settlement, and they flocked to the doors to
look at us, bowing and smiling as we went by. There were eight or ten
separate houses just raised from the ground so that the air could pass
underneath, and, as we looked in at the doors, apparently with very
little furniture, though in some we saw chairs which were evidently
Massa's. Dirty and ragged they all were, but certainly no more so than
poor Irish, and it seemed to me not so dirty.

I saw palmetto-trees for the first time on this drive near enough to
know what they really looked like. They stand alone in the
cotton-fields like our elms in a meadow, though there are fewer of
them, and they are stiff and straight. The Spanish dagger, looking
like a miniature palmetto, was planted for hedges round the garden and
fish-pond. Mistletoe I saw for the first time.

Mr. Hooper came over in the morning [of the next day] and told us he
should come for us at 12.30, but it was five before we got into the
boat.[21] The negroes sang to us in their wild way as they rowed us
across--I cannot give you the least idea of it. Indeed, I can't give
you the least idea of anything, and you must not expect it. The town
looked very pretty from the boat, some of the houses are large and
quite imposing in appearance. We found Mr. Pierce and his carriage
waiting for us, having been there without any dinner since one
o'clock. (This is the land of waiting, we have discovered--patience is
a virtue our Northern people will have to learn here.) We drove at
once to Pope's plantation, passing Mr. Eustis on the way at his
overseer's house, bedaubed from head to foot with molasses, which he
had been selling all day to the negroes, a pint to a hand. Here Mr.
Philbrick was waiting with his sulky (a two-wheeled jockey-cart), an
ox-team for the baggage, and a dump-cart in which he and H. were to
drive, while I drove the sulky alone in my glory. But it was too late
for us to think of driving ten miles farther, so we laid our beds down
and prepared for another halt. The next morning Mr. Pierce sent us
home in his carriage.

We reached here not long before two, and went to work to try and
muster up some dinner. I had a cup and saucer, tumbler and three
knives and forks, and the rennet, which soon supplied one dish; the
negroes brought china in limited quantities; we opened a box of
sardines, and coffee, and, with the army bread we brought from
Beaufort, fried eggs, and hominy, made a most excellent meal; a
tablecloth, napkins, and silver spoons forming some of the
appointments. Joe, the carpenter, young and handy, made a very good
waiter, but when he went out and cut a bough of sycamore and began to
brush the flies as we ate, it was almost more than I could stand. Then
we went to work to put what things we had to rights, H. got her
servant, and moreover we had to receive and shake hands with any
number of negroes, who came flocking round us at once, following the
carriage as we drove up in true Southern style, and coming into the
house to satisfy their curiosity.

W. G---- was here and aided us with a will, and about five o'clock I
went with him to the praise-house,[22] where he has his school. The
children were all assembled by Cuffy, and he was teaching them when we
went in. Mr. G---- read in the Bible, substituting words that they
could understand, made a very simple prayer, all kneeling, and then
heard them their letters and words for an hour, with a great deal of
tact and ability--strange words, you may think, to use in such a
connection, but you have little idea how much it needs of both. We
are not used to these people--it is even very difficult to understand
what they say. They have been born and brought up just here, in the
most isolated way, for generations, with no chance of improvement, and
there is not a single mulatto[23] on the place--they are black as the
blackest, and perfect children--docile, and with "faith enough to live
by," W---- G---- says. I find I have no shrinking from them, and hope
I shall be able to do my part. I take this school off his hands--he
has two other plantations to teach on and has been working like a
beaver. I made my first attempt this afternoon and got along
comfortably. Flora, the house-servant (that is, ours,--she is a field
hand), took me on my way to see the old mammas, and I went into
several of the cabins and came home with a present of nine eggs!

These houses are all built of hard pine, which is handsome on the
floors, but the rest of the woodwork is painted, in this house an ugly
green, which is not pretty or cheerful. The walls are always left
white. Clapboards are unknown, but hard-pine boards, a foot or more
broad, are put on in the same way, and everything outside is
whitewashed. The place is very attractive-looking, grapevines and
honeysuckles and pine woods near.

_April 25._ The house is raised high from the ground, as all are here,
and boarded in loosely underneath. There is a circle of orange-trees
round the house, and roses in abundance, but no grass, which is
dreary. The quarters are a quarter of a mile off, and the
praise-house is near them, where I have school twice a day. It is very
interesting, and I enjoy it much, though of course there is nothing to
teach but the alphabet and little words. They sing their letters very
nicely now. They are much better-mannered than the Irish, and I have
had no trouble as yet.

Perhaps when I get to understanding things better I shall be able to
tell you some things they say. They were uneasy till they discovered
our first names, and were pleased that mine was that of the "old
Missus." They have brought me presents of eggs two or three times.


FROM W. C. G.

_Pine Grove Plantation, April 22._ You see that we have changed our
home. The ladies have arrived. The house is in better condition than
that at Coffin's, the people better disposed, and the locality is more
retired and does not boast of a cotton-agent. In a month or two we
shall probably move to our old quarters, if it doesn't take longer to
clean it. Miss W---- will be a grand helper. It will be a pretty rough
life for them, and New England comforts and neatness and intelligence
will be sadly missed, but we certainly have been well,--our table is
the most refined thing on the Island, I fancy.


FROM H. W.

_Pine Grove, April 29._ Our days pass pretty much after this fashion.
Mr. Philbrick gets up about six, calls me, and I obey, having
stipulated for a full hour in which to dress. After we get downstairs
it takes the united efforts of most of the family to get the breakfast
on the table, and we are fortunate if we get up from that meal by
half-past eight. It generally consists of hominy, very delicious eaten
with either milk, butter, or molasses, corn-cake, or waffles of
corn-flour--the best of their kind--concentrated coffee, chocolate, or
tea, army bread--when we can get it--crackers, when we can't, and
boiled eggs or fried fish, as the case may be. The important
operations of dish-washing and arranging the rooms upstairs take
longer than you can imagine, and things are not always done when I go
to school at ten, which with our simple style of living is rather a
nuisance. H. begins to pity the Southern housekeepers. This morning,
after making the starch in our little kitchen in the house, she waited
about for two hours, before she could get hold of one of the three
servants. They were all off at the kitchen, smoking and talking and
taking things easy. Joe was nominally cleaning knives, Flora had gone
to empty a pail of water, and Sukey had no thought about her starched
clothes!

Well, I walk off to school, under the white umbrella if the sun
shines, dressed as warmly as I can if it does not. My way lies between
a row of large "Heshaberry" trees, as the negroes call them; a
corruption, I suppose, of Asia Berry, as it is the "Pride of Asia," in
full blossom now, with scent something like our lilac, but more
delicate. On each side of these trees are the corn-houses, stables,
cotton-houses, and near the house a few cabins for house-servants, and
the well. They stretch an eighth of a mile, when a gate (left open)
shuts off the nigger-house and field. Another eighth brings me to the
cabins, which have trees scattered among them, figs and others. The
children begin to gather round me before I get there, with their bow
and curtsey and "goo' mornin, Marm," and as I go through the quarters
I send them in to wash their hands and faces. The praise-house
reached, one of the children rings the bell out of the door to summon
all, and they gather quickly, some to be sent off to wash their
faces--alas, they cannot change their clothes, which are of the
raggedest. But now enough clothes have come to begin to sell, I hope
to have a better dressed set before long. I keep them in for about two
hours--there are about thirty of the little ones who come in the
morning, ten and under; all older are in the field, and come in the
afternoon, as they finish work by noon always.

I go back to lunch at half-past twelve, a cold one generally,
sometimes a few waffles or some hominy for variety, but crackers,
sardines, and blackberries which we have in abundance now, make a
refreshing meal, with tea or coffee when we please. Shop[24] has to be
tended in the afternoon principally, and I sometimes take a turn at it
till I go off at half-past three to school again. We use for shop the
little room between Mr. G.'s and the entry, selling out of the window
over a box for a counter, to the groups on the porch. It is a funny
sight and funny work for us, albeit interesting, for they have had no
clothes for a year, and buy eagerly. Mr. Philbrick has not been able
to let them have any clothing before, as there has only been enough to
give a garment to one in ten, and they have been so used to being
treated alike that their jealousy is very easily roused, and it is a
difficult matter to deal with them. For the same reason the clothes
have to be sold, the money going back to the Commission, to be used
again for their benefit. It would be very much better if only the
goods were sent, for they prefer to make their own clothes and all
know how to sew.

These people show their subserviency in the way they put Marm or Sir
into their sentences every other word and emphasize it as the one
important word, and in always agreeing to everything you say. In
school it is rather annoying to have them say, "Yes Marm, 'zackly
Marm," before it is possible for an idea to have reached their brains.

Flora, our housemaid, who is a character, has a great deal of dignity
and influence among the other negroes, and takes the greatest care of
us. She is most jealous for what she considers our interests, and
moreover is quite an interpreter, though it is hard enough to
understand her sometimes. "Learning" with these people I find means a
knowledge of medicine, and a person is valued accordingly. Flora
wanted to know how much "learning" Miss Helen[25] had had, and it was
a long time before I could make out what she meant.

H. says she never saw me look so well, so you see I thrive in spite of
fleas, which have almost flayed me alive. I understand what it means
by eels getting _used_ to being skinned.

_May 1._ Took a ride through the quarters. We stopped to see Doll and
her week-old baby. H. had quite a talk with Mily, the nurse, who told
her it did them good to see white ladies about, and hoped we were
going to stay. She seemed very much disappointed when H. told her we
should be here [at Pine Grove] only a short time longer. I think it
does them good just to have me walk through the quarters four times a
day--they always curtsey and say a word.

In the afternoon, as I came out of school, Cuffy said, "You promise to
jine praise with we some night dis week, Missus," so I told him I
would go up in the evening if Mr. G. would go with me. When we went up
after eight they were just lighting the two candles. I sat down on the
women's side next a window, and one of the men soon struck up a hymn
in which the others joined and which seemed to answer the purpose of a
bell, for the congregation immediately began to assemble, and after
one or two hymns, Old Peter offered a prayer, using very good
language, ending every sentence with "For Jesus' sake." He prayed for
us, Massa and Missus, that we might be "boun' up in de belly-band of
faith." Then Mr. G. read to them and made a few remarks to which they
listened very attentively; then some hymn-singing, Cuffy deaconing out
the lines two at a time. Then some one suddenly started up and
pronounced a sort of benediction, in which he used the expression
"when we done chawing all de hard bones and swallow all de bitter
pills." They then shook hands all round, when one of the young girls
struck up one of their wild songs, and we waited listening to them for
twenty minutes more. It was not a regular "shout,"[26] but some of
them clapped their hands, and they stamped in time. It was very
difficult to understand the words, though there was so much repetition
that I generally managed to make out a good deal, but could not
remember it much, still less the music, which is indescribable, and no
one person could imitate it at all. As we walked home we asked Cuffy
if they considered the "shout" as part of their religious worship; he
said yes, that "it exercise the frame." Mr. G. told him that some of
the old people had told him they did not like the shouts, or think
them religious, but he said old Binah did not object to them in the
praise-house, but she did not like the shout "out in de world," _i.
e._ before they joined the Church or came to "strive behind the
Elders." He makes his own hymns, "praying to de Lord Jesus to teach
him as he in de woods--jine one word 'ginst toder." They were almost
unintelligible as he deaconed them out, but I daresay they were his
own, unconsciously caught, perhaps, in part from what he had heard in
the white people's church. The only song I could remember ran somewhat
after this fashion:

    Oh, Jacob's ladder.
    Climb high, climb higher!
    Oh sodier of de jubilee,
    When you git dere 'member me,
    Oh! sodier of de cross!

    In the introduction to "Slave Songs of the United States," a
    collection made chiefly at Port Royal and published in 1867,
    this particular song is set down as spurious, that is, as
    being sung to a well-known "white folks'" tune. But most of
    the negro music is described as "civilized in its character,
    partly composed under the influence of association with the
    whites, partly actually imitated from their music. In the
    main it appears to be original in the best sense of the word."

    The same writer goes on:

    "On the other hand there are very few which are of an
    intrinsically barbaric character, and where this character
    does appear, it is chiefly in short passages, intermingled
    with others of a different character.... It is very likely
    that if we had found it possible to get at more of their
    secular music, we should have come to another conclusion as
    to the proportion of the barbaric element.... Mr. E. S.
    Philbrick was struck with the resemblance of some of the
    rowing tunes at Port Royal to the boatmen's songs he had
    heard upon the Nile....

    "The words are, of course, in a large measure taken from
    Scripture, and from the hymns heard at church; and for this
    reason these religious songs do not by any means illustrate
    the full extent of the debasement of the dialect." Of words
    funnily distorted through failure to understand their
    meaning there are, however, many examples. "Paul and Silas,
    bound in jail," was often sung "Bounden Cyrus born in jail;"
    "Ring Jerusalem" appeared as "Ring Rosy Land," etc., etc. "I
    never fairly heard a secular song among the Port Royal
    freedmen, and never saw a musical instrument among them. The
    last violin, owned by a 'worldly man,' disappeared from
    Coffin's Point 'de year gun shoot at Bay Pint.'"

    The negroes' manner of singing is pretty well suggested by
    the following:

    "The voices of the colored people have a peculiar quality
    that nothing can imitate; and the intonations and delicate
    variations of even one singer cannot be reproduced on paper.
    And I despair of conveying any notion of the effect of a
    number singing together, especially in a complicated
    shout.... There is no singing in _parts_, as we understand
    it, and yet no two appear to be singing the same thing--the
    leading singer starts the words of each verse, often
    improvising, and the others, who 'base' him, as it is
    called, strike in with the refrain, or even join in the
    solo, when the words are familiar. When the 'base' begins,
    the leader often stops, leaving the rest of his words to be
    guessed at, or it may be they are taken up by one of the
    other singers. And the 'basers' themselves seem to follow
    their own whims, beginning when they please and leaving off
    when they please, striking an octave above or below (in case
    they have pitched the tune too low or too high), or hitting
    some other note that chords, so as to produce the effect of
    a marvellous complication and variety, and yet with the most
    perfect time, and rarely with any discord. And what makes it
    all the harder to unravel a thread of melody out of this
    strange network is that, like birds, they seem not
    infrequently to strike sounds that cannot be precisely
    represented by the gamut, and abound in 'slides from one
    note to another, and turns and cadences not in articulated
    notes.'"

    How the same songs could be sung equally well at all sorts
    of work is explained by another writer,[27] as follows: "Of
    course the _tempo_ is not always alike. On the water, the
    oars dip 'Poor Rosy' to an even andante, a stout boy and
    girl at the hominy-mill will make the same 'Poor Rosy' fly,
    to keep up with the whirling stone; and in the evening,
    after the day's work is done, 'Heab'n shall-a be my home' [a
    line from 'Poor Rosy'] peals up slowly and mournfully from
    the distant quarters. One woman--a respectable
    house-servant, who had lost all but one of her twenty-two
    children--said to me: 'Pshaw! don't har to dese yer chil'en,
    misse. Dey just rattles it off,--dey don't know how for sing
    it. I likes "Poor Rosy" better dan all de songs, but it
    can't be sung widout a full heart and a troubled sperrit!'"


FROM H. W.

_Saturday, May 3._ Directly after breakfast I mounted the pony,
followed by Tom to open the gates. In this way we proceeded to Fripp
Point, the plantation which belongs to this one. Just before we
reached the Point, Tom started my horse, and before I knew it I was on
the ground from the saddle's having turned under me. The horse behaved
perfectly well, and I mounted and rode on towards the quarters (there
is no white people's house here), where I could see St. Helena Village
across the creek--a Deserted Village of a dozen or more mansions with
their house-servants' cabins behind them, and two churches in a large
pine wood, free from underbrush, where there are only one mulatto
woman and her two children, belonging to this place, the sole
occupants.[28] The village is directly on the creek on a bluff like
that on which Beaufort is situated, about eight feet high, and is the
place where the white people used to spend the summers for health and
society--those who did not go North to travel, or to Beaufort. This
Fripp family had a house in each place, besides this one at Pine
Grove. As he [Tom] walked alongside the horse, I questioned him about
the old family, and found that it consisted of William Fripp and his
wife Harriet, their four sons and a daughter. The old man they all
speak of with respect as a "good marn." Mass' Washington they
represent as not liking the war,[29] and papers have been found which
prove this true. Mass' Clan's was a doctor and very kind, and lived at
the village--"bes' young massa we hab." Mass' Eden lived alone on this
place, and was from all accounts a very bad man. With only one meal a
day, he lived on whiskey, and, beyond his own control most of the
time, he used to "lick wus 'an fire." The tree in the yard to which
they were tied, their feet a foot or more from the ground, while he
used the raw cowhide himself, has the nails in it now which prevented
the rope from slipping--Flora showed it to me from my window. They do
not talk much unless we question them, when they tell freely. As I
opened shop this afternoon, old Alick, head-carpenter and a most
respectable man, opened the cupboard door in the entry, but when he
saw our dishes shut it with an apology, saving that it was an old
acquaintance and he wanted to see what it was used for now. "I get
sixty lash for makin' dat two year Christmas, and hab to work all
Christmas day beside." Well, Alick, those days are over for you now.
"Tank de Lord, missus, tank de Lord."

By afternoon my hip was swollen and painful. I did not go downstairs
again that night; but hearing them laugh at the dinner-table over some
experience of Mr. G.'s, found it was this. He had been telling them
[his pupils] that it was necessary that they should be punctual, study
hard, and behave well in order to have a good school, and talking to
them Saturday night about the fresh week that was coming, in which
they must try hard, asked what three things were necessary for a good
school. A question which was received in profound silence, for it is
almost impossible to make them put that and that together, till one
boy about nineteen rose and said very solemnly, "Father, Son and Holy
Ghost!"


FROM W. C. G.

_Pine Grove, May 3._ Sunday, besides its other virtues, in this place
brings us bread, and an opportunity to send and receive letters. Mr.
Eustis takes a large bag of loaves in his carriage, which are shared
out to hungry superintendents after service. Eustis's house and his
plantation serve as general caravanserai to our whole establishment.
His overseer house--a mile from his own--is the dépôt for supplies for
these outside islands.

Our cotton-agent has at last paid off our plantations and will
probably say farewell this coming week. We also have made a small
payment to the hands of $1.00 per acre for all the cotton they had
planted up to a certain date. The slight sum has had a very good
effect. Other things have aided it. The cotton-agent paid them partly
in goods. As soon as they had received the money from him and
ourselves, we opened store, putting our goods at cheap prices. The
stock consisted of the clothes I brought with me, those which K. sent
me, and some pieces Mrs. Philbrick brought with her, with some
furnished by the Commission; also a barrel of molasses, some tobacco,
and shoes. The "sweetening" and the clothing were at cheaper prices
than anything they have been accustomed to, so they were greatly
pleased and we have sold out rapidly. The good effect is already quite
noticeable,--but they are by no means all clothed. The men and boys,
especially, stick to their rags. [The money] obtained from our private
boxes will be expended in buying other articles for the negroes, to be
sold again, or distributed to them, as may seem best. A vast deal of
dissatisfaction among the people has been saved by this method of
distributing the clothing. The faithful workers have all had money.
All understand and like the arrangement.

I have made a rather elaborate explanation of all this, because to
some perhaps it will seem to be a strange and suspicious operation.

    The natural impulse to treat the negroes as objects of
    charity was thus early found to be a mistaken one; by the
    end of November the Government, too, had ceased to give
    them anything, the system of rations having done, as is
    remarked in one of the letters, "too much harm already." The
    time never came, however, when there was not heard from the
    North abundant criticism of the kind which H. W., in her
    letter of April 29, and W. C. G. here are trying to disarm,
    and the superintendents had to outgrow their fear of being
    blamed for "strange and suspicious operations."


FROM H. W.

_Sunday, May 4._ They had had a "Shout," which I had heard distinctly
at three o'clock in the morning when I happened to wake up. They come
from all the plantations about, when these meetings take place for the
examination of new members, "prodigals and raw souls," as 'Siah said,
he being an elder and one of the deacons. They do not begin till about
ten o'clock Saturday night, when the examinations commence and the
other services, after which they keep up the shout till near daylight,
when they can see to go home. They admitted two this time, and, as
Uncle Sam remarked, "they say there is joy in Heaven over one sinner
that repenteth, so we rejoice over these souls that have come in."

A good many of the girls came up. They lay round the floor or squatted
about as I read and sung hymns to them; they were very much surprised
that I was not afraid to sleep alone in such a big room--said Miss
Juliana and Miss Lynch, Mass' Sam and Mass' Willie and their Mamma
used to sleep there. These people do not use any feminine adjective,
and their "hims" are very confusing sometimes. Harriet walked down to
the house behind me from school the other day for some sugar for a
sick baby, and I asked her the name of a bird that flew across our
path. "Him de Red bird." I thought the Red bird was all red, I said.
"Him de 'oman bird, marm, de marn bird all red, him de 'oman bird,
marm." The girls hung round till the faithful Flora appeared to "wash
me down" with the tide. Everything here depends on the tide; Susan
will not make butter when the tide is going out--it would take it all
day to come; and Flora would bathe the swelling when the tide was
going out, that it might carry it with it.

No letters when they came from church--four weeks from home, and never
a word.

In the afternoon I walked out in the yard a few steps, and it was
pleasant and touching to see how eagerly they watched me and passed
the word, "Miss Hayiot's comin'," with bow and curtsey, asking, "How
you find yourself to-day, Missus?" "Glad to see you on you feet,
marm."

_May 5._ I had the school come up to me on the piazza, a plan I shall
adopt for the future; it is cool and pleasant, saves me a walk which
will be warm by and by, and also from the fleas of the praise-house.
Louisa came up to give me two eggs, carefully wrapped in her apron.
This makes over a dozen I have had brought to me by my grateful
pupils.

_May 6._ In the afternoon Flora brought me a letter to read to her,
which proved to be from her husband, who is cook to some officers at
Bay Point. I am quite curious to see him--she is so fine and the
children are among the brightest here. Some soldier had written it for
him, and she was too pleased for anything at her first letter. It was
signed "York polite," which she told me was his title. I can't make
out whether they give each other surnames, and this is his, or whether
it is really a title, as she says, like "Philip the Fair."[30] She
told me what to say, and I wrote an answer for her.

_May 8._ A Baptist minister, who came out with us and has been
appointed the pastor of the island, came to lunch, went to the other
plantations with Mr. Philbrick, and has come back to spend the night.
He had been up to the praise-meeting by Uncle Peter's invitation. He
is very much puzzled what to do about the religious feeling of these
people and their habits and customs. I hope he will let them alone.

_May 9._ Went up to the praise-house for school in the morning; it is
so hard to get the little things together and then, like as not, they
have _half_ of them to be sent back to wash their faces and hands.
Asked the little children questions, such as "What are your eyes for?"
"For see'long." "Teeth?" "For chaw'long," etc.

_Sunday, May 11._ In the morning a number of the women had come up to
the house to see us. It seems they have always been in the habit of
coming into the yard on Sundays. Tira, Sim's wife, brought me three
little fish fried. The women said that all the people here were born
on the place, and no new hands had ever been bought, only one sold,
and his master allowed him that privilege because his wife belonged in
Charleston and he wanted to belong to the same man.

Flora said at lunch, as she brushed off the flies, that her husband
York was at work on the "main" (land), she did not know where, on a
house, with five of their carpenters, when the war broke out, or
rather, before the Fort here was "taken away," as they say, and that
then the white people had not food enough to feed the blacks, and she
is quite sure all her brothers and sisters who were carried off were
dead before this--starved. York was five weeks getting back here, and
arrived about Christmas.

Limus came for a reading-lesson, a man about fifty, driver on one of
Mr. Soule's plantations next this, who comes over almost every day for
me to teach him. He has a wife here and grown children, and another on
the other plantation, the rascal. He is very smart and learns
well.[31]

Mr. Philbrick had business with Mr. Pierce, and did not come home to
dinner. But he got into more business than he expected before he came
back, and I never saw a poor man show suffering more than he did when
he came in after ten o'clock and told us what he had received orders
to do the next day. While he was at Mr. Pierce's, writing, young
Hazard Stevens came over with despatches from General Hunter[32]
ordering all the agents to send him in the morning all the able-bodied
black men between the ages of 18 and 45, capable of bearing arms, on
the plantations. There was no explanation whatsoever of the reasons
for the demand, no hint of what was to be done with them, and nothing
but our confidence in General Hunter's friendliness to the race gave
us a shadow of comfort. But that would avail little to the negroes,
who would lose the confidence they are beginning to feel in white men.
Yet there was but one thing for us to do, and it was with heavy,
aching hearts that at midnight we separated. Companies of soldiers
were to be sent from Beaufort in the night and distributed to the
different plantations to prevent the negroes from taking to the woods,
so that we were not surprised at being roused about two hours after by
thundering knocks at the front door, echoing through all these empty
rooms with a ghostly sound. This proved to be Captain Stevens again,
alone, who had stopped to enquire the way to some of the other
plantations he had to notify, and say that the soldiers would be here
in about an hour. We had scarcely got to sleep again before we all
were roused by their arrival, and eight men, a Captain and Sergeant of
the New York 79th Highlanders, tramped through the house. Mr.
Philbrick gave them a pail of water and some hardtack, for they had
had a long walk, and then they stretched themselves on the floor of
one of our empty parlors as quietly as could be, considering
themselves in luxury. We slept as best we could the rest of the night,
and were up early to get the soldiers their breakfast and get ready
for the heart-sickening work. You never saw a more wretched set of
people than sat down to our breakfast-table. I _could not_ eat, for
about the first time in my life. Nothing had been said to any one. Joe
saw the soldiers on the floor when he opened the house door in the
morning, and wore a sober face when we came down, but no one asked any
questions, and we moved about, seeing to the breakfast, trying to
look as usual (and failing), getting out tobacco and crackers to give
the men on all these plantations when they went off. It had been
arranged that Mr. G. should see to these two plantations after Mr.
Philbrick had taken part of the soldiers to Coffin's Point. When he
had gone, Mr. G. began on Joe before he went to the field for the
other hands--telling him that General Hunter had work at Hilton Head
for a great many black men, that he did not know what for, but had
received orders in the night, and they must be obeyed and he must
march; he had to go at once to his house for his cap, say good-bye to
his wife and come to us to leave his will, for he said he never
expected to come back. We made as light of the whole thing as we
could, but did not dare to say anything (as we knew nothing) which
might make them feel afterwards as if we had deceived them, for the
thing they dread is being made to fight, and we knew that there had
been men about trying to recruit for Hunter's pet idea, a regiment of
blacks. _One_ man had been obtained on this island! We told Joe that
Mr. Philbrick knew nothing about it and was going with them himself,
and gave him a letter Mr. Philbrick had written asking for him to be
returned as a personal favor, as he was a house-servant. He did the
same thing with each of the drivers, for the good of the plantation
crops. The men were easily collected, ten here, and went off after all
with much less emotion than we expected; the soldiers behaved
admirably, delighted with the treatment they had received, and
cheering the negroes with tales of money and clothes, treating them
most kindly. Mr. Philbrick called all the hands together at Coffin's
and told them the simple fact, all that he himself knew, and named
the men who were to go, and the whole thing was accomplished with much
less _apparent_ suffering than we had supposed possible. Many of the
men were not averse to trying their hands at life in the world, for
many of their number have been and still are at work for officers,
etc., at Hilton Head and Bay Point, etc., with most desirable
pecuniary results, but they are afraid of being made to fight. Flora,
our heroine, said the women and boys could take care of all the cotton
and corn if the men did have to go--that they did not trust many white
people, but they did trust Mr. Philbrick.

The day passed in perfect quiet: the women finished their work in the
field, I kept school, Mr. G. came back from the Point and after lunch
took the driver's place, sharing out the week's allowance of corn to
the people, while H. and I sat under the shade of the trees, watching
or talking to the women. Wil'by, Joe's wife, was the only one who
seemed really sad and heart-sick--all the rest were as usual. Dr.
Wakefield[33] came and recounted his miseries while I set the
tea-table, when, just as everything was cleared away, Mr. G. came in,
with his face all aglow, to tell us that the drivers, Joe, and one or
two others had been sent back, and in a moment Joe appeared, radiant
with happiness. Mr. G. found he had not seen his wife, so went to her
cabin and told her the ladies wanted her, and it was pretty enough to
see her simple delight as she caught sight of Joe in the doorway. They
both laughed nervously, then shook hands shyly, and she curtseyed,
then hid her face against the wall, saying, "I so thankful I can't say
a word," and pretty soon, "Oh Joe, I couldn't eat the hominy for
dinner;" and Joe, "I couldn't eat the biscuits, either, that Mr.
Philbrick gave me, had to gi' um away--and then I was so glad, I
didn't feel hungry till I got home." We sent them off to eat hominy
and be happy, and sat down to write with lighter hearts ourselves.

Mr. Philbrick soon appeared. He found Mr. Pierce had been down to
Hilton Head and found what he had in part suspected to be the fact.
General Hunter found that the negroes misapprehended his wishes and
ideas, and he could not raise as many as he wanted, so had resorted to
these measures, meaning to give the men an idea of the life and drill,
and after a few weeks not retain any who wished to return to their
homes. All the superintendents were indignant at the way the thing was
done, but it will not turn out so badly as we feared, I trust. The
people are used to being made to do things, and are not in the least
rebellious, as any white man would have been. If we can have blacks to
garrison the forts and save our soldiers through the hot weather,
every one will be thankful. But I don't believe you could make
soldiers of these men at all--they are afraid, and they know it.

The cotton-agent left Coffin's Point to-day, so that we can go there
now whenever we can get the house ready. Then we shall have horses and
vehicles more at our disposal; you may hear of our carriage and span
yet, but I shall hate to leave here. This moon is lovely, and to-night
the flats are covered with water by the full moon tide, and the sea
looks as if it came to our doors.

    The opinion just expressed concerning the impossibility of
    making soldiers from Sea Island negroes was, very
    naturally, the view that prevailed at this time among the
    superintendents and teachers; in the extract that follows it
    is stated with even more decision. As the letters progress,
    the reader will see the development of a complete change of
    mind on this point.


FROM W. C. G.

_May 27._ Negroes--plantation negroes, at least--will never make
soldiers in one generation. Five white men could put a regiment to
flight; but they may be very useful in preventing sickness and death
among our troops by relieving them of part of their work, and they may
acquire a certain self-respect and independence which more than
anything else they need to feel, if they are soon to stand by their
own strength.


FROM H. W.

_May 13._ Old Peggy, the "leader" from Fripp Point, came over, and
Flora brought her to see the school. She sat on the doorstep, very
much interested and uttering frequent ejaculations of "Oh Lord!" H.
had her sewing-school, and then I my regular session, with diminished
numbers. Hope the men took their books. Saw Wil'by to-day and asked if
she did not feel pretty well, when Susan answered, "She feel pretty
well, Missus, but I don't; can't feel right with five boys all gone,
not so much as that (pointing off the end of her finger) left of one
of them; two carried off by Secesh, one with a Captain of ours at Fort
Pulaski,[34] not heard from since Christmas, and now two gone
yesterday." But she seemed to feel, spite of her regrets, that if they
could help she was glad they should. Flora said old Peggy and Binah
were the two whom all that came into the Church had to come through,
and the Church supports them, and she contributed thirty-five cents to
get her some flannel for garments, which she had always been used to
till now. Of course we gave them to her.

_May 14._ Our new equipage with its two horses drew up, and I got in,
while H., shocked at the rags, cut out the lining of the top of the
buggy, showering me with sand thereby. The buggy and horses were
legacies from Mr. S., the cotton-agent, who departed yesterday.

There have been seven babies born on the three plantations since we
came, and thirteen since Mr. Philbrick came, for which we have been
able to supply but little and that only on this place. The Master
always provided for the new babies two of each garment and half a
dozen diapers.

I found that they had a most heart-rending time [at Mr. Eustis'
plantation] on Monday. The two companies of soldiers coming over
Sunday night had frightened them, and they kept watch all along the
creek through the night of their own accord, for fear of Secesh. The
thing was not judiciously done the next morning, and seems to have
made a great deal of suffering which was avoided here.

_May 15._ After lunch I walked down to the quarters and stopped at all
the cabins. Found two of the men had already come back from Hilton
Head and had eased the minds of all the mothers and wives by the
reports which they brought back of comfortable quarters, good food and
clothing, confirming all our statements. I think here a greater degree
of confidence than ever will be established by this painful episode.
Mr. Philbrick says they have not behaved so well at Coffin's Point as
to-day since he came. We walked down to the field to see them hoeing
corn in their own "nigger field"--what is raised for the plantation,
not their own private patches, but that out of which their weekly peck
comes, and which therefore they will work on out of hours. Their
task[35] is done, often, by eleven o'clock.

Went to see Binah. She is always very glad to see us, and to-day
reached to a little shelf at the foot of the bed, off which she took a
small tin pail and gave us three eggs--her last. I remonstrated, but
she said, "You gib me ting, I say tank 'ee," so I picked them up and
thanked her.

Mr. Philbrick sent for the people to make the final payment for
cotton-planting, which is now finished, and we stood at the window to
watch them as they came up, and help give out the money. One woman,
who had not done so much work, was disturbed at not getting as much
money as the others, and Mr. Philbrick could not make her understand.
Flora came to H. afterwards and said, "You must excuse we niggers, we
no sense, and Mr. Philbrick _so_ patient; all Secesh on these islands
couldn't make so much as he has with we."

_May 16._ Dr. Wakefield arrived with the news of the rebel
Flag-steamer's having escaped from Charleston through the inside
passages, passed Beaufort and gone to Hilton Head. It was manned by
blacks, who came off at two o'clock night before last with their wives
and children, the officers having all gone ashore. It mounted two
guns, and had four others on board which were to be taken[36]
somewhere, passed Sumter with the right signals, and Beaufort with a
Federal flag, and was sent back there again from Hilton Head. I should
like to have been in Beaufort. It is magnificent.

The sales have been quite large, as Mr. Philbrick's denims[37] have
arrived, and the negroes had yesterday their second payment. The cloth
is sold at the wholesale price, as it was bought. I am afraid they
will never get it as cheap again. Now we can give away the made
clothes with more freedom.

Got old Peter to make me a piggin for fresh water in my chamber; as
they always carry everything on their heads, a pail is no advantage.
It is of a red color, and very nicely made. When I gave it to Flora to
fill, she said, "him name Harriet"--whether intended as a compliment
to me or to the piggin I could not understand. When we told Joe about
the steamer, he exclaimed, "Gracious! 'zackly, that done beautiful,"
and kept exploding through the rest of dinner, "my glory," "gracious,"
"smartest ting done yet."

_May 17._ H. called me out of school this morning to see one of the
crew of the _Planter_, the steamer that ran off from Charleston. He
proved to be a man from McKee's plantation who had a wife and children
at Coffin's Point and had come round in a boat with a crew and pass
from General Stevens[38] to take them to Beaufort. Almost all the men
came from about here; David had two brothers with wives at Coffin's
Point who were afraid to run the risk, and, though they belonged to
the crew, went ashore. The pilot first proposed the plan, and they
arranged a day or two beforehand with the wives they had there, took
them on board in boats I think at two o'clock, passed Fort Sumter with
the signal, two long whistles and a short, and came round inside the
islands so that they did not encounter any of our blockading fleet
till they came off Otter Island, where there is a vessel lying within
sight of Coffin's Point. Then they raised the Federal flag which was
on board, were boarded by our men and _cheered_ as they passed on
their way. Beaufort was amazed at a steamer with the Federal flag
coming from that direction. The guns were to be mounted between Sumter
and Charleston at the new Fort Ripley. David said they had made up
their minds to blow up the vessel rather than be taken--they knew they
should have no mercy. I hope the men who stayed were not hung for not
informing. He said Charleston was "very interrupted," not a white
woman left in the town, as they were expecting an attack from the
Federals. He reports coffee at $1.50 a pound, sugar 50 cents there,
but I don't know how much he is to be relied on; he was very quiet and
modest--the fireman; said he used to work in the field here, but would
"go furder" before he ever would do it again.

To-day a quantity of bacon, which was sent from Philadelphia, was
given out to the hands on both the Fripp plantations. There has been
a good deal of trouble about their working Saturday, and the bacon was
only given to those who went into the field to-day, I hope with good
effect. They have not done a third the usual work this year, and it is
hard to bring anything to bear upon them. I hope Captain Saxton, who
we hear is coming out as head of the whole concern, will have
sufficient authority to settle some points which have been left to the
individual superintendents and with regard to which they have not
pursued the same course, making it very hard for some.

    Rufus Saxton, Captain in the United States Army, had been a
    quartermaster at Hilton Head ever since its capture. On
    April 29, 1862, he was assigned, as Brigadier-General of
    Volunteers, "to take possession of all the plantations
    heretofore occupied by the rebels" in the Department of the
    South, "and take charge of the inhabitants remaining thereon
    within the department, or which the fortunes of the war may
    hereafter bring into it, with authority to take such
    measures, make such rules and regulations for the
    cultivation of the land and for protection, employment, and
    government of the inhabitants as circumstances may seem to
    require." He was to act under the orders of the Secretary of
    War, and, so far as the persons and purposes specified were
    concerned, his action was to be "independent of that of
    other military authorities of the department," and in all
    other cases "subordinate only to the Major-General
    commanding." Many of Saxton's orders are signed
    "Brigadier-General and Military Governor," but of course he
    was never a military governor in the sense in which that
    term was used of Lincoln's military governors of states.
    Doubtless Saxton was recommended for his position by General
    Hunter, both being ardent anti-slavery men.


FROM H. W.

_Sunday, May 18._ Started [for church] directly after breakfast in the
buggy. It is the first time I have been up, and I am glad to have seen
the sight. The church[39] is of brick, in a grove of very beautiful
live-oak trees wreathed with grapevines and hanging moss, under which
were tied every conceivable description of horse and vehicle, from Mr.
Pierce's six-seated carriage and pair of fine Northern horses to the
one-seated sulkies, and mules saddled with cotton-bags. Just as we
arrived the people were all pouring out of church after Sunday School,
for a short intermission before the service. I was very sorry to lose
that part of the performances. Mr. Hooper is superintendent, and they
say has an admirable faculty at interesting the children, who are
taught besides by the white people present in classes. We had a
pleasant chat with Miss W. and Miss Towne and the gentlemen, most of
whom do not meet at all except once a week at church, and then the
people were collected again, and when they were seated, Mr. Pierce
summoned us, the four ladies, to an empty pew with himself. The church
is painted white inside, very plain, with galleries, and filled full
of black people,--doors, windows and aisles. Dr. French had come over
from "Biffert," as they call it, and conducted the services. He read a
hymn through, "Am I a soldier of the Cross?" etc., and then deaconed
out two lines at a time, while the negroes sang it in their peculiar,
nasal manner, one always leading. He preached them an admirable
sermon, familiar in its style. He told them of his visit to the men
who had been carried to Hilton Head, which interested them very much
and comforted them too, I guess. Compared them to the Israelites
coming out of Egypt, as in a transition state in which everything
depended upon themselves--they must not behave so ill that God would
make them wander forty years in the wilderness instead of reaching
Canaan in eighteen months. It was pleasant to see their interest--the
"elders" all sat under the pulpit and in the front seats, and many
would nod their heads from time to time in approbation, equivalent to
the "'zackly" and "jus' so" of their every-day speech. They were all
well dressed--a few in gaudy toggery, hoopskirts, and shabby bonnets,
but mostly in their simple "head hankerchers" [which] I hope they will
never give up. Many of the men on the road had their shoes in their
hands to put on when they got to church. Most of them wear none. The
women, many of them, came up to shake hands with us after church and
said they must come and see us. There are no white ladies on the
islands beside us and those at Pope's (Mr. Pierce's).

Mr. Hooper told us of General Hunter's proclamation declaring all
slaves free in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.[40] We got no
letters or news from the North of any sort, and are waiting anxiously
to know how this news is received there and what has happened since we
heard last. He promises free papers to all who enlist, and gives each
a chance to come home to his family if he concludes to do so.
Expresses great regret that the thing should have been done as it was,
but I don't know what he could expect, and it will be some time before
the impression will die out, particularly among the women. The men are
well contented there, and most of them will stay, I daresay; there are
over five hundred.

_May 19._ This evening Dr. Wakefield arrived with the Doctor of the
Roundhead Pennsylvania Regiment. Said the pilot of the _Planter_, as
he passed Fort Sumter at daybreak, broke into the Captain's room, put
on his regimentals, and walked up and down the deck mimicking the
Captain's gait, so that if they should use their glasses at Fort
Sumter no suspicion should be excited!

_May 20._ We are fortunate in being on a plantation so far from town,
the soldiers, and the influence of the cotton-agents. At Coffin's
Point the people have shown the effects of having soldiers quartered
there so long, though they were a less simple and quiet sort than
these in Secesh times. The quarters here are the cleanest and
prettiest I have seen, though there is room for improvement.

The day has been a very busy one. A large box of Philadelphia clothing
I overhauled, made a list of everything in it, and with H.'s help
rolled up half and packed again to go to Coffin's Point. It is the
last box of clothing we shall have, I hope. We thought we should enjoy
the giving more things, now that the goods have come by the piece
which they prefer to buy, but they are so jealous, and it is so hard
to keep the run of so many families so as to distribute the garments
equally, that it is hard work, and proves the wisdom of those who
decided it was best to sell in the first place. The old people and
babies of course we give to entirely, _i. e._, as far as we have the
means. I should like a box full of baby-clothes and flannel for the
old rheumaticky women, whose garments are all worn out.

Heard Joe tell Flora, "Don't call me 'Joe' again; my name Mr.
Jenkins." I find they all have surnames, of one sort and another, a
wife taking her husband's.

_May 22._ When they go into the field to work, the women tie a bit of
string or some vine round their skirts just below the hips, to shorten
them, often raising them nearly to the knees; then they walk off with
their heavy hoes on their shoulders, as free, strong, and graceful as
possible. The prettiest sight is the corn-shelling on Mondays, when
the week's allowance, a peck a hand, is given out at the corn-house by
the driver. They all assemble with their baskets, which are shallow
and without handles, made by themselves of the palmetto and holding
from half a peck to a bushel. The corn is given out in the ear, and
they sit about or kneel on the ground, shelling it with cleared
corn-cobs. Here there are four enormous logs hollowed at one end,
which serve as mortars, at which two can stand with their rude
pestles, which they strike up and down alternately. It is very hard
work, but quicker than the hand process. After it is all shelled, the
driver puts a large hide on the ground and measures each one's portion
into his basket, and men, women, girls, and boys go off with the
weight on their heads. The corn-house is in a very pretty place, with
trees about it, and it is always a picturesque sight--especially when
the sand-flies are about, and the children light corn-cob fires to
keep them off. The corn is ground by hand by each negro in turn for
themselves; it is hard work and there are only three hand-mills on the
place, but it makes very sweet meal and grits. The negroes do not like
the taste of that which is ground by steam-mill at Beaufort; I suppose
the heat of the stones hurts it. The blacks at Hilton Head, who have
had our Indian-meal given them as rations, cannot eat the "red
flour."[41] They separate the coarse and fine parts after it is ground
by shaking the grits in their baskets; the finest they call corn-flour
and make hoe-cake of, but their usual food is the grits, the large
portion, boiled as hominy and eaten with clabber.


E. S. P. TO EDWARD ATKINSON

_Pine Grove, May 25._ We received the Philadelphia bacon and salt
herring about a week ago and divided it among the cotton-workers. I
have also distributed a part of the salt you sent. This allowance of
bacon was given once a fortnight and _weekly_ at this season by the
different masters, and the quart of salt monthly. Several plantations
near Beaufort which had been stripped of their corn by the army have
been referred to me for supplies. I have loaded three flat-boats from
the corn-barns here and at Coffin's, where there was a surplus,
sending off 285 bushels shelled corn in all. The removal of this corn
from my barns gave occasion for some loud and boisterous talking on
the part of some of the women, and made the driver of this plantation
feel very sober, but I pacified them by telling them the Government
showed its determination to provide for them by this very act, for
here were several plantations on Ladies Island, destitute of corn,
which might have been fed with much less trouble from the pile of
bacon and herring recently received, but that the Government did not
consider _that_ a just division of good things, so they sent me a part
of the bacon and fish, and took my corn to feed the destitute.
Thereby, said I, you are all gainers, for you have corn enough left to
last till potatoes come, and you get the bacon besides, for which you
ought to be thankful. The noisy ones stopped their clamor and the
sensible ones thanked me and hoped I would stay and take care of them,
saying they had about given up hopes of seeing any more meat in their
lives, and were very thankful for even this bit to grease their hominy
with.

The people are taking hold of the cotton-fields with much more heart
than I had feared, after the levy of recruits two weeks ago. The
cotton has been mostly hoed once and is growing well under the
favorable weather. Some of the corn is five feet high and it is all
hoed and ploughed except the latest portion, which was planted this
month. A small portion of the cornfields has been neglected, being the
portions assigned to some of the men who are absent. There were ten
young men belonging at Coffin's Point who escaped notice on the day of
the levy, but who, on learning that I had called for them, came and
delivered themselves up next morning. I sent them on towards Beaufort
and they met Mr. Pierce on the road. He told them that General Hunter
did not want their service against their will, and as they preferred
to return home they did so. I had just organized the whole gang anew
after this, when Mr. S.,[42] who I thought was gone for good, turned
up with an order to collect cotton on the mainland, and requested me
to let him have a boat's crew to explore for two days. I told him the
men were all organized and at work, each on his own acre, but if he
couldn't get men elsewhere I should not refuse for such a short time.
The men came back on the third day without Mr. S. and notified me that
he had hired them (and two more joined them, making twelve in all) to
collect cotton for a month or two on the neighboring territory beyond
our previous pickets, under protection of scouting-parties detached
for the purpose. The men were offered fifty cents per day, and as I
had no authority to offer _anything_ definitely, except, a house to
live in and their allowance of corn, I told them they were free to go
where they pleased, but advised them to stay. Of course they all went
off, but have been back twice since to spend a night and have gone
again this morning. They are nearly all active young men and are
pleased with this roving sort of life, but you may imagine how fatal
such a state of things is to my efforts at organization, and how
demoralizing upon the general industry of those remaining at home
these visits of the rovers are, to say nothing of the breaking up of
old gangs and abandoning allotments of land. Some of these men who
were about to go with Mr. S. told me their wives would carry on their
tasks while they were gone, and I told them that if they would do so I
would let them avail themselves of the proceeds of their labor, but if
these patches should be neglected, I should assign them to other men,
and their planting labor would be forfeited. Thus far I find but one
neglected patch, and unless this is soon hoed by some of the friends
of the sick woman to whom it belongs, I shall have to assign it to
some one else. It is a common practice among them to hire each other
to hoe their tasks, when sickness or other causes prevent them from
doing it themselves, so that most of the tasks of the lying-in women
are taken care of by sisters or other friends in the absence of their
husbands.

The more I see of these people the more surprised I am that they
should have done so much as they have this year without any definite
promise of payment on our part, and with so little acquaintance with
us. The course we have been obliged to pursue[43] would not have got
an acre planted by Irish laborers. I do not think it the best course,
but under the existing confusion it was _only_ one. If we were
authorized to say that we could pay a definite sum per one hundred
pounds for cotton raised, or a definite sum per month for certain
services performed, we might have accomplished much more, but under
the present arrangement I doubt if we can do the usual work for next
year's crop, _i. e._, in preparing manure. The only men left upon
these plantations are the old ones and they are not fit to cut the
marsh-grass commonly used for cotton manure. The only way I can get
the cornfields ploughed is by asking the drivers to take the ploughs
in their own hands, which they do very cheerfully and with good
effect, each one ploughing three or four acres per day. I do not
think the hands can be expected to work on all summer without further
payments of money or some equivalent. I wait rather anxiously for the
development of Captain or rather _General_ Saxton's instructions. He
has not arrived yet, but is daily expected.

The two thousand five hundred yards of cloth you sent me is all sold
with the exception of about three pieces, and paid for in cash; a few
have said they had no money and ask me to set it down in the book for
them to pay when they get money from the cotton. I always trust them
in this way when they desire it, and find them very reluctant to run
up a long score. My willingness to trust them gives them confidence
that they will be paid for their cotton labor, and though the "white
folks" at Hilton Head are telling them that the cotton crop is a mere
speculation on our part, I don't think they listen much to them. One
man told me to-day that nobody could cross the sill of my door to harm
me or my ladies while he could prevent it. This same man was sent by
his master, the day that Hilton Head was taken, with a fleet of
flat-boats, to bring the secession soldiers away from their forts.

    W. C. G. says of the situation at this time:

_May 27._ Between the gradual settling of affairs, the people's
growing confidence in us and in the Government as paymasters, and the
absence of the unruly men, the plantations are getting on quite
nicely. The land, both corn and cotton, has been divided and allotted
to the hands,--so a new system of labor[44] is--on our places--already
inaugurated.


FROM H. W.

_Monday, May 26._ Had quite a talk with Flora over the bed-making; she
asked me to hem her a muslin head-hankercher which York had sent her
from Hilton Head, and re-string some beads which had come too and been
broken. I promised to do it, telling her she would have things enough
to remember me by--to which she responded, "Neber forget you, long as
I hab breath for draw." I find they are all beginning to feel badly at
our leaving,[45] now they know we shall really go so soon.

This is 'lowance day, and school is always late Monday P. M., but
to-day, as they were all together, after they got through their corn,
Ranty distributed some salt and mackerel Mr. Philbrick had for them,
which kept them till six, our dinner-time, and they lost school
altogether, greatly to their regret. We went to the porch to watch the
groups, and as they passed us with their baskets on their heads and
fish wrapped in green leaves in their hands, they all looked up and
curtseyed, with a "tank 'ee, Massa."

When Flora came in with the tea just after, she was muttering, "Neber
see a marn so payshun as Mr. Philbri'," and then, turning to H. as if
she was afraid she did not appreciate his virtue,--"Miss Helen, not
two body in de worl' so payshun as him." I don't know what had
excited her admiration just then, but she probably never saw a white
man before who did not swear, at least. For even her favorite Mass'
Clan's she does not consider as immaculate, though he would "nebber
drive nigger."

_May 28._ To the [Pine Grove] quarters to say good-bye all round,
stopping at each house. They seemed quite sorry to have us go,
expressing their regret by presents of eggs. I filled my pockets and
H. her hands; then Mily held her apron and walked home with us; she
counted over three dozen in all. My children came in the evening, and
we went to bed early; and so passed the last day at William Fripp's
Pine Grove Plantation.

_Coffin's Point, May 29._ Before ten the two carts were ready, and
Flora and Joe mounted one to help us get to rights. Then H. and Mr.
Philbrick went off in the buggy with the span. I was to have gone in
the sulky, but harness fell short, and I had to wait till Tom could
come back with the mule-cart. So I collected the children and had a
last school for them, and when Tom came, locked the door, mounted the
sulky (with the white umbrella) onto which the saddles had been tied,
and, followed to the gate by the whole tribe singing "A, B, C," took
my departure, the children shouting as I bid them good-bye, "We come
for see you!"

As I drove up to the house [at Coffin's] the yard really looked
attractive, as it has some grass in it, though I had not thought the
house so. But a day's work has made a vast change, and to-night it
looks quite habitable. It was built in good style originally, but it
is very old, and has been so abused by the negroes in the first
place, and then from having had soldiers living in it for so many
months, it is very shabby. It must have been handsomely furnished, to
judge from the relics, for they are nothing more--rosewood tables,
sideboards and washstands with marble tops, drawers and doors broken
in and half gone, sofas that must have been of the best, nothing left
but the frame; no one can conceive of the destruction who has not seen
it. The rooms are twelve feet high, and the lower story is more than
that from the ground. The air is delicious, and we shall find the
blinds which are on the second story a luxury. I have my own little
bed, bureau, marble-top washstand, _three_ chairs and a large
wardrobe, to say nothing of a piano, in my chamber, which is I should
think eighteen feet square.


FROM W. C. G.

_May 30._ Schools are getting on pretty well, I suppose,--slowly, of
course. A few are really bright,--a few really dull; the larger
part--like the same proportion of white children--could creep, walk,
or trot, according to the regularity with which they are driven, and
the time devoted to their books. While we have been living at Pine
Grove, there have been five schools daily, teaching about one hundred
and forty scholars.


FROM H. W.

_May 30._ We have moved just in time, I guess, for the weather will
grow warmer now. Between eight and eleven is the warmest part of the
day; after that the sea-breeze is sure to come up.

_May 31._ There is a line cut through the trees all across the
islands so that they can see the light-house from Beaufort. I asked
Tom who cut it, as I rode over the other day, and he said, "Yankee cut
it." "Since the Fort was taken?" "Long time ago." "The old Masters cut
it, then?" "No, Secesh neber cut down trees, make nigger do it; poor
white men cut 'em." I finally came to the conclusion that it must have
been done by the Coast Survey. I daresay they think we are all "poor
white." Mary, a mulatto here, told Mr. G. his clothes would be fifty
cents per dozen for washing; that she used to have seventy-five cents
in Charleston, "for real gentle folks!"

_Sunday, June 1._ H. called in Betty, Joe, and Uncle Sam while she
read, and after Mr. Philbrick had repeated the Lord's Prayer, Uncle
Sam of his own accord offered a very simple, touching prayer. He is an
Elder, and as honest and true as "Uncle Tom" himself--a genuine
specimen of that class among the negroes, which exists in reality as
well as in story. The younger ones do not seem to be quite so
religious a class, though perhaps they are too young to tell, for
young married men like Joe and Cuffy seem to have genuine principle,
and belong to the church. H. told Joe, when he had been sulky for the
first time, that she hoped he felt better; she did not like to see him
so. "Yes, Marm, feel better now, Marm; you know de ole marn will rise
sometimes." And he told Mr. G. once that he should not cry if his baby
died, "'cause de Lord take him to a better place--not punish him,
'cause he have no sin;" but he said he should cry hard if Wil'by died,
because he knew she would be punished. (His wife is not a
"professor.")

_June 2._ An officer from the gunboat off here came ashore to see if
he could hire some men, but Mr. Philbrick told him that General Hunter
had taken off more than he could spare. The officer seemed to think
that Hunter would be recalled and the regiment disbanded[46]--in which
case Mr. Philbrick told him he did not want the men and he might take
what he needed. We hear they are made sick by the change of diet; army
rations can't be very good for men who have lived on hominy all their
lives. He told us, moreover, a most interesting piece of news; that
the firing we heard the other day was from the blockading fleet off
Charleston, which captured six and sunk three of a fleet of English
steamers, ten in number, laden with arms and munitions of war, which
were making an attempt to run in to Charleston--thus letting only one
escape. I don't know whether it got in or off.

A semiweekly _Advertiser_ and _Tribune_ of May 14th, with full
accounts of the taking of New Orleans and the battle of Williamsburg,
which we have not heard about, and the splendid doings have roused me
all up to full war pitch again. We have been so peaceful I could not
realize all that was going on.


E. S. P. TO EDWARD ATKINSON

_Coffin's Point, June 3._ I suppose we shall lose General Hunter, for
even if not recalled I don't see how he could stay after Lincoln's
proclamation. I must say I think his, Hunter's action, premature and
uncalled for. It seemed to me very like the tadpole resolution in
"Festina lente." In this case, too, the tadpoles were quite out of our
reach except the small number in these islands, who had virtually shed
their tails in course of nature already. I have great faith in Lincoln
and am ready to leave the question with him. I think the effect of
Hunter's proclamation upon the slaves of these states would be
inconsiderable. They don't hear of it, to begin with, and if they did
they wouldn't care for it. I am surprised to find how little most of
these people appreciate their present prospects. Once in a while you
find an intelligent man who does so, but the mass plod along in the
beaten track with little thought about the future and no sort of
feeling of responsibility. They feel a sense of relief that no one
stands to force them to labor, and they fall back with a feeling of
indifference as to whether they exert themselves beyond what is
necessary to supply the demands of necessity. No better result can be
hoped for till the time comes for each to see the reward for his
labor. At present they are working upon faith, without even a definite
promise as to what that payment shall be. Hunter's course is of far
greater importance in its effect upon the political world in the North
than in its immediate influence upon the status of the negroes in the
districts to which it applies. The secret of such exploits as the crew
of the _Planter_ have lately performed lies in the fact that the men
were forcibly taken from this region last November and wanted to get
back home again. If their old home had been in Charleston, they would
not have left it at the risk they incurred. In short, I don't regard
the blacks as of any account in a military light, for they are not a
military race, and have not sufficient intelligence to act in concert
in any way where firmness of purpose is required.


FROM H. W.

_June 5._ Mr. Philbrick brought one unwelcome letter--an appointment
from Mr. Pierce to Mr. G. to some plantation at the other end of the
island. He is too valuable to be here. He is going to a hard place,
ten or twelve plantations, though with fewer negroes in all than on
these three.

The mule-cart came up and was loaded with all Mr. G.'s things, and by
nine o'clock he took his departure on horseback, in his red flannel
shirt and palm-leaf hat looking quite Southern and picturesque.

[Later.] Here came my morning school, for the first time, under
Bacchus' conduct. I heard them singing and went to the window to watch
and see how he was bringing them from the quarters. He is a cripple in
his hands, which turn backwards, and he has but little control of his
arms, but is much looked up to by the other children. Of course he
cannot do any work, and Mr. G. has made him a sort of schoolmaster,
and he has always kept school when Mr. G. was away. He manages them
nicely, after his fashion--leaving them in the midst if he happens to
want to eat some hominy! They never have regular meals, but each one
eats hominy when he happens to want it. Well, soldiers have been
stationed on the place, and Bacchus had got some notion of drill, so
he marched up the thirty-five children, six or seven in a row, holding
hands to keep them straight, and with two of the oldest boys for
captains on each side to administer raps with their sticks if they
did not keep in line, walking backwards himself to oversee the whole
company, with a soldier's cap on his head, and shouting out his orders
for them to sing their different tunes all the way,--the funniest
spectacle himself imaginable.

_Monday, June 9._ Found that Bacchus' brother Lester had been taken
sick Sunday morning and died at night, so he did not bring up the
school. Just after dinner we saw the people assembling at their
burying-place,[47] and H. and I went down to witness the services.
Uncle Sam followed us, book in hand and spectacles on nose, reading as
he walked. As we drew near to the grave we heard all the children
singing their A, B, C, through and through again, as they stood
waiting round the grave for the rest to assemble and for Uncle Sam to
begin. Each child had his school-book or picture-book Mr. G. had given
him in his hand,--another proof that they consider their lessons as in
some sort religious exercise. We were joined at once by Mr. Philbrick,
and stood uncovered with the rest about the grave, at the mouth of
which rested the coffin, a rough board one, but well shaped and
closed. Uncle Sam took off his hat, tied a red handkerchief round his
head and, adjusting his glasses, read the hymn through, and then
deaconed out two lines at a time for the people to sing. He repeated
the process with a second hymn, when Abel made a prayer; then Uncle
Sam read from the Burial Service and began his exordium, apologizing
for his inability to speak much on account of a sore throat, but
holding forth for about half an hour upon the necessity for all to
prepare for "dis bed," filling his discourse with Scripture
illustrations and quotations aptly and with force, using the story of
"Antoninus and Suffirus" as a proof that God would not have any "half
religions"--that if anybody had "hid his Lord's money in de eart' he
must grabble for it before 'twas too late." He read from the service
again, one of the men throwing on earth at the usual place. When they
came to cover up the grave, the men constantly changed hoes with those
who had not handled them before, that each might aid, women and old
men stooping to throw in a handful. Abel made another prayer, they
sang again and dispersed.

    It was of this scene that W. C. G. wrote the following
    lines:

THE NEGRO BURYING-GROUND.

    'Mid the sunny flat of the cotton-field
      Lies an acre of forest-tangle still;
    A cloister dim, where the grey moss waves
      And the live-oaks lock their arms at will.

    Here in the shadows the slaves would hide
      As they dropped the hoe at death's release,
    And leave no sign but a sinking mound
      To show where they passed on their way to peace.

    This was the Gate--there was none but this--
      To a Happy Land where men were men;
    And the dusky fugitives, one by one,
      Stole in from the bruise of the prison-pen.

    When, lo! in the distance boomed the guns,
      The bruise was over, and "Massa" had fled!
    But _Death_ is the "Massa" that never flees,
      And still to the oaks they bore the dead.

    'Twas at set of sun; a tattered troop
      Of children circled a little grave,
    Chanting an anthem rich in its peace
      As ever pealed in cathedral-nave,--

    The A, B, C, that the lips below
      Had learnt with them in the school to shout.
    Over and over they sung it slow,
      Crooning a mystic meaning out.

    A, B, C, D, E, F, G,--
      Down solemn alphabets they swept:
    The oaks leaned close, the moss swung low,--
      What strange new sound among them crept?

    The holiest hymn that the children knew!
      'Twas dreams come real, and heaven come near;
    'Twas light, and liberty, and joy,
      And "white-folks' sense,"--and God right here!

    Over and over; they dimly felt
      _This_ was the charm could make black white,
    This was the secret of "Massa's" pride,
      And this, unknown, made the negro's night.

    What could they sing of braver cheer
      To speed on his unseen way the friend?
    The children were facing the mystery Death
      With the deepest prayer that their hearts could send.

    Children, too, and the mysteries last!
      We are but comrades with them _there_,--
    Stammering over a meaning vast,
      Crooning our guesses of how and where.

    But the children were right with their A, B, C;
      In our stammering guess so much we say!
    The singers were happy, and so are we:
      Deep as our wants are the prayers we pray.


FROM W. C. G.

_Captain Oliver Fripp's Plantation, June 9._ I came here, in
consequence of a letter received from Mr. Pierce, asking me to take
charge over some plantations here. There is a Mr. Sumner here,--lately
arrived,--who is teaching. The place is quite at the other end of the
island from Coffin's Point. At present I am by no means settled; it
seems like jumping from the 19th century into the Middle Ages to
return from the civilization and refinement which the ladies
instituted at Coffin's to the ruggedness of bachelor existence.

_June 22._ In regard to danger of sickness, I hear much about it,--but
I think it is exaggerated. The white overseer stayed on Edgar Fripp's
Plantation--close by--all summer. The planters generally went to
Beaufort or the Village, but I think very much as we go out of town in
summer. The summer was the fashionable and social time here, when the
rich people lived together, gave parties, etc.

_July 6._ The people do not work very willingly,--things are not so
steady as they have become at Coffin's. The district is even more
exposed to the influence of visits to and from the camps.

We had quite a celebration for the people on the Fourth. A stage was
erected near the old Episcopal church in a cool grove of live-oaks,
all grey with long trails of Southern moss. A large flag was obtained
and suspended between trees across the road--it was good to see the
old flag again. The people had been notified the previous Sunday, and
I should think about a thousand were present, in gala dress and mood,
from all parts of the island. When the ladies, the invited
superintendents from Port Royal, and the General (Saxton)[48] had
taken their seats, the people marched up in two processions from each
direction, carrying green branches and singing. Under the flag they
gave three rousing cheers, then grouped around the stage. The children
from three or four of the schools marched in separately. After a
prayer and some native songs, Mr. Philbrick, the General, and the
_Times_ reporter addressed them, and then one of the old darkies got
on the stage and in an ecstasy of obedience and gratitude exhorted
them to share his feelings, I believe.

For an hour and a half there was a general press for the hard
bread, herring, and molasses and water. When everything was
devoured, the superintendents rode up to "the Oaks,"--Pierce's
headquarters[49],--and had a collation. So much for Fourth of July. It
was strange and moving down here on South Carolina ground, with the
old flag waving above us, to tell a thousand slaves that they were
freemen,[50] that that flag was theirs, that our country now meant
their country, and to tell them how Northerners read the
Declaration--"All men are born free and equal." The people had a grand
time, they say, and seem really grateful for it. It was a new thing
for them, a Fourth of July for the negro. In old times they worked, if
with any difference, harder than usual, while their masters met and
feasted and drank.

    The rest of this extract is an expression--which will be
    followed later by many like it--of the sense that people in
    the North were getting too complacent a notion of what had
    been done and what could be done for the Sea Island negroes.

Pierce's report[51] has too much sugar in it. His statements are
facts, but facts with the silver lining out. The starving, naked
condition of the blacks was much exaggerated when we started to come
down here.

_July 25._ On the whole, affairs conduct themselves pretty quietly and
regularly. The cases of discipline are the most vexing and amusing. It
is a peculiar experience to be detective, policeman, judge, jury, and
jailer,--all at once,--sometimes in cases of assault and battery, and
general, plantation _squows_,--then in a divorce case,--last Sunday in
a whiskey-selling affair; a calf-murder is still on the docket.

    The next letter is the first from C. P. W., who went to Port
    Royal early in July, on the same steamer with Charles F.
    Folsom of Harvard, '62, who is often mentioned in the
    letters that follow, and with several other young
    Massachusetts men who had volunteered as superintendents.


FROM C. P. W.

_Beaufort, July 7._ We got our luggage into the Mayflower and started
for this place [from Hilton Head] about six o'clock. It was droll
enough to find a party of Boston men taking a sail in the old Hingham
boat up Beaufort River under United States passes, to superintend
South Carolina plantations.

_July 15. Coffin's Point._ The nearest of my five plantations is three
miles distant, along the shore road, and the four on that road extend
about two miles; my fifth is on the upper road, to Beaufort, about
four and a half miles from the Point. The roads are mere tracks worn
in the fields, sometimes through woods, like our wood roads, only more
sandy. In front of my plantations there are bushes on the right-hand
side, for some distance, the field being bounded on the other side by
woods. Fields usually very long, sometimes three quarters of a mile,
divided across the road by fences, gates occurring at every passage
from one to another; the plantation houses and quarters at an average
of one third of a mile from the road, paths through cotton-fields
leading to them. Imagine a perfectly flat country, relieved by belts
of trees, and intersected by rows of brush, single trees standing here
and there in the bare, hot fields. Very little fresh water either in
brooks or pools. Salt-water creeks are to be crossed on the shore
roads; the richest lands in the adjoining meadows. A cotton-field
looks not unlike a potato-field, the rows higher and more distinct,
the plants further apart, usually two feet; the rows five feet. Corn
planted on rows like cotton. You would be surprised to see the soil in
which these flourish; beach sand, in many places, is the principal
ingredient. The fields are very much the colour of the sea-beach.

We live on the fat of the land. We are allowed $5.24 per month for
rations, but I do not use even that. Rice, sugar, and molasses are our
principal draughts from the Commissary.

    The colonists referred to at the beginning of the next
    letter were a thousand blacks from the island of Edisto,
    which the United States Government, after taking, had
    evacuated, as too troublesome to hold. The place where they
    were quartered, as described in the first sentence, was St.
    Helena Village.


FROM C. P. W.

_July 20._ The Secesh houses there are insufficient to accommodate
them all, and they stow themselves in sheds, tents, and even in the
open air, as best they can. Many of them are to be distributed on
plantations where there are quarters; they will probably be set to
planting slip-potatoes and cow-pease.

Everything needs personal supervision here; every barrel or parcel
must be kept under your eye from the time it leaves the storehouse in
Beaufort till it is put in your mule-cart, on Ladies Island. Then you
must be at home when the team arrives and see everything brought into
the storeroom. There is a good deal of red tape, too, at Beaufort, the
untying and retying of which is a tedious and vexatious operation.[52]
They are becoming more strict here in Beaufort in several respects;
passes are needed by every one. There is a great deal of running to
Hilton Head and Bay Point, which is to be stopped as far as possible.

_July 30._ I ride right through the morning, from nine till four,
without suffering from the heat so much as in one trip to town and
back one of our warm, still days at home. I have my white umbrella,
there is usually some breeze, often a very cool one; the motion of the
sulky puts me to sleep, but the heat of the sun has not been
oppressive more than once or twice on this island. If I had attempted
to follow all the directions I received before leaving, concerning my
health, I should have been by this time a lunatic.

Rust is such a common thing here that we get used to it. Mrs.
Philbrick's needles rust in her work-bag; our guns, even after
cleaning and oiling, are soon covered with a thin coating. Food moulds
here very rapidly, crackers soften and dried beef spoils. Hominy, of
course, is the chief article of food. I think it tastes best hot in
the negro cabins, without accompaniment of molasses, sugar, or salt.

Our life here is, necessarily, very monotonous: the hired people come
and go, or we go and come to and from them, and the mosquitoes and
flies do very much as we do. Mosquitoes are really a great annoyance
at times. They introduce themselves under the netting at night in a
very mysterious way, and wake us up early with their singing and
stinging. My theory is that those that can lick the others get
themselves boosted through the apertures; the animal is smaller than
ours at the North. I think that they are unaccustomed to human
treatment; they will not be brushed away, and slapping, if not fatal,
only excites their curiosity. There is also a small fly which appears
on warm days after a rain in great numbers. Driving on my beat the
other day, and holding my umbrella in one hand and newspaper scrap in
the other, I was driven nearly wild by their continuous attentions. It
is very easy to read driving here; the roads are so sandy that the
horse has to walk a great part of the way and one is glad to be able
to employ the weary hours with literature.

This is the greatest country for false rumors that I ever was in.
Communication is very uncertain, nothing but special messengers to
bring us news from the outside world. An occasional visit to Mr.
Soule[53] or to Beaufort enlivens the long weeks, and we welcome the
gathering at church on Sunday, with the gossip and the mail and the
queer collection of black beings in gay toggery, as the great event of
our lives. If it were not for the newspapers, I might forget the time
of year. It is very amusing to be appealed to by a negro to know how
soon the 1st of August is; to tell them it is the 20th of July gives
them very little idea.

I should like to look in upon you and bring you some of the delicacies
of the tropical clime, waterm[=e]lions, as the "inhabitants" call
them, rich and red; huge, mellow figs, seedy but succulent; plump
quails, sweet curlew, delicate squirrels, fat rabbits, tender
chickens. We fare well here. If the wretched country only had more
rocks and less sand, better horses, more tolerable staff officers,[54]
and just a little more frequent communication with New England, I
should perhaps be content to make quite a long stay, if I were wanted.

I will only remark at present that I find the nigs rather more
agreeable, on the whole, than I expected; that they are much to be
preferred to the Irish; that their blackness is soon forgotten, and as
it disappears their expression grows upon one, so that, after a week
or so of intercourse with a plantation, the people are as easily
distinguished and as individual as white people; I have even noticed
resemblances in some of them to white people I have seen. They are
about as offensively servile as I expected. The continual "sur,"
"maussa," with which their remarks are besprinkled is trying, but soon
ceases to be noticed. "Bauss" is the most singular appellation, used
by a few only.

"M's Hayyet's brudder" passed through the Pine Grove "nigger-house"
one day and retired, after a distinguished ovation, incubating, like a
hen, upon a sulky-box full of eggs. Promises to show Miss Harriet's
picture, not yet fulfilled, were received with the greatest
satisfaction.

We have been making out our pay-rolls for May and June; the blanks,
delayed in the printing, have just arrived. Red Tape. The money has
been ready a long time. We ought to pay for July at the same time.
This, understand, is only a partial payment, on account; the full
payment is to be made when the crop comes in.

_Aug. 7._ Last Friday Mr. Philbrick and I got our money. The people
generally took the payment in excellent spirit. A few seemed
surprised, not knowing what to do with so much money; a few, of
course, grumbled at the amount, though a clear explanation was always
understood and received with reasonable satisfaction. I thought that
one or two were disposed to take advantage of the fact that I had not
taken the account of acres,[55] and so tried to make a difficulty by
telling strange tales. But there was a great deal of manliness and
fairness shown, with a degree of patience and foresight that was very
gratifying.

_Aug. 16._ Perhaps the best way to give you a satisfactory notion of
"what my work is, how I like it," etc., is to give an account of a
day's work on my plantations.

[Illustration: rude portal]

Thursday, Aug. 14. I allow Mr. Philbrick to have his horse saddled
first,--this was polite,--and as soon as he is out of the
gate--"Robert!"--"Surr!" "Put my _smallest_ horse into the sulky." I
retire within, and collect the necessary equipment for a day "out,"
viz.: white umbrella, whip (riding, long enough for sulky use),
plantation-book, spring-balance (some rations to be delivered), much
stout twine, for mending harness if need be, paper of turnip-seeds,
two thirds of a pound of powder, and one novel, "An Only Son," for
occupation during the first weary hour, consumed in a three miles walk
over a sandy road. The young horse, caught at last,--our stud of four
graze on the turfy acre fenced in about the house,--is a little
restive at first in the unwonted restraint of the harness, but soon
gets broken in to steady work by the heavy roads. Somewhat over an
hour's slow progress brings me to the rude portal which spans the
entrance of the McTureous estate. The houses of all the plantations on
the Sea Side road are to be found on the eastern, or left-hand as one
rides towards Hilton Head. The character of the fields and quarters
between the road and the water is very much the same on all the
places. The "water" is a creek, separating the island proper from
salt-water marshes and the higher islands outside, against which
latter the ocean itself beats. The distance from the road to the
creek averages half a mile. The quarters, universally called
"nigger-houses," are strung along the bank of the creek, at about 100
feet from the water, on a ridge between the water and the corn. The
"big house" is a two-story affair, old, dirty, rickety, poorly put
together and shabbily kept. Here lived old Mrs. Martha E. McTureous,
with a large household. The James McTureous place--the other half of
this one--is all in one and the same field. On both these places the
houses are terribly out of repair, with wooden chimneys and mud
floors, the people dirty and suffering from the effects of much
confusion and discouragement in the spring. Limus,[56] their old
driver, did much mischief by striving to keep up the old system, and
at the same time neglected the place to go and earn money for himself.
Then they suffered severely from the black draft, their four best men
being taken, from a population furnishing only "eight men working
cotton," and thirteen full hands in all. Arriving as I did after all
the mischief was done, I have had rather a discouraging time with
them.

Entering the plantation, I am aware of old Nat. He is hoeing pease. As
I approach, he shouts, and comes to the road, and lays before me a
case of menace, ill usage, and threatened assault. I inspected
convalescent boy, ascertained what work had been done,--in a general
way, that is, learning that corn-blades had been, and were being,
stripped, that all the able-bodied men were cutting marsh-grass for
manure, that Tirah had planted a task of cow-pease for the Government,
but had allowed them to go to grass,--whereupon, after personal
inspection of said task, with an injunction to strip some corn which
was getting dry, I drove over to the James McTureous place. Having
received from Mr. Soule two packages of Swedish turnip-seed, I
enquired concerning the manner of planting, how much seed was required
for a task, etc. Dismounting from the sulky, and leaving it in charge
of a returned volunteer (I like the sarcastic phrase), who was unwell
and therefore lounging under the trees in front of one of the
nigger-houses, I went forth to the field to count the acres of
Government corn with the driver. On the way, I counted up the tasks of
pease, slip, etc., to see if they coincided with the account given me
by the people. Found one and a half of corn worthless, except for
fodder. Conversed concerning marsh-grass, found another hook for
cutting would be acceptable, gladdened their hearts with promise of
turnip-seed, and drove off.

    Not the least curious part of the curious state of things
    described in the next paragraph is the matter-of-course view
    of it taken by the youthful superintendent.

By the way, Jim, driver on the James McTureous place, used to be slave
of Mr. Pritchard, residing in Hunting Island,[57] which runs along
just outside of St. Helena. He was a very cruel man,--there are
stories of his burning negroes,--so when the "guns fired at Bay
Point," as he couldn't run from his negroes, as the other masters did,
for lack of transportation, his negroes ran from him, and settled
among their friends on St. Helena. When matters were established at
Hilton Head, Pritchard went and took the oath and got a pass, and has
since lived at home, supporting himself by fishing and raising hogs.
He often visits Jim and others of his old slaves, getting them to go
fishing with him. Now one day last year, Jim and Mr. Pritchard found a
four-oared boat--I give Jim's story--on the beach. Pritchard promised
Jim half the value of the boat, but has since refused to fulfill his
promise. Jim referred the matter to me. I told him to send Pritchard
up to me. I think there will be no trouble, if Jim's story is
straight.

Cherry Hill, one of T. A. Coffin's[58] places, comes next to
McTureous'. Cherry Hill is one of the most encouraging places I have.
The people are of a more sensible caste, old people, almost entirely,
who see the sense and propriety of right measures, and display a most
comforting willingness to work and be content, though with less
energy, of course, than younger men. The place owes much of its
success this year to Tony, the driver, a person of great discretion,
energy, and influence. The ingenious method by which he induced the
people to plant more cotton than they wanted to is entertaining,
though a little troublesome to us in making out the pay-roll. Mr.
Palmer, Mr. Soule's assistant, counted sixteen acres of cotton on the
place. But the several accounts of the people on the place added up
only fourteen and a half acres. In this perplexity, Tony was appealed
to, who explained the difficulty thus. The land was laid off in rows,
twenty-one to the task, each row being one hundred and five feet long.
Tony staked off the tasks anew, throwing twenty-four instead of
twenty-one rows into the task, thus adding twelve rows to every acre,
which the people blindly tilled, never suspecting but that they were
having their own way about their cotton.

Mulberry Hill, owned by Captain John Fripp, is a little place, with
not many more hands than Cherry Hill, but they are younger. The driver
here is an extremely nice person, hardly energetic enough, I should
think, for the old system, but a very quiet, gentlemanly man,
perfectly frank and open in his manner, and a little superior in his
conversation to those by whom he is surrounded. He is much respected
in the dark community. It is to his bounty that I owe several huge
watermelons which I have brought home for our table, besides several
partial favors of the same kind, enjoyed under his own roof.

To these people I was to deliver one month's rations of hard bread. It
comes in fifty-pound boxes; and as a day's ration is three quarters of
a pound, and there are thirty-one days in August, it requires but a
simple calculation to determine that each person entitled to a full
ration should receive twenty-three and one quarter pounds, and that,
one child being reckoned one sixth of a grown person (monstrous, you
will say, when eating is concerned,--but such is law), one box must be
delivered to every two grown-persons-and-one-child. Having the people
together, I took the opportunity to enquire of them the number of
tasks of cow-pease, slip-potatoes, etc., they had planted, likewise
the amount of cotton they had hoed, "since Mr. Palmer took the last
account." It will be a great job making up the next pay-roll. I hope
the people won't lie worse than usual. If they do, if the drivers
should fail me, especially,--if, as will probably happen, their own
accounts, added up, do not tally within several tasks with my count of
the whole, and if at the same time I shall be required to make out the
whole roll in two days, and both my horses should have sore backs at
once--you can imagine what a comfortable, easy time I shall have of
it.

From Mulberry Hill, after looking at some doubtful cotton in the field
with the driver, Paris, and finally setting it down as not properly
hoed, I proceeded to the next plantation, Alvirah Fripp's, commonly
called the Hope Place. It is the largest, the most distant, and, in
many respects, the toughest plantation I have. There are a great many
men of twenty-five to forty, "tough-nuts" many of them, and all
looking so much alike that it is impossible to remember the name that
belongs to any one face, though all their names and all their faces
are familiar enough. I can see that it is a great drawback to my
obtaining their confidence to have to ask one and another, as I ask,
"how many tasks of slip have you planted for the Government, and how
many for your own use?" to have to ask also, in variously modified
phrase, "What's your name?" Recognize a negro, remember anything in
which he has any interest, and you have his confidence at once. I not
only surprised but made my fast friend a fellow on one of my places
by calling him by his name the second time I saw him.

The men on the Hope Place are not all of a poor stamp, of course. The
driver, Isaac, is my very ideal of a nigger-driver on a large place,
made alive. Strong of body and up to all the dodges of the plantation
life, he shows the effect--not apparent, in such a disagreeable manner
at least, in Tony and Paris--of having a good many rough fellows to
manage. I do not think he is liked on the place; I doubt his
frankness; I think he is somewhat disposed to kick against the new
authorities, disputing, _e. g._, their right to take away "his" horse,
the little one Mr. Palmer and I foraged from him the first day I came.

Charles, the carpenter, is a man after my own heart. He attracted me
first by his dignified and respectful demeanor, and by his superior
culture. He has a little touch of self-consideration. He, more than
any other negro I know, seems to me like a white person. I forget his
color entirely while talking with him, and am often surprised, on
approaching a black man, to recognize Charles' features. I think he is
a pretty able fellow,--I should like to give him some regular
employment in his trade. It seems an imposition to expect such a man
to work cotton and corn.

Beaufort is neither Bofort nor Boofort nor Biufort, but Büft, the ü
pronounced like the umlauted ü in German. Sometimes one hears Biffut.
Hooper, extremist in ridicule, says Biffit. A letter of Mrs.
Philbrick's went, "missent," to Beaufort, N. C., which is, I believe,
Bofort. Had the pronunciation been written on the envelope, as one
hears it among the "black inhabitants," it would have gone to the
Dead Letter Office, unless, by good luck, the S. C. had brought it as
far as Hilton Head.

We get, first or last, a pretty good notion of one another (you
understand I am speaking of the white population only), though we see
very little of each other, except when we are on adjoining
plantations. The Oaks is a rendezvous where we see each other at
times; we meet occasionally in Biffut; but church is the principal
meeting-house on the island, of course, and all the gossip of the week
is fully aired on Sunday.

There is very little to tell about General Saxton, except that it is a
great pity that he does not come onto the plantations himself and
learn something, personally, of their state and their wants. He was
extremely surprised the other day when Mr. Philbrick represented to
him the necessity of making the last payment promptly; it was then
twenty days behind time. A good deal of ignorance is shown in various
ways in the orders sent from headquarters--_e. g._, the order that has
been issued concerning marketing, nothing to be sold on the
plantations except by leave of the superintendents and no boats to go
to Hilton Head or Beaufort without a "Market Pass" from the
superintendent. Until I hear that a guard is stationed [at Hilton
Head],--which I shall the day after it is done,--I shall not order men
to report to me before going over. I have no idea of making a rule I
cannot enforce.

On the whole, our work is succeeding as well as the disappointments
and hindrances[59] of the year allow us to expect. A great deal will
depend on the manner and promptness of the next payments and the
treatment of the people at harvest-time.


FROM W. C. G.

_Sept. 2._ There is one frightful contingency,--a much talked of
evacuation. Where the people will go, I know not; but possibly to
Hayti. In that case I presume the superintendents will go with
them,--I certainly shall. General Saxton, I am sorry to say, goes
to-morrow in a gunboat--for his health. It leaves us without a head
and worse--renders evacuation all the more likely. It is thought that
his presence and words prevented it several weeks ago. I doubt if he
comes back,--he is not satisfied with his work here, does not enjoy
it. It is properly the duty of a civilian, who should have military
rank merely to give him a position. Saxton and his staff understand
little or nothing of the real wants of the plantations, and though
affairs have of course been improved by his presence and authority,
very little in proportion to our hopes and our needs has been
accomplished. We need a civilian, who is a first-rate business
man,--of force, of forethought, of devoted interest in this
undertaking. But there is no use in writing this,--rather some harm.


FROM C. P. W.

_Sept. 6._ Things are in a state of suspension generally; I confess
that a decidedly azure hue has prevailed during the last week. Talk of
evacuation, General Saxton's departure, threatened attacks, and even
successful forays on an island behind Hilton Head by the rebels, the
increased inconvenience and vexation of red-tape-ism, threatened
changes in the policy to be pursued towards the people in some minor
matters, involving, however, infringement of our authority with them,
it is feared, besides the breaking of promises already made; the
difficulty of getting them promptly and properly paid, and of getting
the value of their work fairly estimated; the general inefficiency,
ignorance, and indecision of the authorities, wanting a defined system
and hampered by prejudice and ignorance and selfishness,--all these
things make the aspect of affairs dark enough at times, and one gets
discouraged and disheartened and disgusted and disappointed, and is
ready to part and have nothing more to do with the concern. When, in
addition to actual evils, one feels that there is a strong opposition
to the enterprise, and that the difficulties are made as vexatious as
possible, by jealous and hostile army officers, so that, in short, the
spirit of the stronger party here is against us; and when, added to
injury, one has to bear

                        "the law's delays,
    The insolence of office, and the spurns,
    Which patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
    One almost swears his homeward voyage to make,
    In the next steamer."

Ignorance and want of confidence are the two evils which we suffer;
want of confidence by the powers in us, by us in the negroes. It is
painful to note how distrust must be the rule; how every one must take
it for granted that those under him are cheats and liars. Hence the
necessity of red tape, and its delays and vexatious inconveniences.
Mr. Philbrick says, "Working for a Corporation is bad enough, but
working for the Government is very much worse." However, it wouldn't
be so bad if the Government officers knew enough of the plantation
work to do the proper thing at the proper time, even though they use
the red-tape method in doing it. I believe I knew more after being two
weeks on my places than the Heads do at Beaufort now about the details
of the work.

_Sept. 9._ General Saxton went North last Friday. It is more than
hinted that his principal purpose is to obtain greater powers for
himself. Hunter has gone North too, "in disgust," it is said, and
General Brannan, who is said to befriend the enemies of the United
States, and has given Saxton a deal of trouble, is left at the head of
the Department.

    Brigadier-General John M. Brannan was in command for a
    fortnight only, pending the arrival of Major-General Ormsby
    M. Mitchel.

_Sept. 18._ The President having sent word not to evacuate, you need
not be anxious about us. I was a little afraid that A. L. would give
in to Hunter, evacuate all but Hilton Head, and colonize the negroes
from the other islands; glad he has more sense.

    Here follows a detailed account of the kind of magisterial
    power which the superintendents found themselves called upon
    to "assume," though they "had it not."


FROM E. S. P.

_Sept. 23._ Alex sent Finnie here before breakfast to request me to
come over at once, for Cato was driving his, Alex's daughter Rose, his
own wife, out of the house. I rode over after breakfast. Found the
whole plantation excited and on the _qui vive_. Cato had broken up
Rose's bedstead and thrown it out of doors and bundled up all her
things. I began to talk with him, but he was very saucy and threatened
to kill the first man who interfered with him in "his own house." I
thought it quite time to test him, and taking hold of his arm told him
he must go home with me. He hung back sulkily at first, but in a
minute yielded and said he would do so. I stepped out of the house and
he after. Caroline asked me to read her a letter from John at Hilton
Head, and while preparing to do so Cato dodged about the house and
made for the woods across the cornfield. I cried out for him to halt,
but he ran the faster. I pulled out my revolver and fired two shots
over his head, but he only ran the harder, and never stopped till he
reached the woods. I then had a talk with his father, old Toby, who
"wished I had shot him and stopped the confusion," and with Alex, both
of whom I enjoined to hold their tongues in future. When halfway home
Cato stood waiting for me in the road, opening a gate as I approached,
touched his hat and said he was very sorry for what he had done and
was willing to go with me. I told him to follow me to the house and I
would talk with him. I found him very humble. I reasoned with him,
telling him I was sure Rose's child was his and that he had done her
great wrong, that he ought not to listen to such scandal after living
peaceably with her for eight or nine years. Cato said he hoped he
should never do so again. I told him that if I ever found him making
any more trouble here I should send him to work on Fort Pulaski.

    Mr. Philbrick's next letter shows him trying to arouse the
    slothful by "sharing out" a bale of white cotton cloth, in
    bonus form, to the industrious.


FROM E. S. P.

_Sept. 27._ I gave one yard for every task of cotton hoed in July,
requiring about 600 yards. The Coffin people all got some, but about
half the people on the Fripp plantations had to go without, having
neglected the last hoeing. The people who were too lazy to hoe their
cotton in July looked rather glum, and those who got their cloth
laughed and looked exultant. Some people here got twenty-two yards,
and many got only two or three, but all took it thankfully and seemed
content that they got any. Those who got so little will have to buy
more, which they are doing already. I sell it at about half the price
that is asked by our own quartermaster, so I shall be liberally
patronized. In dividing up this cotton cloth I deducted from the
shares of those people to whom clothing was given last spring the
value of that clothing. The only cases were those of Martha, Amaritta,
and Rosetta, to each of whom Mr. G. gave a dress. Rosetta's cotton was
only _one_ acre and her share of cloth was therefore but four yards,
which was fully paid for last spring. So she got nothing now. She
didn't take it very kindly, and growled about the dress being too
small for her, so she couldn't wear it, whereupon I offered to take it
back, but I haven't heard anything more about it. The more I see of
these people, the more I am opposed to the practice of _giving_ them
anything except in payment for services actually performed. The cases
of destitution are comparatively very few.

    At this time some of the superintendents were trying hard to
    instruct the negroes in military drill. A young enthusiast
    on one of the Fripp places was very proud of his little
    squad of black recruits, but found their attendance on the
    daily drill amazingly irregular. Apropos of his own efforts
    in this direction, Mr. Philbrick pursues his letter as
    follows:

I have tried in vain to get my young men together to drill for
self-defense; my twenty-five guns are lying useless. One might as well
think of a combination among the Boston kittens to scratch the eyes
out of all the Boston dogs as to look for an insurrection in this
State, if the negroes on these islands are a fair sample of those on
the main. If there should be any insurrection in the South, it will
not be in this State. The negroes in the sugar plantation districts
are different, I suppose, being, a larger portion of them, Kentucky
and Virginia born, torn from their old homes or sent South for bad
behavior, and therefore more revengeful. But you know the people here
are too timid to do any fighting unless driven to it. If General
Hunter had not _forced_ them into his regiment last May, we might do
more at drilling now. As it is, my men won't listen to me when I talk
about it; they only suspect me of wanting to press them into service
by stealth, and lose what little confidence they have in my sincerity.

    C. P. W. opens the next letter with a melancholy comparison
    between the autumnal glories of "home" and the absence
    thereof on the Sea Islands of South Carolina.


FROM C. P. W.

_Oct. 3._ Here there are no stones but grindstones, no elevation that
can be called a hill except one mound, forty feet long and ten feet
high, and that is artificial. The roads are sandy, the fields are
broad and flat and full of weeds, the water stands about in great
pools, not running off, but absorbing into the sandy soil.

I find myself often using nigger idioms, especially in conversation
with them. It is often very difficult to make them understand English,
and one slips into the form of speech which they can most easily
comprehend. O how deliciously obtuse they are on occasions! A boy came
to me for a curry-comb for a Government mule this morning, which I was
to send to the driver on his place. While scratching my name on it, I
asked him if Jim had sent for some tobacco, as he said he should.
"Yes, sarr." "Did he send the money?" "Sarr?" Repeated. "No, Sarr."
"How much does he want?" "Don't know, Sarr." "How can I send the
tobacco, if I don't know how much he wants?" "He send for him, Sarr."
"Did he send you for it?" "No, Sarr." "Whom did he send?" "I dunno,
Sarr." "How will he get his tobacco?" "He come himself, Sarr." "Where
is he?" "Him at home, Sarr." "He is coming to get it himself, is he?"
"Sarr?" Repeated, in nigger phrase. "Yes, Sarr." "Did Bruce send you
for anything beside the curry-comb?" "Yes, Sarr." "What else?" "Sarr?"
"Did Bruce tell you fetch anything beside this?" "No, Sarr." "Is this
all Bruce told you to get?" "Yes, Sarr," with intelligence. "Go home,
then, and give that to Bruce. Good-morning."

This delay in payments is outrageous. It was bad enough to pay for May
and June work the second week in August; but here is the work of July
and August unpaid for yet, and with no prospect of its being paid for
for six weeks to come.


FROM E. S. P.

_Sunday morning, Oct. 5._ The President's proclamation[60] does not
seem to have made a great deal of stir anywhere. Here the people don't
take the slightest interest in it. They have been free already for
nearly a year, as far as they could see, and have so little
comprehension about the magnitude of our country and are so supremely
selfish that you can't beat it into their heads that any one else is
to be provided for beyond St. Helena Island. After telling them of the
proclamation and its probable effects, they all ask if they would be
given up to their masters in case South Carolina comes back to the
Union. I tell them there is little chance of such a thing, but a
strong probability that there will be a long, bloody war, and that
they ought to prepare to do their share of the fighting. I can't get
one man to come up and drill yet. They say they would like to have
guns to shoot with, but are afraid of being sent off into the "big
fight," though willing to fight any one who comes onto this island to
molest them. Of course their defense would amount to nothing unless
they were organized and drilled. I do not, however, feel any
uneasiness about the rebels coming here. If they came at all they
would attack our forces at Beaufort or Hilton Head, where I am
confident they would be whipped. Refugees continue to come in from the
mainland every week. They all agree in saying that there are no troops
left about here but boys, and that it would be an easy matter to take
Charleston now.

I am anxious to get the winter clothing here before next pay-day, so
the people may buy it in preference to the trash they see in the shops
at Beaufort, etc. Nothing is heard of our money yet. Some say that
General Saxton will probably bring it. I only wish he would come; his
picket-guard at St. Helena amuses itself hunting cattle on the Fripp
Point Plantation. As I have no positive proof against them I can't do
anything but watch the cattle to prevent a repetition of it.

_October 7._ I received on Sunday a copy of President Lincoln's
proclamation. I now feel more than ever the importance of our mission
here, not so much for the sake of the few hundreds under my own eyes
as for the sake of the success of the experiment we are now trying. It
is, you know, a question even with our good President whether negroes
can be made available as free laborers on this soil. I, for one,
believe they can, and I am more than ever in earnest to show it, for
the importance of this question is greater than ever, now that we are
so near a general crash of the whole social fabric in the Southern
States. I don't think the old masters will ever be successful in
employing the blacks, but I do believe that Yankees can be.

Our people are picking the cotton very industriously, and though they
have only about one third of last year's crop to gather, they are
determined to make the most of it, and allow none to waste. It is
interesting to see how much more economical of food they are this
year than formerly. Every family now feels the responsibility of
providing food for itself. The same rule should be followed with all
tools. I would make the men pay a low price for every tool they want
to use, and pay wages enough to enable them to do so.[61]

_Oct. 8._ I succeeded day before yesterday in getting thirteen of the
young men on this plantation to come up and drill, but they did not
come again yesterday. I don't believe there is sufficient zeal among
them to enable them to go through the tedious routine of drill with
any regularity, unless held together by some stronger motive than now
exists. I find them rather stupid. About half didn't know which their
right foot was, and kept facing to the left when I told them to face
to the right. They seemed to enjoy it, however.


FROM C. P. W.

_Oct. 9._ We need people at headquarters who understand the details of
plantation work. There is no one now who knows anything about the
plantations except Hooper,[62] and he knows very little. He confesses
and mourns at it himself; but he has done nothing but go back and
forth between the Oaks and Beaufort ever since he came down. There is
a general want of concerted system on all the places. Each
superintendent has to do as he thinks best in all cases himself.
General plans are usually determined on just too late.

_Oct. 14._ The steamer which brought your letter brought also the
General. It is said that he comes with additional powers.[63] This
question will probably be settled soon, as a difficulty has already
arisen between him and his old antagonist, Brannan, on a point of
authority, and our General has gone to Hilton Head, probably to see
Mitchel about it. This interference of the military authorities with
our work and our privileges is going to make trouble. One of Mitchel's
first acts was to send to Judd, as Superintendent of Port Royal
Island, for 10,000 bushels of corn for army purposes. Poor Judd had
been rationing his people for some time, owing to a lack of provisions
occasioned by the depredations of the soldiers. We have none too much
provision now, and any considerable drain must throw the plantations,
sooner or later, upon the Government for support.

    In the next letter (October 21) Mr. Philbrick says that the
    corn harvest, which is so light on St. Helena as a whole
    that it will hardly feed the people in the interval between
    old and new potatoes, will nevertheless amount to a surplus
    at Coffin's, adding:

I attribute the greater comparative success on my plantations to my
having abandoned the system of working a common field early in the
season.[64] I now measure the yield of each family's corn-patch
separately, with a view to pay them for it, if they have enough for
their support in their private fields, or to regulate their allowance,
if they need any, by the quantity they raise.

We had a case of imprisonment here last week. I learned that old Nat's
boy, Antony, who wanted to marry Phillis, had given her up and taken
Mary Ann, July's daughter, without saying a word to me or any other
white man. I called him up to me one afternoon when I was there and
told him he must go to church and be married by the minister according
to law. He flatly refused, with a good deal of impertinence, using
some profane language learned in camp. I thereupon told him he must go
home with me, showing him I had a pistol, which I put in my outside
pocket. He came along, swearing all the way and muttering his
determination not to comply. I gave him lodging in the dark hole under
the stairs, with nothing to eat. Next morning old Nat came and
expostulated with him, joined by old Ben and Uncle Sam, all of whom
pitched into him and told him he was very foolish and ought to be
proud of such a chance. He finally gave up and promised to go. So I
let him off with an apology. Next Sunday he appeared and was married
before a whole church full of people. The wedding took place between
the regular church service and the funeral, allowing an hour of
interval, however.

Cato never went back to Rose as he promised. 'Siah tells me he is
afraid of his father, old Toby, who has been in a state of chronic
feud with Rose's father, old Alex, and does all in his power to make
trouble. Cato has gone over to Pine Grove and begun to build a house.
I daresay he will take Rose into it bye and bye, when it is done.

I have been very busy lately weighing pease and cotton and measuring
corn. The latter is not very pleasant, for I have to stay in the
corn-house and keep tally from nine to three o'clock, and the weevils
are more numerous than were the fleas the first week we came here to
live. Mosquitoes are about gone, but we have sand-flies again. No
fleas yet that I am aware of.


FROM C. P. W.

_Oct. 23._ General Saxton returned, as you know, with full powers from
the President to raise one or if possible five negro regiments. I
think it will be difficult to induce the men to enlist. Their
treatment in the spring and summer was such as to prejudice them
against military duty under any circumstances. They were forcibly
drafted, were ill-treated by at least one officer,--who is a terror to
the whole black population,--have never been paid a cent; they
suffered from the change of diet, and quite as much from homesickness.
I think if their treatment in the spring had been different, it would
be possible to raise a regiment on these islands; as it is, I think it
will be surprising if they fill a company from St. Helena. I think,
too, that it would be very difficult, under any circumstances, to
train them into fighting condition under six months, and if they had
at the first the prospect of coming into actual conflict with the
Secesh, the number who would be willing to enlist would be extremely
small. They have not, generally speaking, the pluck to look in the
face the prospect of actual fighting, nor have they the character to
enlist for their own defense. They can understand the necessity of
their knowing how to defend themselves, they acknowledge their
obligations to help the Yankees, and do their part in keeping the
islands against their old masters; a good many of them express their
willingness to fight under white officers, and some have intimated a
desire to know something of drill and how to handle a musket. But they
are very timid and cautious. They fear that when they have learned
their drill they will be drafted. They are very reluctant to leave
their homes to go and live on Hilton Head or Port Royal, in camp, away
from their families and crops. The mere mention of "Captain Tobey,"
with a hint that "General Saxton wants the black people to help the
white soldiers keep the Secesh off the islands," sends them in panic
into the woods. Mr. Philbrick saw the General this morning, and was
told that if the regiment were not raised we should have to give up
the whole enterprise; that the President and the people of the North
were looking to the raising of this regiment as a test experiment.
That if it succeeded and it was found that the negroes could and would
aid the Government, then the Government would be encouraged to hold
the islands, trusting not only that the negroes could aid in defending
them, but that as fast as negroes were freed, they could be used
effectively against the rebels. Moreover, that the success of one
regiment here would make the President's proclamation a more terribly
effective weapon against the Southerners. (There is no doubt that in
many parts of the South, especially on the Mississippi, the negroes
are much more intelligent than here. Those from the main seem a
superior class to those who have always lived on the islands. The
success of armed negroes of this inferior class would indicate the
danger of the masters of other slaves of a higher class, when they
learn that "all slaves of rebel masters who enter into the service of
the United States are forever free," with their families.)

If, on the other hand, no black troops can be raised, the General says
that the Government will be discouraged from attempting any longer to
protect at such an expense a people who cannot or will not aid in
defending themselves. I hope that General Saxton has not held out too
grand hopes of the success of this undertaking to the President and to
others at the North, and I hope he is exaggerating the importance of
the movement. Perhaps the President wants to try his colonization
scheme on these people. He had better lose a campaign than evacuate
these islands and give up this experiment. This experiment and the war
must go on side by side. I hope that before the war is done we shall
have furnished the Government with sufficient facts to enable them to
form a policy for the treatment of the millions whom the conclusion of
the war, if not its continuance, must throw into our hands.

I am very much afraid that the Government will look too much to the
material results of the year's occupation for determining the success
of free labor among the slaves. They will neglect to take into account
the discouragements and drawbacks of the year. The sudden reaction
consequent upon the change from slavery to what they hardly knew as
freedom; the confusion incident upon military occupation (and the
contradictory directions given concerning the year's crops); the
abundance of money where the cotton-agents and officers were
stationed, and the high wages promised and often obtained, at Hilton
Head and Beaufort; the lateness of the cotton crop, the poorness of
the seed, the uncertainty and doubt and want of system in regard to
the management of the crops; the drafting of the able-bodied men at a
critical period, their hardships and subsequent distrust and fear, or
idleness and insubordination; the changing of superintendents, the
fewness of both superintendents and teachers; and lastly, the shameful
delay in the payments, causing distrust, carelessness, neglect of
plantation work, and in some few cases, suffering for want of the
means to purchase clothing. It is too bad to treat people so, and it
is wonderful how much they have done and in what an excellent state
they are, under these discouraging circumstances. If they were assured
of a market at the end of the year, and sufficient money advanced them
to enable them to get "sweetening" and clothes through the year, I
would trust my plantations to go right ahead, put their crops into the
ground, and insure to the Government a handsome surplus next November.

The cheerfulness and hopefulness of the people in regard to next
year's crops, and the interest they take in their success, is
surprising. "If we live to see," "if God spare life," they say, "we
will plant early, and begin in time, and then you will see. O--yes,
sar."

Mr. Philbrick is appointed cotton-agent for this crop. He is going to
have the cotton ginned here, not at New York. Good seed is scarce. The
improved seed, the result of many years' cultivation and selection,
was lost to the island by the policy of ginning last year's crop in
New York.


FROM E. S. P.

_Oct. 27._ When in Beaufort last Wednesday, I got leave to pay off my
people with my own funds, through the paymaster, Mr. Lee. So he came
here next day, and I advanced the funds, $649. I sent Joe out to tell
the people to come and get their money, but they didn't come with the
usual promptness; bye and bye two men came to sound the way, the rest
held back. I laughed at them and sent them off with the chink in their
pockets, after which the rest came fast enough. They were evidently
afraid of some trap to press them into United States service as
General Hunter did. I didn't have the slightest difficulty in
collecting what I had advanced last September. Every one paid it
cheerfully and thanked us for what they got. This payment was all in
specie. I don't think I shall be refunded in coin, and shall probably
lose the difference, which is now about $120, but I don't grudge them
this. I had rather let it go than see them paid in the paper currency
which they can't read or judge of. It will come to that bye and bye,
however, for I can't get any more coin here, and half of this money
may not come back again into my hands.

General Saxton is striving earnestly to fill up his brigade with
negroes, but finds it very slow work. The people are so well off on
the plantations they don't see why they should go and expose
themselves. Moreover, the way they were treated last summer is not
very attractive to them. Many of their officers abused them, and they
were very generally insulted by every white man they met. It will now
require a good deal of time and very judicious, careful treatment to
get rid of these impressions, particularly as some of the very
officers who abused and maltreated the men are still in General
Saxton's confidence and have places in his new organization.

I took this place[65] more because I want to see the work properly
done and to keep it out of the hands of speculators and sharks than
because I wanted the position. It is a useful position, however, and I
mean to make it so.

A meeting of superintendents[66] is to be held at the Episcopal Church
next Wednesday, which I shall attend, and employ the occasion by
trying to start some more methodical system of employing the negroes
than heretofore.

_Nov. 2._ At the meeting we discussed several methods of dealing with
the corn crop, and several of the superintendents reported that the
negroes had raised hardly enough corn to feed the plantation horses
and mules on when at work. The small yield of cotton was also talked
over and its causes discussed. I do not think it will pay expenses
even on this island. My own plantations will yield about $5000 worth,
when I expected $15,000, a good share of my crop having rotted in the
pods during the rains in the early part of October and another share
having dropped off the plant before filling, probably from lack of
drainage after the heavy July rains.

After returning from the meeting I found a large box of woolen goods
forwarded by Edward Atkinson. I sold $100 worth the next day. Though
providing for their wants quite freely, the people seem more frugal
with their money than last summer, and I am glad to see them so.

As far as I can learn now there are very few gins able to work[67] in
the department. I have some very good seed here and at Pine Grove
which I think I can gin on the spot. Mr. S.[68] came and spent a night
here. He came to hire some men to go with him to pick up a lot of
stray timber on commission for the Government. So my plans for ginning
cotton here are postponed for a while. I had flattered myself that we
were fairly rid of him, and the men were beginning to take an interest
in plantation work in his absence, but he turns up again just as
disagreeable as ever.

There have been great exertions made the week past to fill the ranks
of the first negro regiment. A Rev. Mr. Fowler has been appointed
chaplain and is at work recruiting, appealing to their religious
feelings. He spent two nights here and talked in the praise-house,
both evenings. The women came to hear him, but the young men were shy.
Not one came near him, nor would they come near me when he was
present.

The last time I saw General Saxton he seemed to think our whole
destiny depended on the success of this negro recruitment. It _is_
certainly a very important matter, but I think as before that it is
doomed to fail here at present, from the imbecile character of the
people. I thought while at work with Mr. Fowler that if I were to go
as Captain I might get a company without trouble, but I failed to get
a single man when seriously proposing it to them. If I had been able
to raise a company to follow me and the same men would not have gone
without me, I think I should have accepted General Saxton's offer,[69]
but although I consider the arming of the negroes the most important
question of the day, I don't feel bound to take hold unless I can give
an impetus to the undertaking. I think it would have been attended
with some degree of success a year ago at this place, directly after
the masters left, when the negroes had more spite in them and had seen
less of their facilities for making money which they have enjoyed this
summer, and if General Hunter had not made his lamentable blunder, the
men would not have been disgusted with camp-life at least, but it is
difficult enough to get any one of them to feel any pluck. We
succeeded in getting Ranty to promise to go, and he seemed quite
earnest, but when he came to start next morning he suddenly found he
had a pain in his chest! his heart failed him and he backed square
out. Next day he came over here and, after begging some time for me to
give him a shirt, without success, offered me in payment for it a
counterfeit half-dollar which I had told him a week ago was such, but
which he had meantime polished up and hoped to pass. So you see when a
man's heart fails him he will stoop to almost anything.

We had four couples married after church to-day, Andrew and Phoebe of
Pine Grove among the rest. Mr. Phillips tried to tie all four knots at
one twitch, but found he had his hands full with two couples at once
and concluded to take them in detail. They all behaved very well and
seemed impressed with the ceremony, so it certainly has an excellent
effect. We also had an address from Prince Rivers,[70] a black
coachman from Beaufort, who has been in General Hunter's regiment all
summer, and is of sufficient intelligence to take a lively interest in
the cause of enlistment. He has been to Philadelphia lately and comes
back duly impressed with the magnitude of the country and the
importance of the "negro question," but has not sufficient eloquence
to get many recruits. Of course the young men kept away from church
and will keep away, so long as the subject is discussed. They have
made up their silly minds and don't want to be convinced or persuaded
to any change.

You can imagine what a comfort it is to see Mr. G. again and looking
so well.

    W. C. G., he who in June spoke so lightly of the dangers of
    the Sea Island climate, had been dangerously ill during the
    summer and had been obliged to go North for some weeks. In a
    letter written October 30 he refers to the death of one of
    the superintendents, adding, "It greatly startled me." A
    month later another of the superintendents died in the same
    house, which later proved fatal to still a third white man.
    These three were cases of typhoid, but the malarial fever of
    the district not infrequently was as deadly; on October 30
    General Mitchel himself died of it. The fact as to the
    climate is expressed in one of the letters by the statement
    that fevers were "common among the negroes" and "universal
    among the whites." A letter of Mr. Philbrick's, written
    early in October, speaks of Captain Hooper's "indisposition"
    as having cut down "the trio of tough ones" to himself and
    Mr. Soule.


FROM E. S. P.

_Nov. 7._ Everybody has been at work this week digging their winter
crop of sweet potatoes, planted with slips in July. They bear famously
on all three of my plantations, yielding in some cases two hundred
bushels per acre. You know I told every man to plant for his own
family separately, so that each one takes the potatoes home to his own
yard and buries them, for winter use. They dig a hole about four or
five feet in diameter and one foot deep, in which they pack the
potatoes and pile them up above ground in a conical heap about four
feet high. So when done they look like a sort of overgrown muskrat's
nest, or small wigwam.[71] Large families have in some cases seven or
eight of these conical heaps in their back yards.

The mellowing effect of the potato harvest upon the hearts of the
people is manifest. Yesterday was a rainy day and the women kept
straggling up here in squads all day. Each one brought a basket of
potatoes on her head, from a peck to half a bushel, as a present to
me. Uncle Sam and Joe are making a cone of them in the yard. Many of
the children bring ground-nuts, of which I now have half a bushel.
They have raised a good crop of them this year, and we amuse ourselves
evenings by roasting them in the ashes of our open fire and munching
them at leisure. I endeavor to acknowledge all these good-will
offerings in kind, by making deposits of sugar or coffee in the
baskets after emptying the nuts.

We live in the dining-room now, that being the only room without
broken glass, and even there I can't get the thermometer above 60°
with all the fire I can build.


FROM C. P. W.

_Nov. 8._ The only interesting event the day that I was in Beaufort I
was obliged to leave without beholding, viz.: the mustering in of the
first full company of the new regiment,[72] Captain James! They
marched through the streets just before I came away, making a fine
appearance. Many of them were in the first regiment,[73] and the
regularity and steadiness of their marching was very creditable. They
are a fine body of men. The regiment is filling fast, its friends are
much encouraged. A number of men from the regiment (now numbering
about four hundred) have been allowed to return home for a few days,
and I think they will carry back quite a number with them.

We have been in occupation just a year. The future, with the prospect
of sale, or removal, or renewed blunders and mismanagement, is not
very cheerful.


FROM W. C. G.

_Nov. 15._ Our island work is acquiring a little more system, but I'm
not sure that the people are as good as they were six months ago.
Great mistakes have been made, and I'm afraid the experiment so far
only shows the absolute necessity of avoiding errors which common
sense pointed out before any experience. Still, my belief isn't
altered that the slaves would speedily become a self-supporting
people, either by a system of wise and humane care, or by the opposite
method of letting them alone to feel the misery consequent on idleness
and the comfort that with very many would at once result from
industry.


FROM E. S. P.

_Nov. 16._ I had a talk with General Saxton. He was feeling very blue,
had just been to Hilton Head to get some tents for his new recruits of
which he enlisted about a hundred on his recent expedition to St.
Mary's.[74] There are some 3000 tents in warehouse there, but General
Brannan[75] refused to open it for him, alleging the advice of the
Medical Department, which closed it because yellow fever had been near
it. Now it is notorious that whenever one of General Brannan's men
wants anything from the same warehouse, he gives a special order and
it is opened for him, but not for General Saxton, the _Abolitionist_.
So the new recruits have to sleep in open air these frosty nights,
dampening their ardor somewhat. General Saxton agreed with me that if
there is no more earnestness and sincerity among other army officers
than among the specimens we have had here, we should all go to the
dogs. His expedition was so successful that he was in good spirits
till balked by General Brannan. The best item in it was that one of
the rebel prisoners taken was marched to Beaufort jail guarded by one
of his former slaves! The conduct of the negro troops was very well
spoken of by their officers, but is the subject of a good deal of
ribaldry among the white soldiers at Beaufort, who exhibit a degree of
hatred really fiendish towards the black regiment, taking their cue
from their commanding officer, of course.

We had a very interesting discussion on Wednesday about the future
management of the plantations. I advocated the subdivision of the
land, allotting to each family what it could cultivate and measuring
their crops separately. Mr. Bryant, who came from Edisto last
June,[76] preferred working the people in a gang with a foreman, and
paying them by the month. His people had worked very well in that way,
but it would be impossible to work the people on this island in that
way. They are too independent and too ignorant to see the advantages
of it, and too deceitful to enable any foreman to discriminate between
the lazy and industrious. Such a system, with the insufficient force
of white foremen we could supply, would be only a premium on deceit
and laziness, and would fail to call out the individual exertions of
the people.

The cotton crop will be worth, on this and Ladies Island, about
$40,000. I have stored twenty-five thousand pounds stone cotton[77] on
my plantations which will be worth at least $4000. The Pine Grove
people have done picking and commenced ginning this week. All the men
take hold of it readily. I can't find foot-gins enough here to gin
more than one fourth the crop, and I don't think it worth while to gin
by steam or horse-power, so remote as we are from mechanical
repair-shops. There are several power-gins which might be readily
fitted up in time of peace, but now it would cost too much. The
engines have been appropriated to sawmills in some cases, and worn out
in others, while the belting and other movable parts have all been
stolen by the negroes.

I have not yet decided whether or not to take care of these
plantations another year. General Saxton says he don't think our
relations with the people will be disturbed by the tax-commissioners,
but, if the estates are offered for sale[78] as they expect to do, I
don't see how he is to help it. I think I should like to buy this one
and see what could be done with the people. I should not expect to
make anything out of it. I don't believe much can be made out of this
generation by free labor, nor out of the next without teaching them to
read, and am sorry so little has been done as yet in the teaching
department. It is difficult to get people to stick to it, especially
in summer and during the unhealthy season.

I have already started ginning on nine plantations along this seaside
road and shall succeed in saving on the spot sufficient seed to plant
this island, I think. General Saxton has given me _carte blanche_ as
to ginning and general management of the crop. It seems to be his way
to leave all details to his subordinates, whom he holds responsible
for a proper result. If I had the same authority in New York I could
save something as compared with last year's crop, which was nearly all
eaten up by the brokers and agents and contractors, through whose
hands it passed, leaving but $200,000 net proceeds from a shipment of
about a million dollars' worth.

Mr. Lee has paid me the amount I advanced on my plantation pay-rolls
for July and August. I have finished up my pay-rolls for September and
October and intend to get him to go and pay off my people for these
months with my funds when paying the other plantations for June and
July.

In the prolonged absence of window-glass, I have resorted to other
expedients known to Irishmen, etc., but can't keep the wind out of my
chamber these frosty nights by any amount of ingenuity. Shingles might
do it, but they are as difficult to obtain as the window-glass, and
the towels won't stay put in a high wind.

We are very sorry to hear of Captain Hooper's serious illness. He had
kept up his strength so long on quinine during the summer, that a
break-down must be dangerous now. I imagine that General Saxton misses
his indefatigable zeal and straightforward gentleness.

I want to see what is to be done at the tax-sale and what sort of a
title is to be given. For I don't think I shall stay here another year
unless I can control my men better than I have done, and I don't
believe a better control can be had with the long-delayed payments
rendered almost necessary by the lumbering machinery of the
Quartermaster's department.

    The next letter is from C. P. W., and sets forth the result
    of his cogitations on plantation methods.


FROM C. P. W.

_Nov. 16._ The slip-potato crop is the only crop by which to judge of
the negroes' capacity to take care of themselves. This crop they have,
as a general rule, raised entirely by themselves, and for their own
consumption; they found their own manure, and received no help except
the use (small) of the Government teams on the place. The crop
exceeds, on the average, one hundred per cent. that raised by their
masters,--I mean that each man gets twice as much as he used to when
they worked and shared in common; and in some cases the tasks bear
twice as much. "They beer uncommon." "If we live to see," all the
crops next year, under a management that will encourage and
stimulate, will be proportionally as good as this 'tater crop. One
thing the people are universally opposed to. They all swear that they
will not work in gang, _i. e._, all working the whole, and all sharing
alike. On those places where the root 'taters were thus worked this
year, the crop did very poorly, and gave out long before its time.
Where the Government corn was thus worked, the yield averages, I
suppose, six to ten bushels, the nigger-field, meantime, bearing twice
as much, where they had manure.

Wherever the people have been able to look forward to the result of
the crop as beneficial to them, they have shown industry, care, and
energy in putting it through. There is much laziness to be overcome in
them, however; even in tending their own crops they sometimes neglect
well-known precautions because they cost too much trouble. But the
best of them have carried their own crops well, and their example is
beneficial in stimulating the lazier ones to exertion. There is a good
deal of emulation among them; they will not sit quietly and see
another earning all the money. And it is far better to adapt the
system to the intelligence of the best than to treat them all, as one
occasionally has to treat one or two, in special matters, like mere
children. I am sure a large number of them could get through the year
without any pecuniary aid from Government, on the simple assurance
that they should be paid for their crop when they had picked it. I am
often urged by the best of the people not to trouble myself about the
means of doing work, but just to tell them to do the work, and expect
to see it done, and not encourage them to ask for help to do
everything. "They kin do it, sir; don't you worry yeurself, sir; they
kin find herself, sir." They have not been working cotton for nothing
for so many years under their masters. They recollect how their
masters used to treat the land and crops, and what treatment proved
most successful. They need supervision and direction constantly, if
only to prevent fighting when one says "I free," "I as much right to
ole missus' things as you," etc., and more than all, they need the
presence and conversation of a white man, not only to elevate them,
but to encourage and stimulate them.

There is but one opinion expressed. "We won't be driven by nobody;" "I
don't want no driving, either by black man or white man." "We don't
want de whole valler of de cotton. De land belongs to de Gover_ment_,
de mule and ting on de place belong to de Gover_ment_, and we have to
'spect to pay somef'n for um. But you just pay us our share, accordin'
as we make crop, and if you live to see, Marsa Charlie, and God spare
life, you'll _see a crop on dis place next year_." "There will be a
difference in de land, sir, but we can't help dat; each one work his
own and do as well as he kin." It is mere fortune that one is on one
soil, another on another, kept in better order, perhaps, by the Secesh
master.

The negroes ought not to bear the burden of the loss of their crop
through any external cause, as the caterpillar, drought, etc. The
Government ought to stand in the gap and bear the loss. But I should
not tell the negroes anything about such atonement before it is made,
else one would be overwhelmed with applications from those who had
become tired of cotton-hoeing, and a thousand plausible stories would
be fabricated, to show that this man or that was peculiarly afflicted
in his crop.

_Nov. 25._ The people have begun ginning cotton on several places. The
gins are of the rudest construction. Two rollers, about the size of a
spool of thread, one above the other, horizontal, just touching, are
turned in opposite directions by two upright fly-wheels, moved by a
single treadle. The cotton, with the seed in it, is presented to these
rollers, which catch it and draw it through, leaving the seed behind.
Ginning is considered "light work." Thirty pounds of the clean cotton
is considered a good day's work. It is pretty severe for the knees.
Women gin with the men. The movement of "jump and change feet" when
one knee gets tired should be introduced into the ballet; it is very
elegant.

We have been reduced to the old system of rationing.[79] For the last
two months we have had liberty to draw the value of the soldier's
ration which is allowed us, in any kind of food. Consequently
everybody has rushed for sugar, rice, candles, and molasses,
disdaining hard bread, salt beef, and such low fare. Of course there
was soon a deficiency of the better articles in the Department, the
Army Commissary at Hilton Head declaring that we used up more candles
and sugar than any regiment; so we have got to draw soldier's rations
again, a few candles, a little dab of sugar, a big hunk of salt food,
and hard biscuit. They can be swapped for duck and chickens, but what
a bother to get them.

_Nov. 26._ I hear that Hunter's reappointment[80] causes some
dissatisfaction among the pro-slavery army officers here, as might be
expected.

_Dec. 2._ It is now rumored that we are likely to receive but little
help from Congress this winter, and that the Cotton Fund[81] is
getting low. It is said that the taking of Charleston would benefit us
more than anything else could; that any way we must take some place on
the main to attract attention and inspire confidence. The black
regiment may do something for our interests. General Saxton is going
to send a report of the year's work to Headquarters, and it will
doubtless be laid before Congress. Commissioners, if appointed to
investigate the matter, would probably have their notions of the
character, ability, and prospects of the "Universal Nigger" much
revised, with additions and corrections, before their investigations
were completed. You at the North know nothing about niggers, nothing
at all. When more is known of their powers and capacity and character
more attention will be paid to the cultivation of free black labor.

    The next letter again focuses attention on the white
    population.


FROM W. C. G.

_Nov. 29._ The wives are multiplying on St. Helena. Since Mrs. Bryant
came, two other superintendents have made their houses homes,--one our
Baptist parson, and the other a young fellow who went home shortly
before me to marry his betrothed on our salary of $50 a month. Brave
youth--in these times! One man has brought his sister and established
her as the beauty of the island; one his mother; and one an older
sister, a perfect New England housekeeper, who makes his home the
paradise of mince-pies and family bread.


FROM E. S. P.

_Dec. 10._ (At the Oaks.) I like the General[82] ever so much. He is
so simple--straightforward, and earnest, so evidently pure and
unselfish and so kind in his manner.

I rode down to Dr. Jenkins' with Mr. G., but found all the "white
folks" gone to Hilton Head. I visited the cotton-house, where about a
dozen of the people were ginning cotton. They had just packed two
bales of it, which I ripped open to inspect, and found, as I had
feared, that it wasn't half cleaned. I left a note for Mr. Bryant
telling him I didn't want to send the cotton off so and told his
driver. Mr. B. was not acquainted with the way the staple is usually
prepared for market, concerning which I had taken pains to inform
myself before leaving home, and the negroes had taken the chance to
shirk. I started off to take the tour of Ladies Island and see their
cotton. I visited about a dozen cotton-houses during the day along the
east side of the island, and rode on to Cuthbert's Point to sleep with
Joe Reed and Mr. Hull. I found them delightfully situated in a small
house on Beaufort River surrounded by a superb grove of live-oaks,
clear of brush and nicely kept. It is the finest situation that I have
found in the State, but the greater part of the plantations on Ladies
Island are miserably poor, being the property of small proprietors who
had not sufficient capital to make planting profitable. The soil is
poor and the negroes for the most part have not sufficient food on
hand for the coming year. The cotton crop is proportionally small and
poor. No ginning apparatus being found there, I shall have it all
taken to Beaufort for the steam-gins.

Leaving Cuthbert's Point this morning, I rode with Mr. Hull to the
superintendents' meeting at the Episcopal Church, about eighteen
miles, and back here to sleep. We have matured a plan of operations
for the employment of the negroes next year, at these meetings, and it
is to be presented to General Saxton for his approval this week.[83]

I have made some further inquiries of Dr. Brisbane, one of the
tax-commissioners, about the sale of lands, which is to take place on
the first of February next. He tells me it is to be a free sale and
that the Government warrants the title, subject, however, to
redemption by such proprietors as can prove themselves loyal within
one year. I think it highly important that the welfare of these
negroes should not be intrusted to speculators, and have written to
Dr. Russell[84] to see if Boston people can't be interested,
individually or collectively, in buying these lands and employing the
laborers. I am ready to go into it as far as I am able alone, and have
offered my time in Boston to carry out any plan they think best. If I
can't get any coöperation, I mean to buy some of the estates alone, if
they don't go very high, and carry them on by means of such agents as
I can get. I can find several first-rate men among the superintendents
here who would work for me and do well, but I don't think I should
care to stay here next summer, for sanitary reasons if nothing more.
My experience here will enable me to act to good advantage in carrying
on any such undertaking, and I hope to be of use in a permanent way to
these people with whom I have been thrown in contact this year. I have
given [to Dr. Russell] an exact statement, in dollars and cents, of
the expenses and products of my three plantations this year, showing a
profit to the Government of about $2000,[85] besides providing a
year's supply of food to a population of four hundred and fifty
blacks, "big and little." This island is very much more favorably
placed than Ladies, Port Royal, or Hilton Head Islands, which are all
much exposed to the depredations of the Union soldiers. I find on the
north end of Ladies Island the pickets are changed every little while,
and have killed nearly all the negroes' poultry. The people don't dare
to leave their houses, and take all their hens into their houses every
night. They shoot their pigs and in one case have shot two working
mules! All these things are duly reported to General Saxton, but it
does no good. Two regiments have come to encamp at Land's End on St.
Helena, and Mr. Hammond says they have burnt up a mile of his fences,
and burn the new rails just split out in the woods; they burn the
heaps of pine leaves raked up for manure and take possession of all
his cotton and corn houses. It is certainly of no use to try to carry
on any planting near these fellows. They would steal all the crops if
any grew near them,[86] and if the whole military establishment is to
be transferred to this side the harbour, it is of little use to try to
do much on that end of the island. Coffin's Point is, however, remote
from all these disturbances, and I hope it will remain so. I am
anxious to continue this free-labor experiment through a term of years
and under circumstances more favorable than those under which we have
this year been placed. I do not see how I can do much good in any
other way.

    The next letter is the first from H. W. on her return to
    Port Royal after spending the summer at home.


FROM H. W.

_Coffin's Point, Dec. 14._ As we drew near the Fripp Point place at
last, the people began to gather on the shore to watch us, and when
the boat stopped the people were all on the banks, pressing forward,
and Sammy rushed into the water and took me ashore in his arms. Then
they got my trunks in the same manner, and such a shaking of hands!
"So glad for see you! Glad for see you come back." Boys were sent off
at once to catch the mules to take me over, while I went into 'Siah's
house to wait, and had some hominy and chicken, as I was very hungry.
Everything was as neat as a pin here--the children were kept out of
the house while I was eating, and then the hominy and chicken were
mixed and passed round among the women when I had finished. Mr.
Philbrick's sulky happened to be over there to be mended, and as it
was finished I drove off in it, Sammy, Peter, and Tony on the
mule-cart with all my traps, and Chester following me. The children
all asked about school at once, and as I was waiting I drew words for
them to spell in the sand to see how much they remembered.


FROM C. P. W.

_Dec. 14._ I am glad H. came, for Mr. Philbrick has decided that he
cannot attend to his plantations and his cotton-agency at the same
time, and needs some one to take his place here. He thinks of buying
the place in the spring, when the lands are sold (Feb. 1), and I have
agreed to work it for him part of the time. So that, as some one must
take Mr. Philbrick's place, and as the people had better have me than
a stranger, and as I had better become acquainted with them at once,
if I am to have charge of them in the spring, I have decided to take
the places off his hands, stay here with H., and let my own
plantations go to as good a person as I can find. H. is most welcome
and much needed here; I am thankful to have her here, if only for the
children's sakes. The only difficulty is that she may be devoured on
her first visit to Pine Grove.


FROM H. W.

_Dec. 16._ Had the children sent for to school. They brought eggs, and
were pleased enough to begin school again.

_Dec. 18._ Told the children yesterday that I wanted them to bring me
some corn "shucks," as they call them, which are all left on the
stalks in the fields. Mr. Philbrick thought I could get enough to
stuff a bed with. I thought so too when the children all appeared with
sheets and bags full on their heads, some containing two or three
bushels!

_Dec. 20._ C. managed to get the piano downstairs this morning before
he went off. I went with him in the double sulky as far as the
cotton-house and then made an expedition to the quarters, where I
shook hands with every man and woman to be seen, inspected every new
baby (there have been a dozen born since I went away), visited Bacchus
in his school, was kindly greeted, though the people hardly knew me
and I don't know their names at all, was told that I looked "more
hearty" than when I went away, and returned with two dozen eggs and
the morning school at my heels.

    Two dozen eggs at fifty cents a dozen was no mean proof of
    affection!

_Dec. 21._ We started for church. C. rode his largest horse and
preceded or followed me in the double sulky, an unpainted box with a
seat in it, of Mr. Philbrick's manufacture and quite "tasty" for these
parts, on a single pair of wheels; and though it is on springs the
exercise is not slight which one gets in driving over these sandy,
uneven roads.


FROM E. S. P.

_Sunday evg. Dec. 21._ The cotton on this island is nearly all ginned.
I have not been able to start the steam-gins in Beaufort yet--am
waiting for authority to use the steam, which comes from the
condensing boiler under the control of General Brannan's
quartermaster. I asked General Saxton about it the other day, but he
said he didn't know as they would let him have it. The General feels
very blue about his position here, and I don't wonder. He declares he
will not stay if he is not sustained, and says that General
Halleck[87] sympathizes with Brannan and don't mean to let him be
removed.

_Wednesday evg._ I looked over the Coffin people's cotton Monday and
found it was not yet clean enough to pack, so refused to weigh it, and
set the women at work picking over the whole of it again. Each woman
keeps her own pile--the same that she and her husband raised.

I find rumors here that General Saxton and staff are to be relieved.
General Saxton believes in his being relieved, but no mail has come
yet to confirm it.

I want to keep R., G., C. P. W. and Bryant on plantations which I may
buy, and they are all anxious to stay.


FROM H. W.

_Dec. 22._ Joe doubled up and went off into convulsions when C.
mentioned to me at table that he had been to call on Mrs. Jenkins
(Wil'by) and did not find her at home! I gave Joe a piece of
gingerbread for her the other day, and he informed me this morning
that she found it very "palatiable"! He inquired how my "palate was
satisfy" with some oysters he fried for me the other day.

_Christmas._ C. took me in his double sulky to see the Pine Grove
people, driving first to the quarters here, where I went into Bacchus'
school and distributed toys. I had also armed myself with a hundred
cents and several pounds of candy. At Pine Grove the people crowded
about to shake hands, and as I went through the street, stopping at
every house, they were pleased as possible that I remembered their
names. They were very eager to know if I was not going to teach
school, the children all rushing home to wash face and hands and dress
themselves in their best, after the old fashion, when I told them I
wanted to have them go to the praise-house. Flora followed me about,
as usual. I saw York for the first time. He is a very fine-looking
specimen of a thorough black, large, manly, courteous, and
straightforward.

Once more in the old praise-house, I heard the children spell, and
then distributed toys among them, with candy to the babies and grown
people! and gave to each of the girls who have been married since I
left a Bible with her name in it. All seemed honestly glad to see me
there--there was no mistaking their shining faces. I was there two
hours and then went to Fripp Point, where I gave candy to all the
grown people and children, and a toy to each child. I do not know all
names and faces anywhere except at Pine Grove.

_Dec. 26._ I was in the midst of school when Joe announced two
strangers on horseback. They were the Quartermaster and Adjutant of
the 1st S. C. V., come for a dozen cattle to be roasted on New Year's
Day at General Saxton's grand celebration. C. and the

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