Letters from Port Royal Part 25

[Footnote 62: Edward W. Hooper served on Saxton's staff, with the rank of Captain.]

[Footnote 63: He came with authority to raise negro troops.]

[Footnote 64: See p. 58.]

[Footnote 65: As Saxton's agent to collect and s.h.i.+p the cotton crop.

See p. 99.]

[Footnote 66: The superintendents of the Second Division of the Sea Islands.]

[Footnote 67: The negroes had broken the cotton-gins by way of putting their slavery more completely behind them.]

[Footnote 68: Again the cotton-agent.]

[Footnote 69: Evidently the offer of a captaincy.]

[Footnote 70: Of Prince Rivers, who became color-sergeant and provost-sergeant in the First South Carolina Volunteers, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, its colonel, writes: "There is not a white officer in this regiment who has more administrative ability, or more absolute authority over the men; they do not love him, but his mere presence has controlling power over them. He writes well enough to prepare for me a daily report of his duties in the camp; if his education reached a higher point, I see no reason why he should not command the Army of the Potomac. He is jet-black, or rather, I should say, _wine-black_; his complexion, like that of others of my darkest men, having a sort of rich, clear depth, without a trace of sootiness, and to my eye very handsome. His features are tolerably regular, and full of command, and his figure superior to that of any of our white officers, being six feet high, perfectly proportioned, and of apparently inexhaustible strength and activity. His gait is like a panther's; I never saw such a tread. No anti-slavery novel has described a man of such marked ability. He makes Toussaint perfectly intelligible; and if there should ever be a black monarchy in South Carolina, he will be its king." (_Army Life in a Black Regiment_, pp.

57, 58.)]

[Footnote 71: "These heaps are, _lucus a non_, called holes." C. P.

W.]

[Footnote 72: The First South Carolina Volunteers (colored), Thomas Wentworth Higginson, colonel.]

[Footnote 73: Usually referred to as the "Hunter Regiment."]

[Footnote 74: A town very near the extreme southern point of the Georgia coast.]

[Footnote 75: After Mitchel's death, Brannan again acted as head of the Department, till General Hunter's return in January, 1863.]

[Footnote 76: To the Dr. Jenkins plantation.]

[Footnote 77: Stone or seed-cotton is unginned cotton.]

[Footnote 78: Of course on almost all the plantations no taxes had been paid, so that the Government was at liberty to sell them at auction.]

[Footnote 79: That is, of drawing their own rations.]

[Footnote 80: General Hunter did not actually arrive until January.

See note 1, [now Footnote 75] p. 108.]

[Footnote 81: The $200,000 (mentioned on page 110) received by the Government for the crop of 1861.]

[Footnote 82: Saxton.]

[Footnote 83: This plan of operations was adopted by General Saxton.]

[Footnote 84: Dr. LeBaron Russell, of the Committee on Teachers of the Educational Commission.]

[Footnote 85: Taking the plantations as a whole, the Government lost in 1862 the whole $200,000 which it had cleared from the planters' big cotton crop of 1861.]

[Footnote 86: On Port Royal Island "whole fields of corn, fifty acres in extent, have been stripped of every ear before hard enough to be stored."]

[Footnote 87: Henry W. Halleck, since July 11 General-in-Chief of the Army, with headquarters at Was.h.i.+ngton.]

[Footnote 88: Another young Harvard graduate, cousin of H. W., come to teach the two Fripp schools.]

[Footnote 89: Mr. Philbrick had changed his residence to the Oaks.]

[Footnote 90: An inst.i.tution situated in Beaufort, managed by the New York Commission.]

[Footnote 91: Of Corporal Sutton Colonel Higginson says: "If not in all respects the ablest, he was the wisest man in our ranks. As large, as powerful, and as black as our good-looking Color-sergeant, but more heavily built and with less personal beauty, he had a more ma.s.sive brain and a far more meditative and systematic intellect. Not yet grounded even in the spelling-book, his modes of thought were nevertheless strong, lucid, and accurate; and he yearned and pined for intellectual companions.h.i.+p beyond all ignorant men whom I have ever met. I believe that he would have talked all day and all night, for days together, to any officer who could instruct him, until his companion, at least, fell asleep exhausted. His comprehension of the whole problem of slavery was more thorough and far-reaching than that of any Abolitionist, so far as its social and military aspects went; in that direction I could teach him nothing, and he taught me much.

But it was his methods of thought which always impressed me chiefly; superficial brilliancy he left to others, and grasped at the solid truth." (_Army Life in a Black Regiment_, p. 62.)]

[Footnote 92: Mr. Philbrick describes the feast: "I walked about for a half hour watching the carving, which was done mostly with _axes_, and the eager pressing of the hungry crowds about the rough board tables, by which each ox was surrounded. The meat didn't look very inviting."]

[Footnote 93: Miss Forten was of partly negro blood. H. W. says of her elsewhere: "She has one of the sweetest voices I ever heard. The negroes all knew the instant they saw her what she was, but she has been treated by them with universal respect. She is an educated lady."]

[Footnote 94: When General Hunter, bent on raising his negro troops, asked the Secretary of War for 50,000 muskets, "with authority to arm such loyal men as I find in the country, whenever, in my opinion, they can be used advantageously against the enemy," he added: "It is important that I should be able to know and distinguish these men at once, and for this purpose I respectfully request that 50,000 pairs of scarlet pantaloons may be sent me; and this is all the clothing I shall require for these people." (Hunter to Stanton, April 3, 1862.) Of the privates of the First S. C. V., when clothed in these trousers, Colonel Higginson writes: "Their coloring suited me, all but the legs, which were clad in a lively scarlet, as intolerable to my eyes as if I had been a turkey." (_Army Life in a Black Regiment_, p. 7.)]

[Footnote 95: On the Georgia coast.]

[Footnote 96: See p. 60.]

[Footnote 97: Mr. Philbrick was staying at Coffin's for a few days.]

[Footnote 98: The agreement made on April 8, between Mr. Philbrick and fourteen gentlemen, all but one of Boston, provided that Mr.

Philbrick, in whose name the land should be bought and who should have complete responsibility for managing it, should, after paying the subscribers six per cent. interest, receive one fourth of the net profits. Mr. Philbrick was to be liable for losses and without the right to call for further contribution; on the other hand, no subscription was to be withdrawn unless he ceased to superintend the enterprise. On his closing the business, the net proceeds were to be divided _pro rata_.]

[Footnote 99: Joe having gone back to his trade of carpenter, the domestic force now included a boy and a girl (daughter of Abel and sister of Hester), marvelously ignorant, even for a Sea Island field-hand. Uncle Sam, Robert's father, was acting as cook.]

[Footnote 100: A boy lately added to the corps of house-servants at Coffin's Point.]

[Footnote 101: From unwillingness to see the land owned by any one but negroes.]

[Footnote 102: A detachment from the Eighteenth Army Corps, under Major-General John G. Foster, had come to help in the operations against Charleston.]

[Footnote 103: The new postmaster for Beaufort.]

[Footnote 104: A cousin in the 24th Ma.s.sachusetts, which had come to Land's End as part of the "North Carolina army."]

[Footnote 105: For lumber up the St. Mary's River, which separates Georgia from Florida.]

[Footnote 106: See p. 162.]

[Footnote 107: The history of the Department had been defined as "a military picnic."]

[Footnote 108: A paper published at Beaufort.]