Letters from Port Royal Part 6

_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, b.l.o.o.d.y 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 repet.i.tion 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 quant.i.ty 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 circ.u.mstances. 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 cla.s.s to those who have always lived on the islands. The success of armed negroes of this inferior cla.s.s would indicate the danger of the masters of other slaves of a higher cla.s.s, 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 circ.u.mstances. If they were a.s.sured 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 G.o.d 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 c.h.i.n.k 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 pa.s.s. 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 gla.s.s, 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.