After dinner we visit the negroes in their cabins. The _home life_ of
the freedmen is at once the most noticeable and most interesting feature
of their new condition. Even in former days, however often the sanctity
of their homes may have been violated, with however weary limbs and
suffering souls they may have gone to them, yet here they must have
found their chiefest joy. Now, the humble cabins have become
transfigured, and we find therein not only joy, but peace and comfort,
and, indeed, in greater or less degree, every element of that domestic
order which makes the home the corner stone of our free institutions. I
have frequently, when conversing with the freedmen about the flight of
their former masters, asked them why they did not accompany them, and
have invariably received the reply, 'Oh, sah, we couldn't do dat. We
belongs yere. _Dese are our homes._' This strong attachment to the soil,
which has been made still stronger by the removal of everything which
could in any way remind them of their former condition, has proved to be
the great _lever_ to raise them into the dignity of free laborers. It is
true their cabins are not yet free-holds; but the assurance that,
unless the Government itself fails, no fault or misfortune of another
can ever deprive them of their homes, puts them at once on their good
behavior, that they may retain in their possession what they prize so
dearly. The good results of this transformation of the home are seen in
every direction. The marriage relation is observed with a constantly
increasing strictness. Family ties are knitted more closely together.
Parents take a deep interest in the education of their children, and the
children become in turn teachers to the parents of much that is
improving and civilizing. In the field there are generous rivalries
between families to see which will cultivate the largest patches of corn
and cotton. Greater neatness and order are observable about the
dwellings, and wherever new cabins have been erected--always by negro
carpenters--there has been marked improvement in the style and comfort
of the buildings. Freedom has also created new wants, and the freedman
purchases from time to time, as he has ability, articles of luxury and
of ornament for his home.
I must, however, acknowledge a feeling of disappointment at not finding
the negroes more joyous in this new condition of freedom and progress.
Those who know them best--the superintendents and teachers--testify to
the happiness of their daily lives and their light-hearted enjoyment of
all their blessings; but to the casual observer there seems to be a
general absence among the freedmen of that cheerfulness and mirth which
he naturally expects to find in their homes. A simple explanation of
this fact may be found in the _sense of insecurity_ which the uncertain
issue of the civil war that rages about them creates in their minds.
They have seen one after another of those islands which have been in our
possession given up to the reoccupation of the rebels; the disastrous
battles of James's Island and Pocotaligo and the fruitless campaigns in
Florida are fresh in their minds; while that wearisome waiting for
something to be accomplished which spreads such a spirit of restlessness
and discontent among our soldiers, is felt even more keenly by the
freedmen. There is very much in the uncertainties of their present
condition to justify the favorite allusion of their preachers, who often
compare the freedmen to the children of Israel before they had fairly
gained the promised land. Until a permanent peace shall give to these
people that feeling of security, without which, though there may be
contentment, there can be little joyousness, it is absurd for us to
'require of them mirth,' or ask them to sing songs of gladness.