A geographical description of these outlying islands of South Carolina
is hardly necessary at a time when we are studying the map of the
republic under the guidance of bayonets and rifled cannon; and the guns
of Admiral Du Pont revealed more of Port Royal and its surroundings than
we should ever have learned from our geographies. Previous to the
rebellion these islands seem to have been rarely visited--so rarely,
indeed, that the presence of one of our naval vessels in the Beaufort
river, a few years ago, was the signal for a week's festivities and a
general gathering of all the inhabitants to see the strangers--while
the 'cotton lords' vied with each other in entertaining the
distinguished guests. For the most part the islands are low, abounding
in salt-water creeks and marshes, and covered, here and there, with
forests of pine and live oak. The climate in winter is delightful, and
the rapid advance of vegetation in March and April--the sudden bursting
into bloom of a great variety of flowers and flowering shrubs--lends
additional charms to the early spring. Sitting, on one of those
delicious April days, in the upper piazza of an old plantation
house--the eye resting on the long stretch of the cotton fields, now
green with the growing plant--or tracing the windings of the creek
through the numerous small islands, till it is lost in the haze which
covers all the distance--or, again, watching the shadows as they pass
over the groves of oak and pine--while over the whole scene there broods
the stillness of a midsummer's noon--I could but wonder at the madness
which had driven the former dwellers in such a fair land into the
desperate hazards and unaccustomed privations of civil war.
Those who visit these islands to-day, must not expect to realize, in the
altered condition of affairs, their ideal of plantation life, however
that ideal may have been formed. The change which has been wrought in
little more than a year, is truly wonderful. The traces of slavery may
indeed be found in an exhausted soil and an exhausted race, but all
outward signs of the institution have been removed. 'The whip is lost,
the handcuff broken,' the whipping post destroyed, and the cotton gins
broken down. At the 'great house' you find, instead of the master and
overseer, the superintendent and school teacher. In the field, the
cotton tasks are comparatively small, but the garden patch in the rear
of the cabin is large, well fenced in and well cultivated. If you see
few indications of positive happiness, you find no appearances of
overburdened misery. There is about the whole place something of the air
of a New England farmstead, where labor, being honored, crowns even the
humblest with dignity and peace. You take unspeakable comfort in the
fact, that, open what door you may into the life of these people, there
is no _skeleton_ of oppression to startle and haunt you. Go with me,
then, on this calm, bright day of early March, to visit one of the
plantations on Port Royal Island, a few miles out of Beaufort. The
quartermaster kindly furnishes us with a carriage, somewhat shabby and
rickety to be sure, but one of the best that 'Secesh' has left for our
use. Our steeds, too, are only slow-moving Government mules, but there
is one aristocratic feature of our establishment to remind us of the
life that was, viz.: a negro coachman 'educated to drive,' under whose
skilful guidance many a happy family party have been conveyed from
plantation to plantation on social visits like ours to-day. Uncle Ned
speaks kindly of his 'ole massa,' and says he 'would hab stayed wid 'um,
ef massa hadn't run away from heself.'
'But why didn't you _go_ with him, uncle?'
'Oh, sah, I could nebber go to de Secesh.'
Doubtless many more of the house slaves and body servants of the
planters would have followed their masters, had they not been deterred
by fear of the rebel soldiers and hard work in the trenches.
'Use your whip, uncle,' and away we go at a respectable trot over the
principal road on the island, which, from the fact of its having been
made of oyster shells, is called the 'Shell road,' and extends ten miles
to Port Royal Ferry, at the extreme western point of the island. Timely
showers have laid the dust, and all the trees and bushes wear clean
faces. In the yards there are peach trees in bloom, beautiful crimson
japonicas, the jonquil and snowdrop; while everywhere by the roadside
we see the ungainly form and coarse flower of the prickly pear. Passing
the rifle pits and picket station, we soon turn off from the Shell road,
and pass through what was formerly a handsome forest of pines, but which
now has been cleared by the soldier's axe, and rejoices in the title of
'pickpocket tract.' Few of the plantations lie on the main road, and
many of them, like the one we are now seeking, are approached only by
going over several cross roads and by lanes. Our last turn takes us into
a handsome avenue of live oaks, whose overarching branches are adorned
with long ringlets of the graceful Spanish moss. In the woods on either
side of the drive way are dogwood and Pride-of-Asia trees in full
blossom, wild honeysuckle, and the sweet yellow jasmine which fills the
air with its delicious fragrance. As we drive into the yard, the
plantation house suddenly appears to view, half hidden by the dense
foliage of magnolia and orange trees. Although called one of the finest
residences on the island, the house is inferior to many of our larger
farmhouses in New England, and is a simple two-story structure of wood,
resting on brick piles, with a veranda in front. Just beyond the path
that leads by the house, is a handsome flower garden, while both in the
rear of the 'great house' and beyond the flower garden are rows of negro
huts. We are soon greeted by our hosts--one, a brave Vermonter, who
served faithfully in the army till disabled, the other, a Quaker of
Philadelphia, who has left family and friends to labor for the
freedman--and ushered into the principal room of the house, where we are
presented to a party of the neighboring superintendents and school
teachers. Dinner is all ready, and we sit down to a right royal
entertainment, the chief dishes of which are portions of an immense
_drumfish_ cooked in various fashion. Few entertainers can prove more
agreeable than Northern men with Southern hospitality, and we eat and
make merry without even a thought of Colonel Barnwell, whose home we
have thus 'invaded,' and who, perchance, is shivering in the cold, and
suffering the privations of a rebel camp in Eastern Virginia. We must
not omit the praise due to our cook, a woman taken from the 'field
hands,' and whose only instructors have been our hosts, neither of whom
can boast of much knowledge of the art of cooking. It would, however, be
hardly safe to trust to an untutored field hand, as I once learned to my
cost, when my contraband of the kitchen department called me to dinner
by announcing that the eggs had been boiling for an hour, and the
oysters stewing for twice that time!