We passed through, a forest of young pines that had been rented three years to colored people in five and ten acre lots. They were to receive one-fourth of all they raised, and pay the remainder as rent. Said the general, as we came opposite a ten-acre lot where a man, his wife, and daughter were all hard at work grubbing. "That man will hardly get a meager subsistence from one-fourth of that land." And he inquired of the man if he expected to get his living off the fourth of that lot.
"I reckon so," was the answer. "After we gets the crop in my wife and gal can tend it, and I'll get work by the day while its growin'."
Sunday, May 20th, was a pleasant Sabbath. I attended a large meeting, and listened to a very interesting discourse by a freedman. At the close he earnestly exhorted his hearers to purity of life in their new freedom. He wanted to see all filthy habits left behind with bondage. "Do not let us take with us," he said, "any habit of drinking—not even using tobacco. Let us search ourselves, and see if we are worshiping God with clean hearts and mouths."
Opportunity being offered, I made a few remarks from II Chronicles, xv:12, "And they entered into covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul." After meeting, minister and people gathered around me to shake my hands, until they were lame a number of days. Said one, "Da's took de bridle off our heads, an' let us loose to serve God." Near the place was the Zion Methodist Church, that had been used occasionally for auction sales of slaves. There were thirty acres here, purchased by colored people, laid out in two-acre lots. Most of them had built little cabins, but others were working out by the day to earn means to pay for their lots before they built.
In the evening I visited a school of twenty-five adults, who could not attend during the day. A number of them read for me very intelligibly. James Wright did not know his letters at Christmas, but could now read fluently. He was sixty years of age. Robert Bell, aged fifty, who did not know his letters in March, could now read in the second reader.
Captain Flagg and wife invited me to take another ride out in the country where colored people had rented land.
On our way we met five carts laden with F. F. V.'s. The captain inquired of one man how far it was to Providence Church. "Sir," he answered, "you are slap-jam on to it; only a mile and a half, sure." As usual we went twice the distance; the captain said he always calculated a Virginia mile to be double the length of ours. This church had been built one hundred years before with brick brought from England. We called on six families. Said one woman, "I tried hard to serve God forty years ago, but mighty idle; Massa's lash so sharp, 'peared like we poor creturs never rest till we drop in our graves."
We visited Ex-Governor Henry A. Wise's plantation of five hundred acres, with fifty cabins in the negro quarters. This was confiscated. There were many of his former slaves here, aged and helpless, and a successful school was taught in his dwelling-house. Here were seventeen schools under the charge of the American Missionary Association, which were taught by eleven lady teachers and six gentlemen. H. C. Perry was the superintendent of schools in Norfolk District.
The Taylor plantation was the next which we visited. It contained seventeen thousand acres, seven hundred acres of which were worked, and ready for renting to freedmen. In Captain Flagg's district there were three thousand four hundred and eighty-six freed children attending day-school, and five hundred and one scholars in the night-schools. One hundred and ninety-two of these were over sixteen years of age. The above included seven counties: Norfolk, Princess Ann, Nansemond, Isle of Wight, Southampton, Accomack, and Northampton, the last two on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay. It is well to note the income of these confiscated plantations, that had, up to May 25, 1866, been returned to original owners. There had been paid over by Captain Flagg to government toward liquidating the war debt, thirteen thousand dollars. All of this was the avails of negro help on the government farms, except the Wise and Taylor plantations, that were still occupied for the benefit of the aged, sick, blind, and crippled men, women, and orphans.
I returned to Washington, where I found a request that I should take fifteen colored orphans to our Home in Michigan.