Letters from Port Royal Part 4

It was of this scene that W. C. G. wrote the following lines:

THE NEGRO BURYING-GROUND.

'Mid the sunny flat of the cotton-field Lies an acre of forest-tangle still; A cloister dim, where the grey moss waves And the live-oaks lock their arms at will.

Here in the shadows the slaves would hide As they dropped the hoe at death's release, And leave no sign but a sinking mound To show where they pa.s.sed on their way to peace.

This was the Gate--there was none but this-- To a Happy Land where men were men; And the dusky fugitives, one by one, Stole in from the bruise of the prison-pen.

When, lo! in the distance boomed the guns, The bruise was over, and "Ma.s.sa" had fled!

But _Death_ is the "Ma.s.sa" that never flees, And still to the oaks they bore the dead.

'Twas at set of sun; a tattered troop Of children circled a little grave, Chanting an anthem rich in its peace As ever pealed in cathedral-nave,--

The A, B, C, that the lips below Had learnt with them in the school to shout.

Over and over they sung it slow, Crooning a mystic meaning out.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G,-- Down solemn alphabets they swept: The oaks leaned close, the moss swung low,-- What strange new sound among them crept?

The holiest hymn that the children knew!

'Twas dreams come real, and heaven come near; 'Twas light, and liberty, and joy, And "white-folks' sense,"--and G.o.d right here!

Over and over; they dimly felt _This_ was the charm could make black white, This was the secret of "Ma.s.sa's" pride, And this, unknown, made the negro's night.

What could they sing of braver cheer To speed on his unseen way the friend?

The children were facing the mystery Death With the deepest prayer that their hearts could send.

Children, too, and the mysteries last!

We are but comrades with them _there_,-- Stammering over a meaning vast, Crooning our guesses of how and where.

But the children were right with their A, B, C; In our stammering guess so much we say!

The singers were happy, and so are we: Deep as our wants are the prayers we pray.

FROM W. C. G.

_Captain Oliver Fripp's Plantation, June 9._ I came here, in consequence of a letter received from Mr. Pierce, asking me to take charge over some plantations here. There is a Mr. Sumner here,--lately arrived,--who is teaching. The place is quite at the other end of the island from Coffin's Point. At present I am by no means settled; it seems like jumping from the 19th century into the Middle Ages to return from the civilization and refinement which the ladies inst.i.tuted at Coffin's to the ruggedness of bachelor existence.

_June 22._ In regard to danger of sickness, I hear much about it,--but I think it is exaggerated. The white overseer stayed on Edgar Fripp's Plantation--close by--all summer. The planters generally went to Beaufort or the Village, but I think very much as we go out of town in summer. The summer was the fas.h.i.+onable and social time here, when the rich people lived together, gave parties, etc.

_July 6._ The people do not work very willingly,--things are not so steady as they have become at Coffin's. The district is even more exposed to the influence of visits to and from the camps.

We had quite a celebration for the people on the Fourth. A stage was erected near the old Episcopal church in a cool grove of live-oaks, all grey with long trails of Southern moss. A large flag was obtained and suspended between trees across the road--it was good to see the old flag again. The people had been notified the previous Sunday, and I should think about a thousand were present, in gala dress and mood, from all parts of the island. When the ladies, the invited superintendents from Port Royal, and the General (Saxton)[48] had taken their seats, the people marched up in two processions from each direction, carrying green branches and singing. Under the flag they gave three rousing cheers, then grouped around the stage. The children from three or four of the schools marched in separately. After a prayer and some native songs, Mr. Philbrick, the General, and the _Times_ reporter addressed them, and then one of the old darkies got on the stage and in an ecstasy of obedience and grat.i.tude exhorted them to share his feelings, I believe.

For an hour and a half there was a general press for the hard bread, herring, and mola.s.ses and water. When everything was devoured, the superintendents rode up to "the Oaks,"--Pierce's headquarters[49],--and had a collation. So much for Fourth of July. It was strange and moving down here on South Carolina ground, with the old flag waving above us, to tell a thousand slaves that they were freemen,[50] that that flag was theirs, that our country now meant their country, and to tell them how Northerners read the Declaration--"All men are born free and equal." The people had a grand time, they say, and seem really grateful for it. It was a new thing for them, a Fourth of July for the negro. In old times they worked, if with any difference, harder than usual, while their masters met and feasted and drank.

The rest of this extract is an expression--which will be followed later by many like it--of the sense that people in the North were getting too complacent a notion of what had been done and what could be done for the Sea Island negroes.

Pierce's report[51] has too much sugar in it. His statements are facts, but facts with the silver lining out. The starving, naked condition of the blacks was much exaggerated when we started to come down here.

_July 25._ On the whole, affairs conduct themselves pretty quietly and regularly. The cases of discipline are the most vexing and amusing. It is a peculiar experience to be detective, policeman, judge, jury, and jailer,--all at once,--sometimes in cases of a.s.sault and battery, and general, plantation _squows_,--then in a divorce case,--last Sunday in a whiskey-selling affair; a calf-murder is still on the docket.

The next letter is the first from C. P. W., who went to Port Royal early in July, on the same steamer with Charles F.

Folsom of Harvard, '62, who is often mentioned in the letters that follow, and with several other young Ma.s.sachusetts men who had volunteered as superintendents.

FROM C. P. W.

_Beaufort, July 7._ We got our luggage into the Mayflower and started for this place [from Hilton Head] about six o'clock. It was droll enough to find a party of Boston men taking a sail in the old Hingham boat up Beaufort River under United States pa.s.ses, to superintend South Carolina plantations.

_July 15. Coffin's Point._ The nearest of my five plantations is three miles distant, along the sh.o.r.e road, and the four on that road extend about two miles; my fifth is on the upper road, to Beaufort, about four and a half miles from the Point. The roads are mere tracks worn in the fields, sometimes through woods, like our wood roads, only more sandy. In front of my plantations there are bushes on the right-hand side, for some distance, the field being bounded on the other side by woods. Fields usually very long, sometimes three quarters of a mile, divided across the road by fences, gates occurring at every pa.s.sage from one to another; the plantation houses and quarters at an average of one third of a mile from the road, paths through cotton-fields leading to them. Imagine a perfectly flat country, relieved by belts of trees, and intersected by rows of brush, single trees standing here and there in the bare, hot fields. Very little fresh water either in brooks or pools. Salt-water creeks are to be crossed on the sh.o.r.e roads; the richest lands in the adjoining meadows. A cotton-field looks not unlike a potato-field, the rows higher and more distinct, the plants further apart, usually two feet; the rows five feet. Corn planted on rows like cotton. You would be surprised to see the soil in which these flourish; beach sand, in many places, is the princ.i.p.al ingredient. The fields are very much the colour of the sea-beach.

We live on the fat of the land. We are allowed $5.24 per month for rations, but I do not use even that. Rice, sugar, and mola.s.ses are our princ.i.p.al draughts from the Commissary.

The colonists referred to at the beginning of the next letter were a thousand blacks from the island of Edisto, which the United States Government, after taking, had evacuated, as too troublesome to hold. The place where they were quartered, as described in the first sentence, was St.

Helena Village.

FROM C. P. W.

_July 20._ The Secesh houses there are insufficient to accommodate them all, and they stow themselves in sheds, tents, and even in the open air, as best they can. Many of them are to be distributed on plantations where there are quarters; they will probably be set to planting slip-potatoes and cow-pease.

Everything needs personal supervision here; every barrel or parcel must be kept under your eye from the time it leaves the storehouse in Beaufort till it is put in your mule-cart, on Ladies Island. Then you must be at home when the team arrives and see everything brought into the storeroom. There is a good deal of red tape, too, at Beaufort, the untying and retying of which is a tedious and vexatious operation.[52]

They are becoming more strict here in Beaufort in several respects; pa.s.ses are needed by every one. There is a great deal of running to Hilton Head and Bay Point, which is to be stopped as far as possible.

_July 30._ I ride right through the morning, from nine till four, without suffering from the heat so much as in one trip to town and back one of our warm, still days at home. I have my white umbrella, there is usually some breeze, often a very cool one; the motion of the sulky puts me to sleep, but the heat of the sun has not been oppressive more than once or twice on this island. If I had attempted to follow all the directions I received before leaving, concerning my health, I should have been by this time a lunatic.

Rust is such a common thing here that we get used to it. Mrs.

Philbrick's needles rust in her work-bag; our guns, even after cleaning and oiling, are soon covered with a thin coating. Food moulds here very rapidly, crackers soften and dried beef spoils. Hominy, of course, is the chief article of food. I think it tastes best hot in the negro cabins, without accompaniment of mola.s.ses, sugar, or salt.

Our life here is, necessarily, very monotonous: the hired people come and go, or we go and come to and from them, and the mosquitoes and flies do very much as we do. Mosquitoes are really a great annoyance at times. They introduce themselves under the netting at night in a very mysterious way, and wake us up early with their singing and stinging. My theory is that those that can lick the others get themselves boosted through the apertures; the animal is smaller than ours at the North. I think that they are unaccustomed to human treatment; they will not be brushed away, and slapping, if not fatal, only excites their curiosity. There is also a small fly which appears on warm days after a rain in great numbers. Driving on my beat the other day, and holding my umbrella in one hand and newspaper sc.r.a.p in the other, I was driven nearly wild by their continuous attentions. It is very easy to read driving here; the roads are so sandy that the horse has to walk a great part of the way and one is glad to be able to employ the weary hours with literature.

This is the greatest country for false rumors that I ever was in.

Communication is very uncertain, nothing but special messengers to bring us news from the outside world. An occasional visit to Mr.

Soule[53] or to Beaufort enlivens the long weeks, and we welcome the gathering at church on Sunday, with the gossip and the mail and the queer collection of black beings in gay toggery, as the great event of our lives. If it were not for the newspapers, I might forget the time of year. It is very amusing to be appealed to by a negro to know how soon the 1st of August is; to tell them it is the 20th of July gives them very little idea.

I should like to look in upon you and bring you some of the delicacies of the tropical clime, waterm[=e]lions, as the "inhabitants" call them, rich and red; huge, mellow figs, seedy but succulent; plump quails, sweet curlew, delicate squirrels, fat rabbits, tender chickens. We fare well here. If the wretched country only had more rocks and less sand, better horses, more tolerable staff officers,[54]

and just a little more frequent communication with New England, I should perhaps be content to make quite a long stay, if I were wanted.

I will only remark at present that I find the nigs rather more agreeable, on the whole, than I expected; that they are much to be preferred to the Irish; that their blackness is soon forgotten, and as it disappears their expression grows upon one, so that, after a week or so of intercourse with a plantation, the people are as easily distinguished and as individual as white people; I have even noticed resemblances in some of them to white people I have seen. They are about as offensively servile as I expected. The continual "sur,"

"maussa," with which their remarks are besprinkled is trying, but soon ceases to be noticed. "Bauss" is the most singular appellation, used by a few only.

"M's Hayyet's brudder" pa.s.sed through the Pine Grove "n.i.g.g.e.r-house"

one day and retired, after a distinguished ovation, incubating, like a hen, upon a sulky-box full of eggs. Promises to show Miss Harriet's picture, not yet fulfilled, were received with the greatest satisfaction.

We have been making out our pay-rolls for May and June; the blanks, delayed in the printing, have just arrived. Red Tape. The money has been ready a long time. We ought to pay for July at the same time.

This, understand, is only a partial payment, on account; the full payment is to be made when the crop comes in.