Letters and diary of Laura M. Towne

[Diary] June 8.

Set out for the village this morning and soon took boats for the Kingfisher. In our boat were Ellen and I with Captain Dutch; in the other, Nelly and Lottie with Mr. Rhodes. After spending some hours on the ship admiring the exquisite order and cleanliness, we took boat again and went to Edisto under charge of the mate, Mr. Rhodes, Captain Dutch not going. We landed at Eddingsville and went up to Seabrook’s house. The gentlemen, Mr. Tomlinson, Mr. Fairfield, and Mr. Rhodes, got supper with the help of Jim, the handsome young negro who was taken by Captain Dutch on Bailey’s Island and forced to act as guide to his master’s house, where they were all taken prisoners — eleven of the “big bugs of Edisto,” Rina calls them. He seemed sad, and when we talked to him and asked him if he were glad to be free, he said he loved his young master like a brother — that they were the same age and grew up together; that he wished his young master were back again, and he would not give up the wife and children now on the Main for all the freedom in the world. We slept on the floor upon shawls, boat cushions etc., and were run over by roaches and devoured by fleas and mosquitoes. In the morning we again took boat and followed the winding creek to Edding’s house. The gardens were beautiful and the house handsome, but stripped of everything. The night before, when we wanted a fire, Jim coolly knocked up the drawer of a mahogany bureau to make one. Soon after this visit to the house we went home. On board the Kingfisher I could only lie down, and could not go to the dinner provided. It was dusk when we reached the village and dark before we were at “The Oaks.”

An expedition has resulted in the arrival of five hundred refugees at Beaufort.

[Diary] April 12.

Lottie to-night brings the report that the expedition against Charleston has returned, having done nothing! Why this disgraceful return? Disheartening!

[Diary] April 11.

Ellen, Nelly, and I alone in the house ignorant of the fate of Charleston. The boat-load of “Secesh” were some “big bugs of Edisto,” Rina says, who were taken on Bailey’s Island by Captain Dutch, on the blockading ship Kingfisher. He is a bold and enterprising man and has thoroughly explored these shores and creeks. He knows every picket and fortified position of the rebels near here. They say he goes in a dugout right under the guns and shoots the pickets of the enemy. He discovered that these young gentlemen— the Seabrooks and others of Edisto — had landed on the island to gather corn. He determined to take them and went with a small force, surprised two of their negroes in a cornfield, and compelled them to lead the party to their masters’ camp; all were surprised and taken. Captain Dutch was sending them down to Hilton Head when Rina saw them. I hope they will not be released at once and sent (spies as they are!) back to their friends.

[Diary ] March 25.

This morning about a dozen of the black soldiers came armed into our church in school-time, and hid there. They were on the watch for some man who was to be taken as a soldier. They suddenly rushed out of church, to the great alarm of our children, clashing their arms. They looked at our boys to see if they were old enough to seize, but Tony and Aaron were not there. The children screamed in terror. We shall complain. The colored soldiers ought not to be left to manage this business alone. They do not understand yet the proper restrictions of their authority. To-day they have caught many. Robert, of Oaklands, afraid of being taken, asked my advice what to do. I told him that if he remained at home he could only lead a skulking life and never have any peace. But that if he went and volunteered, or let the soldiers take him quietly, as the island was picketed and he could not go now and volunteer at Beaufort, he would soon be discharged, for I knew him to be quite unfitted for service by rheumatism. He, however, took to the marsh when he saw the soldiers approach Oaklands, and he has not since been heard of.

Mr. Pierce came and examined our school. He asked the children questions which they answered pretty readily. To-night I had a long talk with him about Miss Ruggles’ school. She complains that the children will not go to her and will come to us. She thinks we ought to forbid them. We maintain that they were our scholars long before she came down here, that they are attached to us and we to them, that they complain of having no regular school, and no such advantages as slates and copy-books.

[Diary] March 19.

Our people are in such trouble about the draft. They trouble for their friends — Jenny for her old Dagus; young Moll for Hacklas. I wrote saying that Celia was a cripple and needed her husband Tom’s care. To-day nearly all the young men from our place went to Beaufort to offer to enlist. To-night Lucy came sobbing and crying past the house, Syke, her brother, crying with her, because her husband Tommy has gone. Rina says the men make too much fuss about going to enlist, and their wives too great cry after them, for folks who have been used to being sold away from all friends. “Dey used to catch we up like fowls and sell we when dey wanted a little money for spend.” Now that the masters have gone she says the people gather close to their parents — using parents as the French do “parents,” meaning relatives.

[Diary] March 17.

Harry, Mr. Pierce’s old guide, — or rather his first guide, for Harry is not old yet, — wanted very much to buy a place called “The Inlet” on Ladies Island. He thought he had money enough to get it, it being a plantation of three hundred acres. He was thinking of bidding for it at the sale, when Mr. Philbrick heard of his plans and counseled him not to buy it himself for fear of risk, but to let Mr. P. buy it for him. Harry listened; he did not like risk. Mr. P. offered to take it for a year and let Harry work it for wages, the profits of the crop to be Mr. P.’s, and the expenses and risk to be his. Harry came to me to ask advice. I told him he had better hold the land himself if he wanted to make money. He consulted also Captain Hooper, telling him of my advice which was as above, and also that the risk of losing the price of the land was something; but if another man bought the land and afterwards did not chose to sell, he would lose the land itself. Captain Hooper was indignant, Harry tells me, at the terms Mr. Philbrick offered, and he told Harry that he would bid and if necessary help to buy for him. So the Inlet was bought by Captain Hooper for Harry, costing about three hundred dollars. Harry had not so much money, and Captain Hooper lent him what he needed, and also more to stock the place.

Harry has gone to work his plantation and we do not see him here much. Harry professes himself everlastingly grateful to me for “incensing” him as to his best interests about the place, and warning him against trusting to Mr. Philbrick to buy for him. I warned him against letting any man buy for him in that man’s own name.

[Diary] March 9.

“The Oaks” reserved and to be our home still. Mr. Philbrick has not bought Coffin Point. Will bought nothing. The land sold for about a dollar and a quarter an acre; sometimes, once only, I believe, as high as three dollars — sometimes lower.

[Diary] Saturday, March 7.

Mr. Fairfield, Will,[1] Nelly, Ellen, Rosie, and I went in a row-boat to Hunting Island. We walked on the beach, “bogged” through sand, got caught in the rain, got shells. Then we embarked again and landed in the woods in another part of the island. The negro crew went to work scientifically, made a table and seats, built a fire, roasted potatoes and oysters, and we had a jolly time. Then home, winding through the creeks and over the oyster beds.

[1] Miss Towne’s brother, William Edward Towne, who had joined her at St. Helena Island.

[Diary] March 3.

This morning Mrs. Wells came to our school to demand that the children from her plantation should not be allowed to come to us. We told her we had already recommended their going to her instead of to us, but that they said she did not keep school half the time and never did more than hear them a little reading-lesson, while they wanted to learn to write and cipher. She said then that they might do as they liked — she did n’t want them and did n’t care what they did. We told her that we had refused them admittance more than once and wished now to know from herself whether she would teach them, for if she would not, we would; but if she would, we did not wish them, our school being large already. She said with temper that she did n’t care what they did or where they went, and went away in ill-humor. The children say that often when they “bog” across the creek, she will send them back without a lesson, and she herself does not pretend to keep a regular school, but only to let them read to her when they come. The case is the same with Miss Ruggles’s scholars, though she has a school for a week or two at a time pretty regularly, and then perhaps a week or two no school; a schooner coming in with goods, or something of a domestic character, demanding her time.