Written from the Sea islands of South Carolina.
St. Helena’s, May 13, 1862.
Yesterday was a gloomy day on this island. I have been interrupted by a wedding. Tom and Lucy have just been united in this parlor by Mr. Pierce as magistrate, and we presented the bride with a second-hand calico dress, a ruffled night-gown and a night-cap. She came in giggling and was soon sobered by Mr. Pierce’s quiet, serious tones.
To go back to the beginning of my letter. This is a sad time here. On Sunday afternoon Captain Stevens, son of General Stevens,[1] who commands here, and is the husband of the Mrs. Stevens we knew at Newport, came here with a peremptory order from General Hunter for every able-bodied negro man of age for a soldier to be sent at once to Hilton Head. This piece of tyranny carried dismay into this household, and we were in great indignation to think of the alarm and grief this would cause among the poor negroes on this place. We have got to calling them our people and loving them really — not so much individually as the collective whole — the people and our people.
We had been talking of going to Hilton Head in Mr. Forbes’ yacht, and at tea-time we discussed the whole affair and said we should not go sailing under the circumstances. Miss Walker left the tea-table crying, and we all were sad and troubled. My old Rina and little Lucy were waiting on table and they kept very quiet. After tea Rina came hanging around my room, and asking questions in an offhand but rather coaxing way. She wanted to know why we were going to Hilton Head, and when I said we would not go, she wanted to know what we would do then. I said, “Spend the day in the cotton-house unpacking clothes as usual.” She looked uneasy but did not say much.
Old Robert, the dairyman, went to Miss Winsor and asked the same questions and also what Captain Stevens was here for. She had to say that she did not know, for she did not then.
That night at about eight we saw a company of soldiers of the Seventy-ninth New York Highlanders coming up the road. They marched into the yard and made themselves at home, but very soon were ordered to march again. Meanwhile Captain Stevens was finding out from Mr. Pierce, how to go to the different plantations, and was, moreover, saying that he would resign his commission before he would undertake such work again. That night the whole island was marched over by the soldiers in squads, about six or ten going to each plantation. They were unused to the duty, had to march through deep sand, and some all night, to get to their destination, and without dinner or supper, and so they were grumbling at having to do this kind of thing at all. Besides, the soldiers have always been friendly to the negroes, have given them good advice and gentle treatment and thus are honored and loved all over these islands. So I have no doubt the duty was really repugnant to them.
That night about twelve, after all the soldiers had gone, I thought how alarmed the negroes must be. We were charged not to tell them anything, for fear of their taking to the woods, and so they could only guess at what was going on, and I saw that they believed we were going to fly to Hilton Head and leave them to the “Secests,” as they call their masters. They have a terrible fear of this, and would naturally believe there was danger of the enemy, since the soldiers were about. They could not suppose for a moment the real errand was of the kind it proved to be. I was not undressed and so I went out to the “yard” and to Rina’s house, which is in the collection of houses of house-servants which surrounds the “yard.” (This is not the negro quarters.) Every house was shut and I knocked at two doors without getting any answer, so I went home. I concluded that they were not at home at all, and I think they were not, for this morning Rina told me that they kept watch along the creek all night, and the two old women of the place both said they were up and awake all night trembling with fear. Poor “Aunt Bess,” the lame one, told me when I was dressing her leg that she was worst off of all, for she had n’t a foot to stand on, and when the “Secests” came and her folks all took to the woods, she should not have the power to go. “Oh, you be quick and cure me, missus, — dey kill me, — dey kill me sure, — lick me to death if dey comes back. Do get my foot well so I can run away.” She was really in great terror.
After I was undressed and in bed we heard a horse gallop up and a man’s step on the porch. I got softly out of our window and looked over the piazza railing. It was Captain Stevens’ orderly come back. A bed had been made for Mr. Hooper on the parlor floor, but he had gone with the soldiers to reassure the negroes, who all love him and trust him. He went to let them know that General Hunter did not mean to send them to Cuba or do anything unfriendly. He, a young, slight fellow, marched on foot through the sand six miles or more — indeed, he was up all night. Mr. Pierce had gone over to Beaufort to remonstrate with General Stevens, and the next day he went to General Hunter at Hilton Head to see what he could do to protect the men, forced from their homes in this summary manner. But we did not mind being left alone at all, and felt perfectly safe without a man in the house and with the back door only latched. However, the orderly tied his horse in the yard and slept in the parlor. A horse to fly with was surely a likely thing to be stolen, but it was untouched.
The next day soon after breakfast Captain Stevens and two soldiers came up to the house and we sent for the men whose names he had got from Miss Walker, she being overseer of this plantation. There were twelve of them. Some stood on the porch, some below. Captain S. ordered them all below, and he said to them that General Hunter had sent for them to go to him at Hilton Head, and they must go. The soldiers then began to load their guns. The negroes looked sad, one or two uneasy, and one or two sulky, but listened silently and unresisting. Captain S. said none of them should be made a soldier against his will, but that General Hunter wished to see them all. Miss Walker asked leave to speak to them, and told them that we knew no more than they did what this meant, but that General H. was their friend, that they must go obediently, as we should if we were ordered, and should be trustful and hopeful. I said, “Perhaps you will come back in a few days with free papers.” One or two of the men then made a decided move towards their homes, saying that they were going for their jackets. “Only two at a time,” Captain S. said, and two went, while the others sent boys for jackets and hats, for they were called from their field work and were quite unprepared. The women began to assemble around their houses, about a square off, and look towards the men, but they did not dare to come forward, and probably did not guess what was going on. A soldier followed the two men into the negro street and Captain S. rode down there impatiently to hurry them. They soon came up, were ordered to “Fall in,” and marched down the road without a word of good-bye. I gave each a half-dollar and Miss W. each a piece of tobacco. They appeared grateful and comforted when Miss W. and I spoke to them and they said a respectful, almost cheerful good-bye to us. It was very hard for Miss W., for she knew these men well, and I only a little. Besides, she had set her heart upon the success of the crops, so as to show what free labor could do, and behold, all her strong, steady, cheerful workers carried off by force just in hoeing-corn time. Her ploughman had to go, but fortunately not her foreman — or “driver,” as he used to be called.
After they were gone, and we had cooled down a little, I made old Bess’s leg my excuse for going to the negro street and through the knot of women who stood there. They moved off as I came, but I called to them and told them it was better to have their husbands go to Hilton Head and learn the use of arms so as to keep off “Secests;” that they could come back if they wanted to, in a few days, etc. Some of them were crying so that I could not stand it — not aloud or ostentatiously, but perfectly quietly, really swallowing their tears. At Miss Winsor’s school the children saw the soldiers coming, and when they saw their fathers marching along before them, they began to cry so that there was no quieting them, and they had to be dismissed. They were terrified as well as grieved. On some of the plantations a few of the men fled to the woods and were hunted out by the soldiers; on others, the women clung to them, screaming, and threw themselves down on the ground with grief. This was when the soldiers appeared before breakfast and while the men were at home. I am glad we had no such scenes here. All the negroes trust Mr. Pierce and us, so that if we told them to go, I think they would believe it the best thing to do; but it is not so with all the superintendents, — some are not trusted.
All day yesterday and to-day one after another of the poor young superintendents have been coming in, saying it was the worst day of their lives and the hardest. I never saw more unhappy, wretched men. They had all got really attached to their hands, and were eager, too, to prove what crops free labor could raise. Mr. Pierce had done what he could to induce the negroes to enlist the other day when the man General Hunter sent came here, but none of the gentlemen approved of this violence. They were afraid the negroes might resist, and they thought it a shame to use force with these men who were beginning to trust to our law and justice. I think General Hunter had an idea, which he got from one of the gentlemen of this Association who went to see him, that the persons in charge of the plantations were so eager for the cotton crop that they prevented the negroes from enlisting, or induced them not to. So he was determined to require the presence of the men and see if they were cowards, or why they did not eagerly take the chance of becoming self-defenders.
Five hundred men were sent from this island to Beaufort yesterday and went to Hilton Head, to-day, I suppose. But not all of the men went who were required. Two from this place have appeared to-day whose names were down as having to go. One had been to Mr. Pierce a few nights ago to say that he wanted to marry our Moll and come here to live. “When?” Mr. Pierce asked. “Oh,” he said, “to-night.” Mr. Pierce said no, he must have a wedding and a good time, and invite folks to see him married — not do things in that style. So Tuesday was appointed, and the man said he would wait. Then on Sunday came this seizure and we all lamented poor Tom’s separation from his Moll. To-day he appeared and was married to-night, as I said before. I saw the other man, Titus, in the yard, and said to him, “Why, I thought you went with the soldiers.” “No, ma’am, not me, ma’am. Me at Jenkins’,[2] ma’am. Ef dey had come dere and axed for me, dey’d had me. But I not here.” He had run, and I was glad of it!
This whole thing looks atrocious and is certainly a most injudicious and high-handed measure, but somehow I trust General Hunter will bring good out of it and meant well. The negroes have such a horror of “Hilty-Head” that nothing would have taken them there but force, I think. It is the shipping-off point, and they have great fears of Cuba. One of the wives who was crying so bitterly the first day, said to me to-day that she was “sick”; she wanted her husband back again “too bad.” They say “too” for “very.” They are all still sad and uneasy and are hanging about all the time in a questioning, waiting attitude.
It is late and I have time for no other letter by this mail. Send this around and keep it afterwards; I have no time to write a journal.
One more thing I want to mention was the touching way in which two of the men came to Miss W. and begged her to take care of their wives.
I am getting on famously with my unpacking and repacking, and am selling and taking money that it hurts me to take. One woman bought a great bundle of clothes, and I said, “Don’t spend all your money.” “All for my chiluns,” she said. “I have n’t bought a thing for myself. I had rather have my money in clothes — my chiluns naked, quite naked — in rags.” The molasses and pork have not yet reached distributing-points, and when they do the people will have no money to buy.
[1] Brigadier-General Isaac I. Stevens.
