_Pine Grove, May 25._ We received the Philadelphia bacon and salt
herring about a week ago and divided it among the cotton-workers. I
have also distributed a part of the salt you sent. This allowance of
bacon was given once a fortnight and _weekly_ at this season by the
different masters, and the quart of salt monthly. Several plantations
near Beaufort which had been stripped of their corn by the army have
been referred to me for supplies. I have loaded three flat-boats from
the corn-barns here and at Coffin's, where there was a surplus,
sending off 285 bushels shelled corn in all. The removal of this corn
from my barns gave occasion for some loud and boisterous talking on
the part of some of the women, and made the driver of this plantation
feel very sober, but I pacified them by telling them the Government
showed its determination to provide for them by this very act, for
here were several plantations on Ladies Island, destitute of corn,
which might have been fed with much less trouble from the pile of
bacon and herring recently received, but that the Government did not
consider _that_ a just division of good things, so they sent me a part
of the bacon and fish, and took my corn to feed the destitute.
Thereby, said I, you are all gainers, for you have corn enough left to
last till potatoes come, and you get the bacon besides, for which you
ought to be thankful. The noisy ones stopped their clamor and the
sensible ones thanked me and hoped I would stay and take care of them,
saying they had about given up hopes of seeing any more meat in their
lives, and were very thankful for even this bit to grease their hominy
with.
The people are taking hold of the cotton-fields with much more heart
than I had feared, after the levy of recruits two weeks ago. The
cotton has been mostly hoed once and is growing well under the
favorable weather. Some of the corn is five feet high and it is all
hoed and ploughed except the latest portion, which was planted this
month. A small portion of the cornfields has been neglected, being the
portions assigned to some of the men who are absent. There were ten
young men belonging at Coffin's Point who escaped notice on the day of
the levy, but who, on learning that I had called for them, came and
delivered themselves up next morning. I sent them on towards Beaufort
and they met Mr. Pierce on the road. He told them that General Hunter
did not want their service against their will, and as they preferred
to return home they did so. I had just organized the whole gang anew
after this, when Mr. S.,[42] who I thought was gone for good, turned
up with an order to collect cotton on the mainland, and requested me
to let him have a boat's crew to explore for two days. I told him the
men were all organized and at work, each on his own acre, but if he
couldn't get men elsewhere I should not refuse for such a short time.
The men came back on the third day without Mr. S. and notified me that
he had hired them (and two more joined them, making twelve in all) to
collect cotton for a month or two on the neighboring territory beyond
our previous pickets, under protection of scouting-parties detached
for the purpose. The men were offered fifty cents per day, and as I
had no authority to offer _anything_ definitely, except, a house to
live in and their allowance of corn, I told them they were free to go
where they pleased, but advised them to stay. Of course they all went
off, but have been back twice since to spend a night and have gone
again this morning. They are nearly all active young men and are
pleased with this roving sort of life, but you may imagine how fatal
such a state of things is to my efforts at organization, and how
demoralizing upon the general industry of those remaining at home
these visits of the rovers are, to say nothing of the breaking up of
old gangs and abandoning allotments of land. Some of these men who
were about to go with Mr. S. told me their wives would carry on their
tasks while they were gone, and I told them that if they would do so I
would let them avail themselves of the proceeds of their labor, but if
these patches should be neglected, I should assign them to other men,
and their planting labor would be forfeited. Thus far I find but one
neglected patch, and unless this is soon hoed by some of the friends
of the sick woman to whom it belongs, I shall have to assign it to
some one else. It is a common practice among them to hire each other
to hoe their tasks, when sickness or other causes prevent them from
doing it themselves, so that most of the tasks of the lying-in women
are taken care of by sisters or other friends in the absence of their
husbands.
The more I see of these people the more surprised I am that they
should have done so much as they have this year without any definite
promise of payment on our part, and with so little acquaintance with
us. The course we have been obliged to pursue[43] would not have got
an acre planted by Irish laborers. I do not think it the best course,
but under the existing confusion it was _only_ one. If we were
authorized to say that we could pay a definite sum per one hundred
pounds for cotton raised, or a definite sum per month for certain
services performed, we might have accomplished much more, but under
the present arrangement I doubt if we can do the usual work for next
year's crop, _i. e._, in preparing manure. The only men left upon
these plantations are the old ones and they are not fit to cut the
marsh-grass commonly used for cotton manure. The only way I can get
the cornfields ploughed is by asking the drivers to take the ploughs
in their own hands, which they do very cheerfully and with good
effect, each one ploughing three or four acres per day. I do not
think the hands can be expected to work on all summer without further
payments of money or some equivalent. I wait rather anxiously for the
development of Captain or rather _General_ Saxton's instructions. He
has not arrived yet, but is daily expected.
The two thousand five hundred yards of cloth you sent me is all sold
with the exception of about three pieces, and paid for in cash; a few
have said they had no money and ask me to set it down in the book for
them to pay when they get money from the cotton. I always trust them
in this way when they desire it, and find them very reluctant to run
up a long score. My willingness to trust them gives them confidence
that they will be paid for their cotton labor, and though the "white
folks" at Hilton Head are telling them that the cotton crop is a mere
speculation on our part, I don't think they listen much to them. One
man told me to-day that nobody could cross the sill of my door to harm
me or my ladies while he could prevent it. This same man was sent by
his master, the day that Hilton Head was taken, with a fleet of
flat-boats, to bring the secession soldiers away from their forts.
W. C. G. says of the situation at this time:
_May 27._ Between the gradual settling of affairs, the people's
growing confidence in us and in the Government as paymasters, and the
absence of the unruly men, the plantations are getting on quite
nicely. The land, both corn and cotton, has been divided and allotted
to the hands,--so a new system of labor[44] is--on our places--already
inaugurated.