The capture of Hilton Head and Bay Point by the navy, November 7th, 1861, was followed by the immediate military occupation of the Sea Islands. In the latter part of December, the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Chase, whose foresight as a statesman and humane disposition naturally turned his thoughts to the subject, deputed a special agent to visit this district for the purpose of reporting upon the condition of the negroes who had been abandoned by the white population, and of suggesting some plan for the organization of their labor and the promotion of their general well-being. The agent, leaving New York January 13th, 1862, reached that city again on his way to Washington on the 13th of February, having in the mean time visited a large number of the plantations, and talked familiarly with the negroes in their cabins. The results of his observations, in relation to the condition of the people, their capacities and wishes, the culture of their crops, and the best mode of administration, on the whole favorable, were embodied in a report. The plan proposed by him recommended the appointment of superintendents to act as guides of the negroes and as local magistrates, with an adequate corps of teachers. It was accepted by the Secretary with a full indorsement, and its execution intrusted to the same agent. The agent presented the subject to several members of Congress, with whom he had a personal acquaintance, but, though they listened respectfully, they seemed either to dread the magnitude of the social question, or to feel that it was not one with which they as legislators were called upon immediately to deal. The Secretary himself, and Mr. Olmsted, then connected with the Sanitary Commission, alone seemed to grasp it, and to see the necessity of immediate action. It is doubtful if any member of the Cabinet, except Mr. Chase, took then any interest in the enterprise, though it has since been fostered by the Secretary of War. At the suggestion of the Secretary, the President appointed an interview with the agent. Mr. Lincoln, who was then chafing under a prospective bereavement, listened for a few moments, and then said, somewhat impatiently, that he did not think he ought to be troubled with such details,—that there seemed to be an itching to get negroes into our lines; to which the agent replied, that these negroes were within them by the invitation of no one, being domiciled there before we commenced occupation. The President then [pg 303] wrote and handed to the agent the following card:—

"I shall be obliged if the Sec. of the Treasury will in his discretion give Mr. Pierce such instructions in regard to Port Royal contrabands as may seem judicious.

"A. LINCOLN.

"Feb. 15, 1862."

The President, so history must write it, approached the great question slowly and reluctantly; and in February, 1862, he little dreamed of the proclamations he was to issue in the September and January following. Perhaps that slowness and reluctance were well, for thereby it was given to this people to work out their own salvation, rather than to be saved by any chief or prophet.

Notwithstanding the plan of superintendents was accepted, there were no funds wherewith to pay them. At this stage the "Educational Commission," organized in Boston on the 7th of February, and the "Freedmen's Relief Association," organized in New York on the 20th of the same month, gallantly volunteered to pay both superintendents and teachers, and did so until July 1st, when the Government, having derived a fund from the sale of confiscated cotton left in the territory by the Rebels, undertook the payment of the superintendents, the two societies, together with another organized in Philadelphia on the 3d of March, and called the "Port Royal Relief Committee," providing for the support of the teachers.

When these voluntary associations sprang into being to save an enterprise which otherwise must have failed, no authoritative assurance had been given as to the legal condition of the negroes. The Secretary, in a letter to the agent, had said, that, after being received into our service, they could not, without great injustice, be restored to their masters, and should therefore be fitted to become self-supporting citizens. The President was reported to have said freely, in private, that negroes who were within our lines, and had been employed by the Government, should be protected in their freedom. No official assurance of this had, however, been given; and its absence disturbed the societies in their formation. At one meeting of the Boston society action was temporarily arrested by the expression of an opinion by a gentleman present, that there was no evidence showing that these people, when educated, would not be the victims of some unhappy compromise. A public meeting in Providence, for their relief, is said to have broken up without action, because of a speech from a furloughed officer of a regiment stationed at Port Royal, who considered such a result the probable one. But the societies, on reflection, wisely determined to do what they could to prepare them to become self-supporting citizens, in the belief, that, when they had become such, no Government could ever be found base enough to turn its back upon them. These associations, it should be stated, have been managed by persons of much consideration in their respective communities, of unostentatious philanthropy, but of energetic and practical benevolence, hardly one of whom has ever filled or been a candidate for a political office.

There was a pleasant interview at this time which may fitly be mentioned. The venerable Josiah Quincy, just entered on his ninety-first year, hearing of the enterprise, desired to see one who had charge of it. I went to his chamber, where he had been confined to his bed for many weeks with a fractured limb. He talked like a patriot who read the hour and its duty. He felt troubled lest adequate power had not been given to protect the enterprise,—said that but for his disability he should be glad to write something about it, but that he was living "the postscript of his life"; and as we parted, he gave his hearty benediction to the work and to myself. Restored in a measure to activity, he is still spared to the generation which fondly cherishes his old age; and recently, at the organization of the Union Club, he read to his fellow-citizens, [pg 304] gathering close about him and hanging on his speech, words of counsel and encouragement.

On the morning of the 3d of March, 1862, the first delegation of superintendents and teachers, fifty-three in all, of whom twelve were women, left the harbor of New York, on board the United States steam-transport Atlantic, arriving at Beaufort on the 9th. It was a voyage never to be forgotten. The enterprise was new and strange, and it was not easy to predict its future. Success or defeat might be in store for us; and we could only trust in God that our strength would be equal to our responsibilities. As the colonists approached the shores of South Carolina, they were addressed by the agent in charge, who told them the little he had learned of their duties, enjoined patience and humanity, impressed on them the greatness of their work, the results of which were to cheer or dishearten good men, to settle, perhaps, one way or the other, the social problem of the age,—assuring them that never did a vessel bear a colony on a nobler mission, not even the Mayflower, when she conveyed the Pilgrims to Plymouth, that it would be a poorly written history which should omit their individual names, and that, if faithful to their trust, there would come to them the highest of all recognitions ever accorded to angels or to men, in this life or the next,—"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto Me."

This first delegation of superintendents and teachers were distributed during the first fortnight after their arrival at Beaufort, and at its close they had all reached their appointed posts. They took their quarters in the deserted houses of the planters. These had all left on the arrival of our army, only four white men, citizens of South Carolina, remaining, and none of those being slaveholders, except one, who had only two or three slaves. Our operations were, therefore, not interfered with by landed proprietors who were loyal or pretended to be so. The negroes had, in the mean time, been without persons to guide and care for them, and had been exposed to the careless and conflicting talk of soldiers who chanced to meet them. They were also brought in connection with some employés of the Government, engaged in the collection of cotton found upon the plantations, none of whom were doing anything for their education, and most of whom were in favor of leasing the plantations and the negroes upon them as adscripti gleboe looking forward to their restoration to their masters at the close of the war. They were uncertain as to the intentions of the Yankees, and were wondering at the confusion, as they called it. They were beginning to plant corn in their patches, but were disinclined to plant cotton, regarding it as a badge of servitude. No schools had been opened, except one at Beaufort, which had been kept a few weeks by two freedmen, one bearing the name of John Milton, under the auspices of the Rev. Dr. Peck. This is not the place to detail the obstacles we met with, one after another overcome,—the calumnies and even personal violence to which we were subjected. These things occurred at an early period of our struggle, when the nation was groping its way to light, and are not likely to occur again. Let unworthy men sleep in the oblivion they deserve, and let others of better natures, who were then blind, but now see, not be taunted with their inconsiderate acts. The nickname of Gibeonites, applied to the colonists, may, however, be fitly remembered. It may now justly claim rank with the honored titles of Puritan and Methodist. The higher officers of the army were uniformly respectful and disposed to coöperation. One of these may properly be mentioned. Our most important operations were in the district under the command of Brigadier-General Isaac I. Stevens, an officer whose convictions were not supposed to be favorable to the enterprise, and who, during the political contest of 1860, had been the chairman of the National Breckinridge Committee. But such was his honor as a gentleman, and his sense of the [pg 305] duty of subordination to the wishes of the Government, that his personal courtesies and official aid were never wanting. He received his mortal wound at Chantilly, Virginia, on the first of September following, and a braver and abler officer has not fallen in the service.

Notwithstanding our work was commenced six weeks too late, and other hindrances occurred, detailed in the second report of the agent, some eight thousand acres of esculents,—a fair supply of food,—and some four thousand five hundred acres of cotton (after a deduction for over-estimates) were planted. This was done upon one hundred and eighty-nine plantations, on which were nine thousand and fifty people, of whom four thousand four hundred and twenty-nine were field-hands, made up of men, women, and children, and equivalent, in the usual classification and estimate of the productive capacity of laborers, to three thousand eight hundred and five and one-half full hands. The cotton-crop produced will not exceed sixty-five thousand pounds of ginned cotton. Work enough was done to have produced five hundred thousand pounds in ordinary times; but the immaturity of the pod, resulting from the lateness of the planting, exposed it to the ravages of the frost and the worm. Troops being ordered North, after the disasters of the Peninsular campaign, Edisto was evacuated in the middle of July, and thus one thousand acres of esculents, and nearly seven hundred acres of cotton, the cultivation of which had been finished, were abandoned. In the autumn, Major-General Mitchell required forty tons of corn-fodder and seventy-eight thousand pounds of corn in the ear, for army-forage. These are but some of the adverse influences to which the agricultural operations were subjected.

It is fitting here that I should bear my testimony to the superintendents and teachers commissioned by the associations. There was as high a purpose and devotion among them as in any colony that ever went forth to bear the evangel of civilization. Among them were some of the choicest young men of New England, fresh from Harvard, Yale, and Brown, from the divinity-schools of Andover and Cambridge,—men of practical talent and experience. There were some of whom the world was scarce worthy, and to whom, whether they are among the living or the dead, I delight to pay the tribute of my respect and admiration.