“After all, my dear general, the government will do as it sees best in this matter. My order can be reversed at its pleasure. But, of myself, it would be doing some violence to my own views of duty to make the change you desire in the system therein indicated. But allow me to express to you my warmest thanks for the thoughtful and considerate manner in which you have done me the honor to write. Although we may differ in our views in one or two points,—both admitted to be delicate ones,—it will not permit any change of my exalted opinion of your talents and your personal character.”
But the generals were only wasting time in discussing the negro problem, for by the next steamer, early in March, there descended on the Department of the South, like the locusts on Egypt, a swarm of treasury agents and humanitarians, male and female, all zealously bent on educating and elevating the “freedmen,” as they immediately dubbed the blacks. The irreverent young officers styled these good people the “Gideonites,” and were disposed to make all manner of fun of them; but among the number were persons of the highest respectability and purest motives, and they undoubtedly accomplished some good. They met with a cold and ungracious reception from General Sherman, who declared that their coming was uncalled for and entirely premature, and incontinently packed them off to Beaufort to the care of General Stevens, thus washing his hands of them.
The latter treated them with the utmost courtesy and kindness, assigned them good quarters in town, and detailed a capable and gentlemanly young officer, Lieutenant H.G. Belcher, of the 8th Michigan, to see to their comfort and needs. He not only gave them every facility and assistance in his power in their care of the blacks, but took a real interest in their mission, talked and advised with the chiefs, and exerted a decided and salutary influence in modifying some of their crude and extravagant ideas, and bringing them down to judicious and practicable measures. It is a curious fact that in several instances he had to curb the attempts of some of the more zealous, who strove to work the blacks harder than their old masters did. Always frank and outspoken in his opinions, and differing widely from many of the views of these visitors, General Stevens impressed them with his sincere and earnest sense of duty, and won their gratitude and goodwill. Hon. Edward L. Pierce, the biographer of Sumner, who was the chief agent, thus acknowledged their feelings and obligations toward General Stevens:—
“General Stevens was an officer with whom subordination was a controlling duty. The order for sending able-bodied negroes to Hilton Head to be armed imposed on him an uncongenial service, but he performed it faithfully and with dispatch, and even aided in the selection of the officers to drill them. His preconceived opinions, although he desired them humane treatment, were understood to be unfavorable to an effort at the present time to raise them to intelligent citizenship; but to the industrial and educational movement to that end he offered no opposition, but gave to it in good faith his official protection and aid, and the special agent of the Treasury Department, who was charged with its direction, never asked facilities which he denied, often more being granted than was requested. The better part of the territory to which that movement applied was under his command, and its friends will gratefully remember him for his personal courtesies and honorable coöperation.”
Mrs. Stevens also arrived on the same steamer to visit her husband, with her youngest daughter, Kate, a beautiful and engaging little girl of ten, and remained nearly a month. Their visit was a great solace to General Stevens, and the last time he was to see them.
The Washington ladies, Mrs. Johnson and Miss Donelson, their neighbors and warm friends for four years, came with the Gideonites, actuated by benevolence. Other visitors were Mr. Caverly, whom General Stevens had met in Washington, and his beautiful young wife. He was in the last stages of consumption, and the general had him taken into his own quarters and carefully nursed and cared for until his death. Hon. John M. Forbes, of Milton, Mass., and his wife, whose son, William H. Forbes, was an officer of the 1st Massachusetts cavalry, then at Beaufort, also visited there that winter; and Hon. W.J.A. Fuller, of New York, an eminent lawyer, and brother to Captain Charles A. Fuller, was another visitor.
During all this time General Stevens was chiefly engaged in training and disciplining his command. Besides company and battalion drills in the forenoon, brigade drills were had four afternoons a week, usually in some extensive cotton-field below the town, and occasionally these drills were varied by movements through timber, bridging and crossing streams, or overcoming other obstacles, the three arms being exercised to act in concert. There was no other brigade in the armies on either side that was put through such a complete and thorough course of brigade drill as General Stevens gave his command at Beaufort. Schools of instruction for officers and for non-commissioned officers were also vigorously kept up. The picketing of the widely extended and exposed points on the islands involved a line twenty-five miles in extent, and was a severe task on the troops. An entire regiment was required for this duty, and was changed every ten days. To insure the vigilance of the pickets, General Stevens organized a system of nightly inspections by members of his staff and other officers specially sent out from Beaufort, in addition to the grand rounds and inspections by their own officers. Besides the staff officers already mentioned, Lieutenant Benjamin R. Lyons, of the 50th Pennsylvania, and Lieutenant A. Cottrell, of the 8th Michigan, were detailed as aides, and Captain Charles A. Fuller took the place of Captain Lilly as quartermaster, the latter being court-martialed and cashiered.
A fine mansion in the edge of town, in the midst of a luxuriant semi-tropical garden, with the negro quarters and kitchens in detached buildings, served as headquarters. On the open space on one side, brigade guard-mounting was held every morning to the martial and inspiring music of the Highlanders’ band. This was one of the finest bands in the service, or, indeed, in the country. It had been long established in New York, and was maintained with indefatigable zeal and industry by Lieutenant William Robertson, the band-master.
Thus well occupied with drills, dress parades, guard-mountings, picketing, and study, in that beautiful region and delightful winter climate, profusely supplied with fresh beef, poultry, and sweet potatoes, in addition to the ample regular ration, the troops greatly enjoyed their sojourn at Beaufort, while they rapidly gained soldierly discipline and efficiency. In April a detachment of two hundred and fifty of the 8th Michigan escorted Lieutenant James H. Wilson on a reconnoissance to Wilmington Island, on the Savannah River, and in a very creditable action defeated and drove an entire rebel regiment, the 13th Georgia, suffering, however, a loss of forty-two killed and wounded.
The following letters from General Stevens to his wife give interesting sketches of this period:—