The General [Saxton] is afraid that some speculators may interfere with the plan for this year which has been started.[120] He has made certain promises to the people in regard to this year's crop, and he feels that he ought to be able to impose some conditions on purchasers. Of course he could not impose conditions under which the lands should be sold, but he still may, as Military Governor, enforce justice toward the people.
FROM H. W.
March 10. C. and Mr. Philbrick stopped at the nigger-house to see and tell the people of the result of the sale. At Fripp Point, which he also bought, the people were as usual unmoved and apparently apathetic, but here they were somewhat more demonstrative, and slightly expressed their pleasure. All the places he most cared for Mr. Philbrick was able to bid off, and two of C.'s old places, which he wanted but did not expect to get. So much is settled; but there is a great deal besides that it will take a long time and a deal of trouble to arrange—we don't know yet how much goes with the plantations, or when possession will be given.
The confirmation of the report that Hunter is going to draft these people causes a great deal of feeling, as Saxton has publicly promised them that they shall not be forced to join the army. They seem to understand that Hunter is in authority and Saxton can't help himself, C. says, and so have no ill feeling towards the latter; but they will hide, if possible, and it is hard to feel that they have been so treated as to make them as suspicious of a Yankee's word as they have always been of a white man's. I think it right they should go if they are needed,—the war is of more importance even than the experiment of free labor,—but to have them lied to so! Why was Hunter ever sent back here?
FROM C. P. W.
March 14. Mr. Philbrick has bought in all thirteen plantations,[121] at an expense of about $7000: three places for R., two for Wells, two for Hull on Ladies Island, six places within five miles of this place. I remain here, and shall probably assume Cherry Hill and Mulberry Hill, my old places; G. comes to Pine Grove, and takes that, the Point, and Captain John Fripp Homestead. The people are all starting well, we are in excellent spirits, and are in proper season for the crops; and "if God spare life," "if nothing strange happens," "if we live to see," we shall "see crop make, sir."
This drafting business is simply folly. Hunter is an ignorant, obstinate fool.[122] General Saxton is very much opposed to the measure, especially after promising the men again and again that they would not be taken unless they were willing to go; but he says he has done all he can to dissuade Hunter without any effect, and if he should go further in the matter, either he or Hunter would have to go home, and he is not willing at this crisis to raise this additional difficulty. Hunter's order was published in the New South[123] last Monday. For a full week before the negroes had been anxiously questioning us about this strange news that "they want to take we to make soldiers." Up to Monday I was able to tell them that I had heard such stories, but did not believe them; but Tuesday night, when I got home, I told them how matters stood, and they confessed that for a full week before hardly a man on the plantation under sixty years of age had slept in his bed. A strange white face drives them from the field into the woods like so many quails; they will not go to church, they will not go to the Ferry. Two Sundays ago I happened to ask one of the elders at church, to make talk merely, how soon the next Society meeting took place at Pine Grove. It was last Saturday evening. My question to Demus was reported at the meeting, they immediately became suspicious of some trap to catch them, they grew anxious, a cry arose that there were soldiers out on the plantation, the men left the praise-house, and the meeting, instead of continuing all night, broke up about midnight with some confusion.[124] They were caught last year, they will not be caught again. They cannot understand how it is that the Government, for whom they have been working, and in whom they have learned to place confidence as a protection, should wish to interrupt their work here. It is a terrible discouragement to them, just as they are starting their first fair trial for themselves, to be forced, I do not say into the military service, for very few will be caught, but forced to abandon their crops, and skulk and hide and lead the life of hunted beasts during all this precious planting season. The women would be physically able to carry on for some time the men's share with their own, but they would be very much disheartened, and would need constant encouragement. Under this terrible uncertainty and fear, the work has begun to slacken. Even the head men on the plantations are losing courage. I make as light of the evil as I can, but I am always met by the remark: "We are a year older than we was last year, sir." Their trust in me is a little surprising. They converse in my presence about their dodging life, and I could easily take any ten of them I chose alone; or, with the aid of one other, I could take the whole plantation. "If we didn't trust to you, sir, we should have to leave the plantation entirely; you are the only person to protect we now, sir." It is hardly necessary to remark that their confidence is not misplaced. Help catch them? "I wouldn't do it first."
In accordance with Hunter's order, referred to above, Saxton issued a general order to superintendents, which bade them send to Captain Hooper a list of all able-bodied freedmen between eighteen and fifty on the plantations, and instructed them to urge the negroes to enlist by appealing to "their reason, sense of right, their love of liberty and their dread of returning to the rule of their late masters," adding: "The General Commanding expects to form a pretty correct judgment of the comparative efficiency of the different superintendents and the amount of influence for good they are capable of exerting over their people, by the proportion of the whole number subject to draft which they are able to bring in without the aid of physical force." Referring to this last sentence as a "mean insinuation," C. P. W. goes on:
For my people, I know there is about as much use in asking them to enlist as in requesting my horse, a very intelligent animal, to drink salt water. I hope they will draft, they may possibly enlist, the loafers at Hilton Head and Beaufort, and those whose proximity to camps, or general worthless character, prevents them from taking much interest in their crops. But these men, who have been paid up in full for last year's crop, and have seen that their crop, slim as it was, brought them a fair compensation, are bound to show a crop this year. Crop-raising is their business, their trade, and they intend to show what they can do at it this year for the Government, which protects them, for me, who "see them justice" (they have a vague idea that I reap a certain percentage from their crop—they say, "You will have a bigger crop of cotton than Mr. Philbrick, sir"—they also think that if I "overlook" four hundred hands, I ought to get more pay than a man who only sees to two hundred), and last, and principally, for themselves. They have not been learning cotton-raising, perforce, all these years for nothing. Now their enforced knowledge comes out in tending a crop of which they are to own a share, and the little tricks of the trade, which had to be watchfully enforced in the old time, are now skillfully produced, especially in the food crops, which are more evidently their own. I let them go ahead very much as they choose; I make regulations for the good of all, as in the matter of carts, oxen, etc., but the minutiæ I do not meddle with, except as a matter of curiosity and acquirement of knowledge. They work well, some of them harder than in the old time; the lazy ones are stimulated to exertion for their own benefit, the energetic ones race like sixty.