_Captain Oliver Fripp's Plantation, June 9._ I came here, in
consequence of a letter received from Mr. Pierce, asking me to take
charge over some plantations here. There is a Mr. Sumner here,--lately
arrived,--who is teaching. The place is quite at the other end of the
island from Coffin's Point. At present I am by no means settled; it
seems like jumping from the 19th century into the Middle Ages to
return from the civilization and refinement which the ladies
instituted at Coffin's to the ruggedness of bachelor existence.
_June 22._ In regard to danger of sickness, I hear much about it,--but
I think it is exaggerated. The white overseer stayed on Edgar Fripp's
Plantation--close by--all summer. The planters generally went to
Beaufort or the Village, but I think very much as we go out of town in
summer. The summer was the fashionable and social time here, when the
rich people lived together, gave parties, etc.
_July 6._ The people do not work very willingly,--things are not so
steady as they have become at Coffin's. The district is even more
exposed to the influence of visits to and from the camps.
We had quite a celebration for the people on the Fourth. A stage was
erected near the old Episcopal church in a cool grove of live-oaks,
all grey with long trails of Southern moss. A large flag was obtained
and suspended between trees across the road--it was good to see the
old flag again. The people had been notified the previous Sunday, and
I should think about a thousand were present, in gala dress and mood,
from all parts of the island. When the ladies, the invited
superintendents from Port Royal, and the General (Saxton)[48] had
taken their seats, the people marched up in two processions from each
direction, carrying green branches and singing. Under the flag they
gave three rousing cheers, then grouped around the stage. The children
from three or four of the schools marched in separately. After a
prayer and some native songs, Mr. Philbrick, the General, and the
_Times_ reporter addressed them, and then one of the old darkies got
on the stage and in an ecstasy of obedience and gratitude exhorted
them to share his feelings, I believe.
For an hour and a half there was a general press for the hard
bread, herring, and molasses and water. When everything was
devoured, the superintendents rode up to "the Oaks,"--Pierce's
headquarters[49],--and had a collation. So much for Fourth of July. It
was strange and moving down here on South Carolina ground, with the
old flag waving above us, to tell a thousand slaves that they were
freemen,[50] that that flag was theirs, that our country now meant
their country, and to tell them how Northerners read the
Declaration--"All men are born free and equal." The people had a grand
time, they say, and seem really grateful for it. It was a new thing
for them, a Fourth of July for the negro. In old times they worked, if
with any difference, harder than usual, while their masters met and
feasted and drank.
The rest of this extract is an expression--which will be
followed later by many like it--of the sense that people in
the North were getting too complacent a notion of what had
been done and what could be done for the Sea Island negroes.
Pierce's report[51] has too much sugar in it. His statements are
facts, but facts with the silver lining out. The starving, naked
condition of the blacks was much exaggerated when we started to come
down here.
_July 25._ On the whole, affairs conduct themselves pretty quietly and
regularly. The cases of discipline are the most vexing and amusing. It
is a peculiar experience to be detective, policeman, judge, jury, and
jailer,--all at once,--sometimes in cases of assault and battery, and
general, plantation _squows_,--then in a divorce case,--last Sunday in
a whiskey-selling affair; a calf-murder is still on the docket.
The next letter is the first from C. P. W., who went to Port
Royal early in July, on the same steamer with Charles F.
Folsom of Harvard, '62, who is often mentioned in the
letters that follow, and with several other young
Massachusetts men who had volunteered as superintendents.