_Boston, February 19, 1862._ Dear ----: I think you will not be
greatly astonished when I tell you that I am off for Port Royal next
week. I go under the auspices of the Educational Commission to make
myself generally useful in whatever way I can, in reducing some amount
of order and industry from the mass of eight or ten thousand
contrabands now within our lines there. Boston is wide awake on the
subject, and I am determined to see if something can't be done to
prove that the blacks will work for other motives than the lash.
The Treasury Department offer subsistence, protection, transportation,
and the War Department offer their hearty coöperation to the work
undertaken here by private citizens, but can't take any more active
part at present for reasons obvious. They ridicule the idea that
these blacks can ever again be claimed by their runaway masters, which
is a satisfactory foundation for our exertions in overseeing their
labor and general deportment.
You don't know what a satisfaction it is to feel at last that there is
a chance for me to _do something_ in this great work that is going on.
The next letter describes the sailing of the first party of
superintendents and teachers.