St. Helena, Dec. 10. Your letter has been a reminder of my duty, but cotton ginning is my only excuse. It has proved much more of a bore this year than usual, for it is nothing but tief, tief, all the time. We do not get more than one fifth[191] of the weight of seed cotton after it is ginned, and the probabilities are that they steal the balance; but we are perfectly helpless, for we cannot prove it against any of them. I have had about a bale of cotton stolen at the "Oaks" since I put it in the cotton-house. I can assure you there is nothing to be made this year.
We had a call from Dennett (correspondent of Nation) on his Southern tour, a few weeks ago. He said he was disappointed in not getting better reports of the negroes here on these islands, for he had been looking forward to this place, feeling sure he should find something good to offset the many evil reports he had heard of them all the way down through the country. He thinks Mr. Soule and Mr. H. very much demoralized on the negro question.[192]
General Gillmore was removed for being unfriendly to Freedmen's Bureau, and General Sickles is now in command. He told Saxton[193] to let him know what was wanted and he should have it, so things are moving on very smoothly now. Tomlinson[194] has been on a trip through South Carolina to see what the condition of the people was and at what points he could establish schools. They have them started in nearly all the principal points. He says the whites do not know that they have been whipped yet, and many of the negroes don't know they are free.
Mrs. Bryant has opened a pay school [at T. B. Fripp's], older scholars paying one dollar per month and young ones fifty cents. She has about sixty scholars. Alden has opened a store on the place.
The negroes' Union Store is raised and covered, but I guess will never be stocked.[195]
R. S., JR., TO C. P. W.
Coffin's Point, Dec. 17. I suppose you have heard that our plantation operations here this year have been a failure. Nobody has raised more than half a crop. The drought in the early part of the summer and the caterpillar in August and September contrived to diminish the yield. Most of the planters, however, thinking that two bad seasons will not come in succession, are making vigorous preparations for next year in the way of gathering marsh-grass and mud. I have about concluded to sell or to lease Mulberry Hill, and if I succeed in doing either I shall probably go home about the first of February.
There is a universal feeling of dissatisfaction, not to say disgust, with our colored brethren here at the present time, on account of the extraordinary development of some of their well-known characteristics. They are stealing cotton at a fearful rate. Captain Kellum of Dathaw lost a whole bale a few nights since, and to-day Mr. Williams, who has just come down from R.'s, tells us that the cotton-house has been broken into and one packed bale cut open and about one hundred pounds taken out of it and carried off! This bale belonged to Mr. York. We none of us feel secure against these depredations.
Two of the thieves at Coffin's Point were caught with ginned cotton in their houses, Peter Brown and William White. Before Mr. Towne could apprehend them they escaped to the main. Another, Jonas Green, had cotton-seed hid away in his corn-house. He was caught, and a Plantation Commission sentenced him to two months' imprisonment. This is the first fruit of making land-owners of the negroes. While they raise cotton of their own and no restraint is put upon them in making sale of what they bring to market, it is impossible to ferret out their robberies in most cases. Such rascality on the part of the negroes is more discouraging than caterpillars and drought.