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 hadn'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 MissW.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 haven'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.
2 Plantation.
SOURCE: Rupert Sargent Holland, Editor, Letters and
Diary of Laura M. Towne: Written from the Sea Islands of South Carolina
1862-1864, p. 47-54
