_Jan. 23._ I think I suggested in a previous letter the possibility of
my staying here. Sherman's operations have opened a wider sphere for
negro work and thrown a great number of refugees into our hands. And
his approaching campaign will have a similar effect. General Saxton
has been appointed "Inspector General," with control of all negro
affairs from Key West to Charleston and thirty miles inland. The first
thing proposed is to recolonize Edisto and the other deserted Sea
Islands with the refugees, and men are wanted to assist in their
settlement. I have been offered a situation of this kind, or rather
the General has simply asked a few of us to stay, and Mr. Tomlinson,
Folsom, and myself will all remain for the present at least. I know
nothing more than this, but I look forward to a rough life, something
like our first year here. I shall probably go to Edisto in a day or
two. There will be no danger from attack, etc., as a regiment is to be
stationed there. The island is described by all as the finest and
healthiest of all the Sea Islands.
If there is any movement afoot in Boston for the assistance of the
negro refugees that Sherman's operations throw into our hands, it can
be of the greatest benefit. The efforts three years ago were made
chiefly for persons left in their own homes, and with their own
clothing and property, besides their share of the plunder from their
masters' houses. And in many cases too much was given. But now
hundreds and thousands are coming in, shivering, hungry, so lean and
bony and sickly that one wonders to what race they belong. Old men of
seventy and children of seven years have kept pace with Sherman's
advance, some of them for two months and over, from the interior of
Georgia; of course little or nothing could be brought but the clothing
on their backs and the young children in arms. Since their arrival in
comparatively comfortable quarters, great sickness has prevailed, and
numbers and numbers have died. The Government gives them rations, and
has tried to give out clothing. But if clothes, cooking utensils,
etc., can be sent by Northern friends, nowhere can generosity be
better extended.
_Savannah, Feb. 16._ As you see, my destination has been changed.
General Saxton needed a kind of colonization office here, and I am
sent as an assistant. How long this will continue my headquarters I
don't know. I am writing in a very large and fine house formerly
occupied by Habersham, rebel. It is full of fine furniture. Our
office, too, is one of the City Bank buildings. The prices are regal,
too--$15 per week for board, _e. g._
_Mar. 7._ The work at the office continues the same in kind, and the
stream of waiters increases. We hope to send quite a company off to
some of the more distant islands before long, but are terribly
embarrassed for want of transportation. First, no steamer! then no
coal! And when one can be had, the other can't. General Saxton is
still, as ever previously, left to get round on one leg. His work is
of course always inferior in importance to the needs of the military
service, so there is never an absence of reason for refusing him what
he wants. "Bricks!--without straw," has so far been the usual
fortune. Soon a gentleman is going out towards the Ogeechee to report
numbers and condition there. It seems to be a Central Asia, from the
population that swarms in for rations. Compared with those who apply,
few are allowed them. No one who can show a finger to pick with and
reports an oyster to pick, is allowed to come on the Government for
support.
Here follows the last letter from G., written three months
later, not long before he came away.