_Oct. 27._ When in Beaufort last Wednesday, I got leave to pay off my
people with my own funds, through the paymaster, Mr. Lee. So he came
here next day, and I advanced the funds, $649. I sent Joe out to tell
the people to come and get their money, but they didn't come with the
usual promptness; bye and bye two men came to sound the way, the rest
held back. I laughed at them and sent them off with the chink in their
pockets, after which the rest came fast enough. They were evidently
afraid of some trap to press them into United States service as
General Hunter did. I didn't have the slightest difficulty in
collecting what I had advanced last September. Every one paid it
cheerfully and thanked us for what they got. This payment was all in
specie. I don't think I shall be refunded in coin, and shall probably
lose the difference, which is now about $120, but I don't grudge them
this. I had rather let it go than see them paid in the paper currency
which they can't read or judge of. It will come to that bye and bye,
however, for I can't get any more coin here, and half of this money
may not come back again into my hands.
General Saxton is striving earnestly to fill up his brigade with
negroes, but finds it very slow work. The people are so well off on
the plantations they don't see why they should go and expose
themselves. Moreover, the way they were treated last summer is not
very attractive to them. Many of their officers abused them, and they
were very generally insulted by every white man they met. It will now
require a good deal of time and very judicious, careful treatment to
get rid of these impressions, particularly as some of the very
officers who abused and maltreated the men are still in General
Saxton's confidence and have places in his new organization.
I took this place[65] more because I want to see the work properly
done and to keep it out of the hands of speculators and sharks than
because I wanted the position. It is a useful position, however, and I
mean to make it so.
A meeting of superintendents[66] is to be held at the Episcopal Church
next Wednesday, which I shall attend, and employ the occasion by
trying to start some more methodical system of employing the negroes
than heretofore.
_Nov. 2._ At the meeting we discussed several methods of dealing with
the corn crop, and several of the superintendents reported that the
negroes had raised hardly enough corn to feed the plantation horses
and mules on when at work. The small yield of cotton was also talked
over and its causes discussed. I do not think it will pay expenses
even on this island. My own plantations will yield about $5000 worth,
when I expected $15,000, a good share of my crop having rotted in the
pods during the rains in the early part of October and another share
having dropped off the plant before filling, probably from lack of
drainage after the heavy July rains.
After returning from the meeting I found a large box of woolen goods
forwarded by Edward Atkinson. I sold $100 worth the next day. Though
providing for their wants quite freely, the people seem more frugal
with their money than last summer, and I am glad to see them so.
As far as I can learn now there are very few gins able to work[67] in
the department. I have some very good seed here and at Pine Grove
which I think I can gin on the spot. Mr. S.[68] came and spent a night
here. He came to hire some men to go with him to pick up a lot of
stray timber on commission for the Government. So my plans for ginning
cotton here are postponed for a while. I had flattered myself that we
were fairly rid of him, and the men were beginning to take an interest
in plantation work in his absence, but he turns up again just as
disagreeable as ever.
There have been great exertions made the week past to fill the ranks
of the first negro regiment. A Rev. Mr. Fowler has been appointed
chaplain and is at work recruiting, appealing to their religious
feelings. He spent two nights here and talked in the praise-house,
both evenings. The women came to hear him, but the young men were shy.
Not one came near him, nor would they come near me when he was
present.
The last time I saw General Saxton he seemed to think our whole
destiny depended on the success of this negro recruitment. It _is_
certainly a very important matter, but I think as before that it is
doomed to fail here at present, from the imbecile character of the
people. I thought while at work with Mr. Fowler that if I were to go
as Captain I might get a company without trouble, but I failed to get
a single man when seriously proposing it to them. If I had been able
to raise a company to follow me and the same men would not have gone
without me, I think I should have accepted General Saxton's offer,[69]
but although I consider the arming of the negroes the most important
question of the day, I don't feel bound to take hold unless I can give
an impetus to the undertaking. I think it would have been attended
with some degree of success a year ago at this place, directly after
the masters left, when the negroes had more spite in them and had seen
less of their facilities for making money which they have enjoyed this
summer, and if General Hunter had not made his lamentable blunder, the
men would not have been disgusted with camp-life at least, but it is
difficult enough to get any one of them to feel any pluck. We
succeeded in getting Ranty to promise to go, and he seemed quite
earnest, but when he came to start next morning he suddenly found he
had a pain in his chest! his heart failed him and he backed square
out. Next day he came over here and, after begging some time for me to
give him a shirt, without success, offered me in payment for it a
counterfeit half-dollar which I had told him a week ago was such, but
which he had meantime polished up and hoped to pass. So you see when a
man's heart fails him he will stoop to almost anything.
We had four couples married after church to-day, Andrew and Phoebe of
Pine Grove among the rest. Mr. Phillips tried to tie all four knots at
one twitch, but found he had his hands full with two couples at once
and concluded to take them in detail. They all behaved very well and
seemed impressed with the ceremony, so it certainly has an excellent
effect. We also had an address from Prince Rivers,[70] a black
coachman from Beaufort, who has been in General Hunter's regiment all
summer, and is of sufficient intelligence to take a lively interest in
the cause of enlistment. He has been to Philadelphia lately and comes
back duly impressed with the magnitude of the country and the
importance of the "negro question," but has not sufficient eloquence
to get many recruits. Of course the young men kept away from church
and will keep away, so long as the subject is discussed. They have
made up their silly minds and don't want to be convinced or persuaded
to any change.
You can imagine what a comfort it is to see Mr. G. again and looking
so well.
W. C. G., he who in June spoke so lightly of the dangers of
the Sea Island climate, had been dangerously ill during the
summer and had been obliged to go North for some weeks. In a
letter written October 30 he refers to the death of one of
the superintendents, adding, "It greatly startled me." A
month later another of the superintendents died in the same
house, which later proved fatal to still a third white man.
These three were cases of typhoid, but the malarial fever of
the district not infrequently was as deadly; on October 30
General Mitchel himself died of it. The fact as to the
climate is expressed in one of the letters by the statement
that fevers were "common among the negroes" and "universal
among the whites." A letter of Mr. Philbrick's, written
early in October, speaks of Captain Hooper's "indisposition"
as having cut down "the trio of tough ones" to himself and
Mr. Soule.