Letters from Port Royal Part 26

[Footnote 109: Haunt of the drum-fish.]

[Footnote 110: The War Department ordered the sales to go forward, leaving the restrictions to be arranged by Hunter, Saxton, and the Commissioners in charge. See p. 165.]

[Footnote 111: Brigadier-General Edward E. Potter, Foster's Chief of Staff.]

[Footnote 112: That is, hoed over again and new furrows made for the next crop.]

[Footnote 113: Brigadier-General Thomas G. Stevenson, originally colonel of the Twenty-Fourth Ma.s.sachusetts, was arrested by General Hunter and soon after released.]

[Footnote 114: The immediate cause of this trouble was a disagreement about the extent of Hunter's authority over Foster and his command while they were in the Department of the South, but the underlying difficulty was that Foster and his officers distrusted Hunter as an anti-slavery zealot.

Finding that the operations against Charleston could not go forward immediately, Foster returned to North Carolina within a few days after his arrival in the Department of the South. His troops remained, so restive under Hunter's command that Foster's whole staff was presently sent back to North Carolina for alleged insubordination.]

[Footnote 115: This report turned out to be a mistake.]

[Footnote 116: That is, the revenue from the cotton on certain plantations was used for these purposes. A plantation thus devoted to the educational needs of the people was called a School Farm.]

[Footnote 117: To capture Jacksonville, on the St. John's River, Florida.]

[Footnote 118: Of the Second South Carolina Volunteers (colored).]

[Footnote 119: The bracket is used for unimportant dates which are out of their chronological place.]

[Footnote 120: See p. 147.]

[Footnote 121: Two of the thirteen were merely leased.]

[Footnote 122: H. W., commenting more mildly, says (Mar. 18): "He certainly has not a clear idea of what the superintendents and teachers are doing, and unfortunately cla.s.ses them as in opposition to himself,--as preferring the agricultural to the military department.

This I do not think is the case, but they most of them feel his want of wisdom in dealing with the subject, which has made his own especial object as well as theirs harder to accomplish."]

[Footnote 123: A short-lived newspaper published in the Department.]

[Footnote 124: H. W. describes another service that was broken up by this fear of the draft: "[May 2.] At church yesterday a squad of soldiers with their officer came from Land's End to the service, when a general stampede took place among the men, and women too, jumping from the windows and one man even from the gallery into the midst of the congregation."]

[Footnote 125: The boy.]

[Footnote 126: Captain J. E. Bryant, of the Eighth Maine.]

[Footnote 127: The Second South Carolina Volunteers (colored).]

[Footnote 128: Of the _Kingfisher_, the blockader.]

[Footnote 129: To be examined, adjudged not "able-bodied," and given exemption-papers.]

[Footnote 130: Second South Carolina Volunteers.]

[Footnote 131: A noticeable thing about the children of slaves was that they had no games.]

[Footnote 132: In the words of the order the command of the Department was taken from Hunter and given to Gillmore "temporarily."]

[Footnote 133: Rhodes' _History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850_, vol. iv, p. 332.]

[Footnote 134: Colonel Higginson had been sent up the South Edisto River, to cut the railroad at Jacksonboro.]

[Footnote 135: Whither the wounded had been brought.]

[Footnote 136: Edward N. Hallowell and Garth Wilkinson James, Major and Adjutant of the Fifty-Fourth.]

[Footnote 137: For the North.]

[Footnote 138: A few weeks later (July 15) General Saxton authorized the general superintendents to appoint plantation commissions, or courts for the administration of justice. The people eligible for these commissions were Government plantation superintendents and Mr.

Philbrick's six plantation superintendents, and they were instructed "that in cases where immediate arrest is in their opinion necessary, the plantation superintendents, and the persons above named, are hereby authorized themselves to make arrests of civilians upon the plantations. But they must exercise this power with great discretion, and will be held responsible for any abuse of it."]

[Footnote 139: Colonel W. W. H. Davis was in command of the post at Beaufort during Saxton's temporary absence.]

[Footnote 140: R. Soule, Jr., now one of Mr. Philbrick's superintendents, who, upon the departure of the Philbricks, had come to live at Coffin's Point.]

[Footnote 141: The rebel masters had told their slaves that the Yankees intended to sell them "South,"--that is, to Cuba or the Gulf.]

[Footnote 142: See note, p. 201.]

[Footnote 143: On board the _Kingfisher_.]

[Footnote 144: A Pennsylvanian, General Superintendent for St. Helena and Ladies Islands, since Richard Soule had resigned that position.]

[Footnote 145: That is, gathered.]

[Footnote 146: Admiral Dupont's flag-ship.]

[Footnote 147: The Fifty-Fifth Ma.s.sachusetts Volunteers (colored), which was in camp at Port Royal.]

[Footnote 148: Meaning, of course, plantations belonging to the Government.]

[Footnote 149: The "Mary Jenkins" place.]

[Footnote 150: Two hundred and sixty-five thousand pounds was "about as much as there was raised in the whole Department" in 1862.]

[Footnote 151: See p. 230.]

[Footnote 152: A letter dated December 28, 1863, inclosing $100 for the relief of families of freedmen. The letter gives figures that prove the success of the free labor experiment on Mr. Philbrick's plantations, and concludes as follows: "I mention these things to show how easy it is to render the negroes a self-supporting and wealth-producing cla.s.s with proper management; and I, at the same time, fully appreciate the duty imposed upon us as a nation to extend the arm of charity where the unsettled state of the country renders industry impossible until time is given to recognize and force to protect it. We are more fortunately situated than the people of the Mississippi valley, and have got the start of them."]

[Footnote 153: A letter dated January 25, 1864, and printed in the Providence _Journal_ on February 6.]

[Footnote 154: Land on the Sea Islands is now worth $15 an acre,--$20 if it is near a road.]

[Footnote 155: F. J. W. was in Boston at the time.]

[Footnote 156: William Birney, Brigadier-General and Commander of the Post at Beaufort during one of Saxton's absences, had, on March 30, issued an order to the effect that in all cases the negroes were to be left in possession of the land they claimed as theirs.]