Of the many thousand letters that must have been written by these people to their Northern homes, those of one small group only are represented by the extracts here printed. The writers were New Englanders and ardent anti-slavery people; W. C. G. and C. P. W. were Harvard men just out of college, H. W. was a sister of the latter. A few of the later letters were written by two other Massachusetts men, T. E. R., a Yale graduate of 1859, and F. H., who remained on the islands longer than the three just mentioned. All five are still living. Richard Soule, Jr., now dead for many years was an older man, a teacher, a person of great loveliness of character and justice of mind. The principal figure in the letters, Edward S. Philbrick of Brookline, who died in 1889, was in one sense the principal figure in the Sea Island situation. He began by contributing a thousand dollars to the work and volunteering his services on the ground, where he was given charge by Mr. Pierce of three plantations, including the largest on the islands; being a person of some means, with an established reputation as an engineer and a very considerable business experience, he was from the first prominent among the volunteers. When, in the following year, he became personally and financially responsible for a dozen plantations, this prominence was increased a hundredfold. Thus he found himself the victim of the vituperation hurled by many Northern friends of the blacks at the "professed philanthropists" who went to Port Royal to "make their fortunes" out of the labor of the "poor negro." The integrity of Mr. Philbrick's motives stands out in his letters beyond the possibility of misinterpretation. This record is a witness of what sort of thing he and his kind were ready to do to redress the wrongs of slavery.
The extracts have been arranged in chronological order, except in a few cases where chronology has seemed less important than subject-matter. They tell a complete story, the greater part of which falls within the period of the Civil War. They give a vivid notion of the life from the midst of which they were written; of the flat, marsh-riddled country, in which few Northerners saw any lasting charm; of the untidy, down-at-the-heels plantations; of the "people," wards of the nation, childish, irritating, endlessly amusing; of the daily toil of Northern men in managing farms and of Northern women in managing households under Southern and war-time conditions; of the universal preoccupation with negro needs; of the friendly interchange of primitive hospitality; of the underlying sense in the writers' minds of romantic contrast between their own to-day and the yesterday of the planters,—or a possible to-morrow of the planters. It is not with matters military or political that these letters deal. They record the day to day experiences of the housekeeper, the teacher, the superintendent of labor, and the landowner. For this reason they form a new contribution to the history of the Port Royal Experiment.
KEY TO MAP OF THE SEA ISLANDS OF
SOUTH CAROLINA
| Plantations. | |
| Cherry Hill (T. A. Coffin) | 16 |
| Coffin's Point (T. A. Coffin) | 12 |
| Corner (J. B. Fripp) | 5 |
| Eustis | 2 |
| Alvirah Fripp (Hope Place) | 18 |
| Edgar Fripp | 20 |
| Hamilton Fripp | 10 |
| J. B. Fripp (Corner) | 5 |
| Capt. John Fripp (Homestead) | 8 |
| Capt. Oliver Fripp | 22 |
| Thomas B. Fripp | 9 |
| Fripp Point | 11 |
| Frogmore (T. A. Coffin) | 19 |
| Rev. Robert Fuller ("R.'s") | 4 |
| Hope Place (Alvirah Fripp) | 18 |
| Dr. Jenkins | 21 |
| Mary Jenkin | 28 |
| Martha E. McTureous | 14 |
| James McTureous | 15 |
| Mulberry Hill (John Fripp) | 17 |
| The Oaks (Pope) | 3 |
| Oakland | 6 |
| Pine Grove (Fripp) | 13 |
| Pope (The Oaks) | 3 |
| "R.'s" (Fuller) | 4 |
| Smith | 1 |
| Dr. White | 27 |
| Brick Church (Baptist) | 24 |
| White Church (Episcopal) | 23 |
| St. Helena Village | 7 |
| Fort Walker | 26 |
| Fort Beauregard | 25 |
| Camp of the First South Carolina Volunteers (Colonel Higginson) | 1 |