Chapter C: P. W. to E. S. P (1)

_Jan. 25._ I went down to this nigger-house yesterday morning, called the people up and told them what they were going to get on their cotton besides the pay for picking already paid, and then, after talking over plantation matters a little, got their acres for next year. They seemed "well satisfy" with the additional payment, fully appreciated the pay according to crop and according to acre combined, and started on this year's work with "good encourage." I suppose Mr. Forbes and you are two bricks, serving as the beginning of a good foundation for these people's prosperity.

FROM W. C. G.

_Captain Oliver Fripp's, Jan. 26._ We are very busy now on the plantations. A new system of labor to inaugurate,--lands to allot,--grumbling to pacify and idleness to check,--my hands--with nine plantations--are perfectly overrunning. The worst of it is that my people are in pretty bad disposition,--the new system has been received with joy and thankfulness in most parts of the island,--here with suspicion, grumbling, and aversion. How far it is the fault of their past and present superintendents, I cannot tell,--it has been known as a hard district ever since we came here,--but it must be our failing in some degree. I devoutly hope that by the middle of February it will be over as far as I am concerned. It is a little remarkable that while the Abolitionists and negroes' friends up North are striving so hard to have the sale postponed,[101] we superintendents, without exception that I have heard, are very desirous to have it effected. This "superintendence" is a most unsatisfactory system,--temporary and unprogressive in every element. Of course, nothing else could well have been tried this last year, and perhaps the time has not yet come to abandon it. But we all think it has. I am satisfied that the sooner the people are thrown upon themselves, the speedier will be their salvation. Let all the natural laws of labor, wages, competition, etc., come into play,--and the sooner will habits of responsibility, industry, self-dependence, and manliness be developed. Very little, very little, should be given them: now, in the first moments of freedom, is the time to influence their notion of it. To receive has been their natural condition. They are constantly comparing the time when they used to obtain shoes, dresses, coats, flannels, food, etc., from their masters, with the present when little or nothing is given them. I think it would be _most unwise and injurious_ to _give_ them _lands_,--negro allotments; they should be made to _buy_ before they can feel themselves possessors of a rod. There are some who are now able to buy their houses and two or three acres of land,--by the end of the year their number will probably be greatly increased. These will be the more intelligent, the more industrious and persistent. But _give_ them land, and a house,--and the ease of gaining as good a livelihood as they have been accustomed to would keep many contented with the smallest exertion. I pity some of them very much, for I see that nothing will rouse and maintain their energy but suffering.

In regard to the immediate sale,--even should speculators buy some plantations, I don't think the people would suffer much oppression during the years of their possession. It would be for their interest to continue or increase the wages which Government offers,--and probably many would let the places almost alone. Should oppression occur, the negroes will probably have an opportunity to move,--such cases would be closely watched and loudly reported,--and the people would be all the more dependent on their own exertions. I should think the great injury would come at the end of the war, or whenever the speculators sell the lands: then, instead of selling at low prices and in small lots or of consulting the people's interest in any way, they will simply realize the greatest advantage for themselves. Other places, however, will be bought by friends and by the Government,--on the whole, great good would result to the people. Moreover, the work will then have very much more value as a test of their capacity and ambition,--as an experiment in American emancipation.

I feel that outside of directly spiritual labor, this emancipation work is the noblest and holiest in the country.

FROM H. W.

_Jan. 27._ Both schools were very satisfactory. If any one could have looked in, without the children's seeing them, they would have thought we presented quite an ordinary school-like appearance. I have a blackboard with numerals and figures and the second line of the Multiplication Table written on it, all of which the oldest school know tolerably, but they make sorry work trying to copy the figures on their slates. I let them use them every day now, however, for they must learn, by gradually growing familiar with the use of a pencil, not to use it like a hoe. There are furrows in the slates made by their digging in which you might plant benny-seed, if not cotton!

_Jan. 29._ Am trying to teach the children how to tell time on the dial-plate of an old English clock, "Presented by Sir Isaac Coffin, Bart.," as its face informs you--one of the many valuable things demolished.

_Jan. 31._ Started directly after breakfast to spend the day and night with H. We broke down, as usual, had to stop and be tinkered up, so that William was late for the ferry, and when we got to the Oaks avenue I got out with my bag and basket and let him go on. I trusted to fate to find some one to carry my traps for me the mile up to the house. The drive was lovely, and I found some people waiting by the roadside for Mr. Soule, to get passes to go to Beaufort. A boy readily took my things for me without promise of any payment. On the walk I found he was one of the Edisto refugees who are quartered at the village and supplied with rations by Government, but he had left home with only two pieces of hardtack in his pocket and without breakfast. "Think we'll go back to Edisto, Missy?" he asked most earnestly, hoping that a stranger would give him some hope that he should see his home again. He was a nice boy; as a general thing the Edisto people are a better class of blacks, more intelligent and cultivated, so to speak, but those brought from there were then refugees from many other places.

Mr. Philbrick brought word that the North Carolina army[102] had arrived at Hilton Head, and we were excited to know who of our friends had come.

_Feb. 1._ A message came back from Mr. Philbrick that General "Saxby" was coming to dinner. The General was decidedly blue about affairs here at present. He wants to stop the sale of lands very much, though, as he can control the sale so as to keep it out of the hands of speculators, I hope the sale will take place. You cannot understand how much we long to have the sale over. If it could only have taken place a month sooner it would have been all the better, as then the purchasers could have stocked their places by the time work began. As it is, the people have gone into the fields without the necessary number of cattle or mules, and with only their worn-out hoes; the Edisto people who are now being distributed onto the plantations have nothing. With the chance of giving up the control so soon, Government has not supplied all that is necessary and work bids fair to be as behindhand here as it was last year. Where the people have gone to work at all--at this end of the island--they have started with "good encourage," but at other places it has been impossible to get them to start any cotton, though they work corn. This is partly due to the fact that this end of the island is removed from the demoralizing effects of the camps, and partly, too, to the confidence the people have in the superintendents here, who have mostly been with them steadily now for nearly a year. It seems to us on the spot as if things could not go on another year as they are now, and we long for February eleventh and things to be settled. The auctioneer is at Washington trying, not to have the sale postponed, but to have lands set apart and given the blacks beforehand, and we dread lest any day we should hear that it has been delayed. Some of the blacks mean to buy--we don't wish them to till the war is over, as our tenure here is too uncertain for them to sink their money.

C. on horseback, I in the double sulky started homeward, reaching home--and we agreed that it was certainly homelike--by half past six. Rose came up from her house acknowledging that though she wanted to see me she could have waited till to-morrow, but her mother made her come!

FROM C. P. W.

_Feb. 2._ The sale is a week from Wednesday. General Saxton (proclaim it not from the house-top) says he shall take the liberty to use the Cotton Fund to outbid any troublesome speculators. Glory Hallelujah!

FROM H. W.

_Feb. 4._ Cold as ever again--can do nothing but try to keep warm. Have a good fire in the school-room, and quite a full school--those who stay away for the cold being jeered at as not wishing to learn by the others. I think they have done well for a year with the amount of teaching they have had.

_Feb. 7._ Found C. was going to Pine Grove, so thought I would go too, as I have not been to see them since Christmas. I went round to see the people who were at home; many of them had gone into the field, where C. went to deal out the land to them. Then I followed him in the sulky to bring him home, but when I reached the field, Flora, who came running out to see me, crying out, "my ole missus!" informed me that "Mass' Charlie have much long jawing, people in confusion." Mr. S.,[103] it seemed, had disturbed them about the land-sale, and York vowed if anybody but Mr. Philbrick or C. had the place he would pack up and go to New York with his family. Went home alone, forced to leave C. to walk. Found some of his old people waiting for him--they are very much attached to him and he to them--it is hard for him to give them up. One man met him at church last Sunday, took off his hat, rolled up his eyes, and remarked pathetically, "I goes to sleep and dreams of you, Boss!"

_Feb. 8._ Dr. Russell sends me word that after March 1st my salary will be $20 instead of $25.

We all went up to church this morning for the chance of finding John L.[104] there. We go to church to see our friends, and generally manage to get there just as service is over. If it were any good to the people we could bear it, but they get stones, not bread, I am sorry to say. We did not find any friends from the Twenty-Fourth.

I shall hope to send you Colonel Higginson's report of his expedition[105] with the Black Regiment, which was a great success. Oh, if the formation of the regiment last spring had only been differently managed! we should have had a brigade by this time. January, who I wrote you was taken from here one night as a deserter, and who was found up his chimney, almost frightened to death at going back, he was so badly treated before, came for a day or two since he got back from the expedition and told C. he would not take a thousand dollars to leave now, he had such a good time.

On February 10, the very eve of the eagerly awaited day set
for the land-sale, H. W. writes: "The cart went up for
rations, so I sent some sausages for H. and got some cake at
night, with a note saying the sale was stopped." True to his
extreme record as friend of the negro, General Hunter had
been the means of postponing the sales, in the hope, as has
been said, of eventually turning most of the plantations
into negro holdings, by gift or the next thing to it. More
will be heard of all this shortly.

FROM C. P. W.

_Feb. 14._ It is supposed that the postponement of the land-sales till the allotment of lands is made will be for a year at least. I expect to find the people, though they are all members, will become profane immediately. They are depending on a chance to buy or hire land.

W. C. G. writes the next letter after having had a talk with
a friend in the Twenty-Fourth Massachusetts.

FROM W. C. G.

_Feb. 17._ He seemed very well, more contented than most of the soldiers and talking more rationally and humanely than four fifths of those with whom I have conversed. The troops will probably be here a month or two at least, before any attempt is made in any direction. The commanding generals have quarreled,[106] and one has gone North; the troops are insufficient, the enemy on the alert and strongly defended. The history of the Department so far might read: the forts were taken, one thousand-odd children were taught to read, and one negro regiment was formed.[107] Hunter seems to be a narrow, self-willed man--to me--who don't know much about his affairs. At first the soldiers were allowed to go wherever they pleased; consequently they poured over our end of the island, confusion coming with them. They cheated, they plundered, they threatened lives, they stole boats, poultry, hogs, money, and other property, they paid for dinners with worthless Richmond money, taking good bills in exchange. They behaved like marauders in an enemy's country, and disgraced the name of man, American, or soldier. The houses of one whole plantation they burnt to the ground in the night. For three whole days and far into the night I did nothing but chase soldiers and ride about to protect the people. The consequence of it all is that the soldiers are now tied up in camp pretty firmly.

The sales have been postponed to my and many persons' great disappointment. And yet it does seem absurd, in view of the increasing uncertainties of the moment here, to sell land. But I am so heartily sick and weary of this system! What I shall do if the lands are not sold within a month or two, I don't know.

FROM H. W.

_Feb. 19._ You will see by this copy of the _Free South_[108] the outrages that have been committed by the troops who were landed at Land's End, but it can give you but little idea of the outrages that have been committed or the mischief done. Besides the actual loss to the people,--and in many cases it has been their all,--the loss of confidence in Yankees is an incalculable injury. The scenes some of the superintendents have had to go through with are beyond description. Sumner had a pistol put at his breast for trying to stop the soldiers and protect the negroes, and Mr. Hammond, when he went with General Saxton to tell Hunter of what had been done under his very eyes on his own plantations, burst into tears. It is disgusting that any Massachusetts regiment should be mixed up with such savage treatment, and that the Twenty-Fourth should be is shameful in the extreme.

_Feb. 20._ To-day all the people were on the Bay "drawing seine" when I came out of morning school, and as that is a process I have wished to see I ran down to the beach myself between whiles. Here was a droll enough scene indeed. They had made one "drawing" and were just casting the seine again as I walked along for half a mile towards the drum-hole.[109] The shell-banks, which are exposed at low tide, were fringed with small children with baskets and bags which they were filling with oysters and conchs. Rose followed me as guide and protector, jabbering away in her outlandish fashion to my great entertainment, and was very much afraid that the oyster-shells, over which she walked with impunity with bare feet, would cut up my heavy leather boots. I could go out to the very edge of one of these curious shell-banks, and the seine was drawn up almost at my feet. The net was laid on a boat which was hauled out into the water by the men, who were up to their waists, then dropped along its full length, which is very great, and gradually hauled in shore again with two or three bushels of fish in it, and any number of crabs, which the children pick up very carefully and fling ashore. There were about thirty men, and you would have thought from the noise and talking that it was a great fire in the country, with no head to the engine companies and every man giving orders. They were good-natured as possible, but sometimes their gibberish sounds as if they were scolding. The boys, with their pantaloons, or what answer for sich, rolled up to their knees, were hauling at the rope or picking up the crabs and making them catch hold of each other till they had a long string of them. Another mode of proceeding with them--for a crab-bite is a pretty serious thing--is to hold an oyster-shell out, which they grab, and then with a quick shake the claw is broken off, and they are harmless. A large bass having been taken in the haul I witnessed, it was laid at my feet for my acceptance, and then, the girls following, most of the boys staying to see the third drawing, I wended my way back to school.

_Feb. 21._ Such steady shop that C. could not get off very early and sold a barrel of flour before he departed. Shop is a great nuisance, but I don't know what the people would do without it and don't see how it can be given up for a long time. They can't get things as cheap anywhere else, but they cannot understand that it is of no advantage to us. When I told them yesterday they must not hurry me, for I had to put everything down so as to keep a correct account to send to the Quartermaster and people who sent the things, they were quite surprised, and when in explaining the state of the case to them I remarked that I was not even paid for the trouble, Binah said she would not take the trouble then; and they can't understand that any one should.

Other comments on this laborious shop-keeping are: [Feb.
23]. What with sugar and dry goods upstairs, and flour,
pork, and salt down, it's busy, not to say nasty work. [Apr.
9.] Mr. P.'s molasses fell short about $5.00 on the barrel!
Yet you can't convince the people he is not making heaps of
money, and I, too, for the matter of that. [June 6.] A
stranger the other day asked me for a looking-glass that he
might see how his new hat looked, and then informed me that
I ought to keep lemonade for my friends! But such things are
rare, and so ludicrous that one doesn't mind.

FROM H. W.

_Feb. 22._ I heard Uncle Sam read the first three chapters of Genesis, which he translated into his own lingo as he went along, calling the subtile serpent the most "amiable" of beasts, and ignoring gender, person, and number in an astonishing manner. He says "Lamb books of life," and calls the real old Southern aristocracy the gentiles! His vocabulary is an extensive one--I wish his knowledge of the art of cooking were as great!

_Feb. 25._ I was in full tide with my A B C's when I saw two mounted officers pass the window. They presently appeared at the door of the school-room, one of them with a General's stars, addressing me and asking about the school. But he did not introduce himself, and I was in profound ignorance as to who it might be. They came, apparently, to see the place, and while they walked on the beach I got up what lunch I could. The title had an immense effect upon Robert; when I told Sam I must have the water boiled to give the General some coffee, he opened his eyes as wide as the gate, and Rose, who came to ask for the key of the corn-room for him to feed the horses, was such a comical sight, as she stared with mouth and eyes and then dropped a curtsey in the middle of the room, that if any one had been here I think I should have disgraced myself and snickered! Unfortunately the dignitary did not see her.

_Feb. 26._ I had scarcely done breakfast when I was called upon to serve in the shop for half a dozen men from the blockading vessel off Otter Island, all negroes. They come every once in a while and buy large amounts of sugar and other little things. They evidently think their patronage of great advantage to us.

Five grown men have come in to swell the evening school. I can't do much for them, as they don't all know their letters, but they have books and I hope the children will help them on out of school.

Have I told you that the path to the beach has been bordered with flowers for several weeks, jonquils and narcissus, so far as I can make out, though unlike any I ever saw before? They are in great profusion, and there are a few snow-drops, very pretty, but a foot or more high, and losing their charm in the height and strength. The jasmine and hawthorn are just coming into blossom, and I see what looks like a peach-tree in full bloom in Sam's yard.

_Feb. 27._ C. came home before night, with the news that the sales had begun[110] and that our fate would be decided by next week probably. He brought no other news of importance except that my unknown guest was probably a General Potter[111] on Foster's staff. When I came out of school this morning I found Rose asleep on the rug in front of the parlor fire! She is quite a Topsy in some things, playing all sorts of tricks with her voice and actions, but I have never had reason to doubt her truth or honesty in the smallest particular, since the first, and I have been very watchful.

_Feb. 28._ Before I was up I heard a perfect babel of tongues, a magpie chattering, which, on looking out of the window, I found came from about twenty women at work in our new garden getting out the "jint-grass," swinging their great, heavy hoes above their heads. Dr. Dio Lewis should have seen their gymnastics and the physical development therefrom. It was a droll sight--red, blue, and bright yellow in their costume, and such a gabbling! Hindustanee is as intelligible as their talk among themselves. How C. astonished a man who was muttering away to himself the other day at the Oaks by laughing at him and telling him he understood Nigger as well as he!

Old Deborah walked from Cherry Hill this morning,--she has lately moved there from here,--and came into the early school, which greatly delighted her. She is Rose's grandmother, and heard her great-grandchild reading to me, yet she is a smart old body and carries on her own cotton this year. Her delight over Raphael's angels--we have Mr. Philbrick's photographs of them here--was really touching. "If a body have any consider, 'twould melt their hairt,"--and she tried to impress it upon Rose that she was a greatly privileged person to be able to see them every day.

In the next letter is described a visit to the camp of the
"North Carolina army" at Land's End.

_Sunday, March 1._ We started off in time to reach church before the sermon was over, I in the sulky with my things to stay all night,--if it should prove practicable for me to go to camp, by staying at G.'s or the Oaks. H. got into my sulky and we drove off, the question to be decided after dinner. The road to-day was lined with the jasmine in full bloom running over everything. I was too late to see it last spring and as I had not been out of the house for a fortnight the change was very marked. Some trees are putting out fresh, green leaves, the peach and wild plum-trees are all in blossom. Our large field, too, had been "listed"[112] since I passed through it last, and altogether things had a very spring-like look. After dinner it was decided to take the carriage and Northern horses, with Harry, and make our expedition to the camp in style, escorted by Mr. Sumner on horseback.

Behold us, then, starting about ten in the morning, Monday, March 2, driving for fifteen miles through the woods, a perfect spring day, till, as we reached our journey's end, we found the woods cut down and fields cleared for the camps over an immense space. Tents in every direction and masts beyond, looking very busy and thriving. Real war camps, not such as we see at Readville, for most of the regiments coming on such an expedition, from which they expected to return before this time, had only shelter tents, as few things as they could possibly get along with, and their worst clothes. There were men washing (with a bit of board in a half of a barrel with a horse-brush!), cutting wood, mending the road very much cut up with the army-wagons, sticking down trees in front of their tents, and in almost every camp we saw some men playing ball. Horses and wagons, rough stables, and the carpenters at work with plane and saw getting up comforts. The Twenty-Fourth was at Land's End indeed, so we passed through all the others before we came to it, each additional one causing a louder and more wondering exclamation from Harry at the sight of so many men, till the oxen, evidently waiting to be slaughtered, and of a size so vastly superior to those indigenous to these regions, quite dumbfounded him.

The Twenty-Fourth reached at last, we went at once to James's tent, where he greeted us very kindly, and inviting us in, went off for John. Glad as I was to see them at last, it only made me doubly sorry that they should have been so near us and unable to come down to the few home comforts we could have offered them; but they have both tried to get away in vain. We found the Twenty-Fourth was in a very excited state over General Stevenson's arrest;[113] and speaking of his release and return to camp the day before, James said--"We gave him such a reception as the Twenty-Fourth _can_ give." The whole North Carolina division were feeling very sore over the quarrel between Hunter and Foster which has so unjustly, as they feel, deprived them of going under Foster on this expedition, and over the general treatment of them and their officers which they have received ever since they came into this Department.[114] This I heard from James first, but more at length and in detail from the surgeon afterwards. For as we drove home a gentleman passed us on horseback, and we presently saw him racing with Mr. Sumner, and then riding by his side. They soon turned. Mr. Sumner introduced to me S. A. Green. Mr. Sumner had never seen him before, but asked him to join us at lunch at Mr. G.'s, where we were to stop on our way.

G. was expecting us, and such a dinner as he spread before us! A little roasted pig, over which Mr. Sumner grew pathetic as he described its baby-like appearance before it was cooked, when Tamah, their invaluable cook, brought it in to show them--potatoes, rice, etc., and for dessert, trifle, cake, muffins, waffles of a most excellent variety, and I don't know what. But the spice of the dinner was a long and animated discussion over the cause of General Stevenson's arrest and other matters appertaining thereto. Dr. Green was present at the time Stevenson had his discussion with Major Barstow and is reported to have said that he would rather be defeated than gain a victory with the aid of black soldiers,--and says that he said no such thing. The question was asked as a leading one, and before General Stevenson replied, Major Barstow exclaimed, "You hear that declaration?" and went off and reported. Pretty small business, anyway, though the General and most of his officers apparently are not at all waked up to the question, and oppose the idea of negro soldiers very strongly. They seem to have been living for a year with their old prejudices quietly slumbering--without coming in contact with the subject and its practical working as we have here, and so are not prepared for the change of opinion which has been silently advancing here. We did not think a year ago that these people would make soldiers, though it might be a wise measure to organize them for garrison duty to save the lives of our men in a climate they could not bear well and where no fighting would be necessary. Now it is a matter of fact, not opinion, as Colonel Higginson's report shows, that they will fight in open warfare, and will succeed in a certain sort of expedition when white men would fail, thus being too valuable an aid in putting down the Rebellion for us to give way to the prejudices of the mass of the soldiers. But I do not think it strange those prejudices exist, and they can only be removed by degrees.

The sales are to go on--how glad I shall be when the whole thing is settled! Dr. Brisbane thinks he has proof that Mr. Coffin is in jail in Charleston for Union sentiments,[115] so that he shall reserve his plantations for him. Mr. Philbrick may be able to lease them till the war is over, but if we take Charleston and if Mr. Coffin claims his own again, behold us! I don't know what the negroes would do, at first, if they thought Mr. Coffin was coming back to take possession of the lands--though they all acknowledge that when he was here there was no "confusion"--"that was all along de overseer." I suppose, if they were not taken by surprise and could understand matters, they would work for him as well as any one else; but a great deal would depend upon whom they had over them--they would not work under Cockloft again "first." They will be disappointed if Mr. Philbrick does not get this place.

FROM W. C. G.

_March 1._ The sale of lands, which was arrested by General Hunter's order, has recommenced by authority obtained from Washington. The generals commanding--Hunter and Saxton--are both interested in terms and regulations which will favor the negroes. I hear they are both added as, in some way, joint commissioners to those who have been acting in that capacity, with full powers to retain all lands in Government possession which may be wanted for military or educational purposes.[116] What plan they may adopt is not yet known; but we have already been called on for a complete census of the population, with a view to a land allotment of some kind. I pray it may not be by _gift_. I used to dread the effects of immediate emancipation and think it was the duty of a Christian nation to ease the passage from slavery to freedom with all kinds of assistance; but I am nearly satisfied that the best thing our Government can do, for the good of these people themselves, is simply to offer and enforce their acceptance of the advantages of civil law and education. I should hope that for a time the relations of employer and employed might be also watched and determined by law,--but more than this, anything in the form of _gifts_ and _charity_ will, I'm pretty sure, only relieve momentary distress at the expense of their development in manliness and independence. Very few will take a responsibility which they can in any way avoid, and not one in a thousand will refuse charity if offered, even when there is no slightest need of it. At the same time, they perfectly understand the rights of property, almost superstitiously appreciate the advantages of education, and will eagerly seize any opportunity they may have of acquiring the one or the other. As to these island people I feel no doubt that at least three out of five of the present children will be able to read and write when men and women, and that of the present generation of grown people, half a plantation at least would own land in their own right before four years had past,--if they were permitted to buy. Then how much better to throw them on themselves, to leave them to their own ambition and intelligence, when they have so much of both. Their inveterate suspicion of white kindness, too, joined to their ignorance, so clog the wheels of any system of charity like this of superintendence that for this reason alone I think it should cease. But they only too thoroughly comprehend the idea of _law_,--and are therefore well able to understand and be grateful for beneficent law, which at once protects and leaves them to themselves. "Let us alone"--the cry of their masters--really belongs to them and is their wisest demand.

I am anxiously hoping to be freed from this place by the sales and to return to my old neighborhood, and there to be able to accomplish something. This is but a stand-still experience, compared to our wishes. The people advance in spite of it. I believe almost the only real good I've done was to partially protect these people for three days from the soldiers.

FROM H. W.

_March 5._ C. came home at night with the news that the First South Carolina Volunteers started on an expedition[117] to-day which Colonel Higginson considers of very great importance, which will have very great results, or from which they will probably never return. Also that drafting has begun in Beaufort by Hunter's orders.

General Saxton has _passed his word_ to the people here that they shall not be forced into the army--I don't see what is to be the upshot of it--they will lose all confidence in us. Anywhere but here! Saxton himself gave Colonel Montgomery[118] leave to draft in Florida and Key West, but he had no need to--more recruits offered than he could bring away with him. I don't wish to find fault with my commanding general, but I have yet to be shown the first thing Hunter has done which I consider wise or fine. Saxton has had to go down more than once and persuade him not to execute his orders.

In the following letter the reference to Mrs. Wolcott and
McClellan has to do with that visit to Boston of the deposed
general which was made such a triumphal progress for him by
the conservatives of the town. The reference to Hallowell,
who had a commission in the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts, the
first colored regiment raised by a state government, is
interesting as further evidence of the prejudice against
negro troops.

_March 6._ C. brought me last night a long letter from S. descriptive of Mrs. Wolcott's party, McClellan, the fashions, and Hallowell's feeling at the position in which he places himself in going into a negro regiment. I wish he could see Colonel Higginson and his, but a Northern black regiment will be a very different thing from a Southern one--the men will have the vices of civilization from which these are free. Colonel Higginson is an enthusiast, but I do not see that he exaggerates or states anything but facts.

Then follow specimens of the conversation of Robert and
Rose, with which may be put here two others, really of later
date.

"Miss Hayiut, that your home?" Robert asked me this morning, looking at some colored pictures of the Crystal Palace I found in a _London News_ and nailed up in the entry yesterday! He's bound to go North with Mass' Charlie. If he expects to live in such a mansion I don't wonder he wishes to.

_Saturday, March 7._ If you could have seen Rose's astonishment this morning when she comprehended that the clock was not alive! I made her tell me what time it was, which she did successfully, and then, as she stood gazing at the minute-hand "move so fast," I said, "Yes, it is going all the time--it never stops." "No rest for eat?" she said with the utmost innocence; and when I told her it was not alive and did not need to eat, she was quite sure the pendulum must be if the hands were not.

[_March 10._[119]] Some instructions about cleaning up led me to ask Rose if she liked dirt, to which she replied, like a true Yankee, with the question, "Miss Hay't, you like um? You no like um, I no like um." A little while after, she got talking about "Maussa" and Cockloft; when I asked what she would do if she should see Mr. Coffin come here, she said, "I run," "dey bad." Oh, no, not bad, I guess. "Miss Hay't" (you have no idea how short it is, almost "Hat"), "you shum? [see 'em] Well, you do'no; I shum, I know."

[_Nov. 1._] "I say praise for you, 'cause I mind you," said Rose to me in her affectionate way this morning. She tames slowly, as Mr. Soule and I thought when we came home from riding this morning and saw her waiting for us at the entrance of the path on the beach turning somersaults on the sand! Her hands would appear high in the air, when suddenly her heels would be in their place! Yesterday morning she said: "Miss Hayiut, you gwine let me go home to-day for wash?" Yes, Rose, if you are a good girl. "Yes, _Ma'am_, me gwine be good girl, my contans [conscience] say, 'Rose, you be good girl, not make Miss Hayiut talk.'"

To return to H. W.'s letter of March 7:

We drove up to church and heard the text read for the first time! H. was not there, so we went there to dinner again, probably for the last time, as we found the places are really to be sold to-morrow. Mr. Philbrick hopes to be through with collecting the cotton in a fortnight, and then they will be able to come down here, as he can go to Beaufort once a week for a night or two until it is all ginned and shipped, and then they will go home.

The next letters return to the all-absorbing matter of the
land-sales. The opening paragraph refers to them and the way
they were being managed, as well as to the old question of
negro character and negro labor.

FROM C. P. W.

_March 8._ I should like to come home and make inquiries among my friends concerning Port Royal matters. I should like to take the part of an intelligent foreigner desiring to obtain information concerning this interesting experiment of free black labor. And when I had heard and written down their description of this enterprise, I should return to my friends here and read for their entertainment. How we should laugh; I must try it some day.

When the lands are finally sold, a great many entertaining questions will arise. Only the real estate will be sold; what is to be done with the cattle, the mules, the boats, the furniture, the carriages? How is the Government to be repaid for what it has spent on this year's crop? How are the reserved plantations to be worked by the Government?

The sale having taken place at last on March 9, the list
with which C. P. W. begins his next letter is of plantations
reserved from sale by the Government.

_March 10._ The Oaks, Oakland, where Mr. Hunn's Philadelphia Commission store is, Eddings Point, T. B. Fripp, my two McTureous places, the Hope Place, and a few others on the Sea Side road, about four at Land's End, etc., etc. Mr. Eustis and a Mr. Pritchard, living on Pritchard's Island, near Land's End, paid taxes before the sale. (Most of the places reserved were selected for the purpose of selling land to the negroes next year, after this crop is in.)

The General [Saxton] is afraid that some speculators may interfere with the plan for this year which has been started.[120] He has made certain promises to the people in regard to this year's crop, and he feels that he ought to be able to impose some conditions on purchasers. Of course he could not impose conditions under which the lands should be sold, but he still may, as Military Governor, enforce justice toward the people.

FROM H. W.

_March 10._ C. and Mr. Philbrick stopped at the nigger-house to see and tell the people of the result of the sale. At Fripp Point, which he also bought, the people were as usual unmoved and apparently apathetic, but here they were somewhat more demonstrative, and slightly expressed their pleasure. All the places he most cared for Mr. Philbrick was able to bid off, and two of C.'s old places, which he wanted but did not expect to get. So much is settled; but there is a great deal besides that it will take a long time and a deal of trouble to arrange--we don't know yet how much goes with the plantations, or when possession will be given.

The confirmation of the report that Hunter is going to draft these people causes a great deal of feeling, as Saxton has publicly promised them that they shall not be forced to join the army. They seem to understand that Hunter is in authority and Saxton can't help himself, C. says, and so have no ill feeling towards the latter; but they will hide, if possible, and it is hard to feel that they have been so treated as to make them as suspicious of a Yankee's word as they have always been of a white man's. I think it right they should go if they are needed,--the war is of more importance even than the experiment of free labor,--but to have them lied to so! Why was Hunter ever sent back here?

FROM C. P. W.

_March 14._ Mr. Philbrick has bought in all thirteen plantations,[121] at an expense of about $7000: three places for R., two for Wells, two for Hull on Ladies Island, six places within five miles of this place. I remain here, and shall probably assume Cherry Hill and Mulberry Hill, my old places; G. comes to Pine Grove, and takes that, the Point, and Captain John Fripp Homestead. The people are all starting well, we are in excellent spirits, and are in proper season for the crops; and "if God spare life," "if nothing strange happens," "if we live to see," we shall "_see_ crop make, sir."

This drafting business is simply folly. Hunter is an ignorant, obstinate fool.[122] General Saxton is very much opposed to the measure, especially after promising the men again and again that they would not be taken unless they were willing to go; but he says he has done all he can to dissuade Hunter without any effect, and if he should go further in the matter, either he or Hunter would have to go home, and he is not willing at this crisis to raise this additional difficulty. Hunter's order was published in the _New South_[123] last Monday. For a full week before the negroes had been anxiously questioning us about this strange news that "they want to take we to make soldiers." Up to Monday I was able to tell them that I had heard such stories, but did not believe them; but Tuesday night, when I got home, I told them how matters stood, and they confessed that for a full week before hardly a man on the plantation under sixty years of age had slept in his bed. A strange white face drives them from the field into the woods like so many quails; they will not go to church, they will not go to the Ferry. Two Sundays ago I happened to ask one of the elders at church, to make talk merely, how soon the next Society meeting took place at Pine Grove. It was last Saturday evening. My question to Demus was reported at the meeting, they immediately became suspicious of some trap to catch them, they grew anxious, a cry arose that there were soldiers out on the plantation, the men left the praise-house, and the meeting, instead of continuing all night, broke up about midnight with some confusion.[124] They were caught last year, they will not be caught again. They cannot understand how it is that the Government, for whom they have been working, and in whom they have learned to place confidence as a protection, should wish to interrupt their work here. It is a terrible discouragement to them, just as they are starting their first fair trial for themselves, to be forced, I do not say into the military service, for very few will be caught, but forced to abandon their crops, and skulk and hide and lead the life of hunted beasts during all this precious planting season. The women would be physically able to carry on for some time the men's share with their own, but they would be very much disheartened, and would need constant encouragement. Under this terrible uncertainty and fear, the work has begun to slacken. Even the head men on the plantations are losing courage. I make as light of the evil as I can, but I am always met by the remark: "We are a year older than we was last year, sir." Their trust in me is a little surprising. They converse in my presence about their dodging life, and I could easily take any ten of them I chose alone; or, with the aid of one other, I could take the whole plantation. "If we didn't trust to you, sir, we should have to leave the plantation entirely; you are the only person to protect we now, sir." It is hardly necessary to remark that their confidence is not misplaced. Help catch them? "I wouldn't do it first."

In accordance with Hunter's order, referred to above, Saxton
issued a general order to superintendents, which bade them
send to Captain Hooper a list of all able-bodied freedmen
between eighteen and fifty on the plantations, and
instructed them to urge the negroes to enlist by appealing
to "their reason, sense of right, their love of liberty and
their dread of returning to the rule of their late masters,"
adding: "The General Commanding expects to form a pretty
correct judgment of the comparative efficiency of the
different superintendents and the amount of influence for
good they are capable of exerting over their people, by the
proportion of the whole number subject to draft which they
are able to bring in without the aid of physical force."
Referring to this last sentence as a "mean insinuation," C.
P. W. goes on:

For my people, I know there is about as much use in asking them to enlist as in requesting my horse, a very intelligent animal, to drink salt water. I hope they will draft, they may possibly enlist, the loafers at Hilton Head and Beaufort, and those whose proximity to camps, or general worthless character, prevents them from taking much interest in their crops. But these men, who have been paid up in full for last year's crop, and have seen that their crop, slim as it was, brought them a fair compensation, are bound to show _a crop_ this year. Crop-raising is their business, their trade, and they intend to show what they can do at it this year for the Government, which protects them, for me, who "see them justice" (they have a vague idea that I reap a certain percentage from their crop--they say, "You will have a bigger crop of cotton than Mr. Philbrick, sir"--they also think that if I "overlook" four hundred hands, I ought to get more pay than a man who only sees to two hundred), and last, and principally, for themselves. They have not been learning cotton-raising, perforce, all these years for nothing. Now their enforced knowledge comes out in tending a crop of which they are to own a share, and the little tricks of the trade, which had to be watchfully enforced in the old time, are now skillfully produced, especially in the food crops, which are more evidently their own. I let them go ahead very much as they choose; I make regulations for the good of all, as in the matter of carts, oxen, etc., but the minutiæ I do not meddle with, except as a matter of curiosity and acquirement of knowledge. They work well, some of them harder than in the old time; the lazy ones are stimulated to exertion for their own benefit, the energetic ones _race like sixty_.

FROM H. W.

_March 13._ I had the sick people to visit, and C. was going over to the _Kingfisher_, our blockader, for coal-tar to plant corn with, so he went to the field and I was to make my professional calls for the Doctor, and meet him at the Creek at the nigger-house to take the row with him. Just as I came out of school, however, two officers of an Illinois regiment rode up to look about and see what they could see, and asked if they could have food for man and beast. So I left orders for some lunch, dressed, and started on my tour. I went through the quarters--not a man was to be seen. There lay the boat, and the women were coming in from their work, but said the men would not come till the officers had gone--they were afraid of being taken. C. had to beg the officers to go off the plantation, for he could not get his crew. Not a man sleeps at night in the houses, except those too old to be taken. They have made a camp somewhere and mean never to be caught. There is no question that they can hide; a slave here hid himself for two years on one of the little islands, though the whole district was after him; he finally came out himself.

FROM W. C. G.

_March 14._ On March 9th the estates were at last offered for sale. On our island two thirds were bidden in by the Government and I presume they will remain under the system of superintendence. The other third was bought by Mr. Philbrick and two or three sutlers. No agents of Southern owners and no dangerous speculators made their appearance, to my knowledge. Where any person evinced a desire to buy, the commissioners, by their bids, forced an offer of one dollar per acre and let the place go for that price. Several plantations, perhaps one in five or six, were bidden in for the special purpose of negro reservations; but in what way they will be offered to the people is undecided. Indeed, nothing is certain except that the sales have been made and titles given. I should have bought only two of my places in any case,--and that for the benefit of the people,--but it happened that both were among the number reserved. So I own none of the sacred soil.