The tools were all marked before they left headquarters with a Greek cross—on the steel or iron part they were stamped with a steel die and the wood handles were burned with an iron die.
This marking served many purposes. There was an indescribable respect for the Red Cross among the people it served and its insignia was its representative which meant a great deal for them.
It removed a temptation; they were instructed that those implements were only loaned and must not see idle days, and were to be passed on to the next workmen when their labors were finished. The marking made them undesirable property and none were lost, though hundreds were at work all the time. Many were broken, and the pieces were returned to headquarters, mended and put into circulation again.
Other sets of workmen were those who opened old drains and made new ones through the low farming portions of the islands. These men generally worked one week in relays of twelve. (A more detailed account of these drains will be found in the general field agent’s report.) Six months later, when the high water came, a few who had refused to go into these relays of workmen and open the drains, lost much of their crop—could a rebuke have been more eloquent?
All the workmen were paid from headquarters through their overseer, who received the clothing, grits and meat, and proportioned it to each man. In all cases where a man worked, he received the regular weekly allowance of one peck of grits and one pound of meat, in addition to what he received for his work.
The spirit shown by these people, after they had been instructed in the demoralizing effect of free and plenteous distribution, was remarkable: they did not beg for food, they asked for work, and the Red Cross made work for them.
The relief supply was received at three points: the railroad station, about one and a quarter miles from headquarters, the steamer “Pilot Boy,” bringing goods from Charleston, and the “Alpha,” bringing a few goods from Savannah. Freight was brought to headquarters in small carts drawn by horses or cattle of any kind, and it was always an interesting sight to the stranger: the animals were driven with a bit, with ropes for harness, and in most instances the bend of a tree had been sawed out and used as saddles, on which were ropes or wire holding up the shafts, with burlap or crudely made cushions to protect the animal’s back—all indications of the primitive condition of a people who were to be the wards of the Red Cross for a year, but who were also to be given an object lesson in practical life which was more to them, more to the country, than the little allowance of grits and meat to which they must add something more to support their families. “They must not eat the bread of idleness,” said our president. “We must not leave a race of beggars, but teach them the manliness of self-support, and methods of self-dependence.”
The distributing was done through sub-committee men, representing anywhere from five people into the hundreds. They were the appointees of the local relief committee and retained to the end of the field, with but few exceptions. They came weekly, tri-monthly and monthly; those who came thirty and forty miles in crude boats were given supplies enough to last a month, for it was a long and sometimes difficult journey.
Each sub-committee man presented himself at headquarters and was referred, in his turn, to the main office, where an order was issued for whatever the notes of the investigating committee called for—grits, meat, nails, hatchets, saws, lumber and clothing the most frequent.
These orders were brought to the shipping room, where they were filled, marked with name of sub-committee man, his address and a Red Greek Cross, the insignia which would entitle it to protection and many times free transport to its destination. A complete record of this was made in the shipping room.