IV. Major M. R. Delany, 104th United States Colored Infantry, will proceed at once to the Military District of Port Royal, and the Sea Islands in the Military District of Charleston, South Carolina, and inspect, and report upon the condition of the population therein, according to the instructions received from the major general commanding. Commanding officers will afford Major Delany all necessary facilities.
The quartermaster’s department will furnish the necessary transportation.
By command of
Major General D. E. Sickles.
W. L. M. Burger, Asst. Adjt. Gen.
While on the eve of setting out on his tour of inspection, a report had reached Hilton Head that the negroes of Port Royal Island had matured an insurrection, to take place on Christmas night, their headquarters being Beaufort. At first no person paid sufficient attention to a rumor so silly; but finally it magnified into an alarm, which caused the major to be sought out by many of the white citizens and some of the military, and requested to take a detachment of troops, and make Beaufort his first point of inspection. This was Christmas Eve.
Believing that “the better part of valor is discretion,” and to make assurance doubly sure, he at once made a requisition for a detachment of the 21st United States Colored Troops, then doing duty at the post. A part of Company E was detailed, under command of a sergeant, with other assistant non-commissioned officers. On Christmas night the transport steamer Sampson, Dennett, master, was ordered, which carried him to Beaufort, though, in consequence of a fog, he did not reach that point till five o’clock the next morning; not in time to quell an insurrection of the evening before, but in good season to learn from the “rising inhabitants,” that among the most quiet and pleasant evenings of the year was that which had just given place to the morning; and the insurrection-haunted whites of the island could again repose in peace, until the next report would awake them.
Completing his official duties at Beaufort, the next point of importance was Edisto, where he went by advice of Major General Sickles. Here he met, at the headquarters of Captain Batchelor, commanding a detachment of United States forces, a delegation of the old planters, at the head of which was Jacob Jenkins Mikell, Esq., formerly one of the largest cotton-growers of Sea Island.
The 1st of January found him here, and he attended an immense gathering of the freed men at their emancipation celebration. He addressed them, and in the course of his advice endeavored to disabuse their minds of the expectation of obtaining land, which he foresaw, and believed from the course of events then transpiring, would not be realized. On account of this advice he was misrepresented by ignorant, though well-meaning, as well as mischievous and designing persons, the latter induced, doubtless, by their mercenary proclivities. The people were led to believe that he was opposed to their interest, and in that of the planters. But the greater portion of these freedmen have since learned whether or not his advice on that occasion was in their favor or that of others.