Diary of Laura M. Towne: Saturday, June 7, 1862

An exciting day. This morning Mr. Eustis came over and told Mr. Hooper that we ought to be ready to go at a moment's notice. For two weeks we have been quite unprotected, and last night an attempt was made to pass the pickets at Port Royal Ferry. A flat was seen coming. Our pickets challenged it, and the negroes exclaimed, “Don't shoot, massa!” Then fifty men rose up in the boat and fired into the guard, killing four of them. The others fled to Port Royal, I believe, carrying dismay, and this morning all the ladies, cotton agents, and civilians, except our men, embarked on the Ottawa and went down to Hilton Head, Miss Walker among them. Our men, of the Commission, have been bold enough. Little Taylor has shouldered his gun and he this morning went to within four miles of the enemies’ lines. Ashly acted as guide to the scouts and others have gone readily to the aid of the soldiery. Yet Mr. Pierce says the soldiers are swearing at the “nigger lovers,” who have all gone — run away at the first danger. Not a man has gone — not one.

There is quite a panic in Beaufort and several gunboats have gone up to it, apparently to take away the commissary stores. It will then be evacuated, and what will become of the poor negroes if the masters return! It seems to me that this is a causeless panic.

We packed our trunks to-day according to Mr. Hooper's orders, and we can run at any time, but leaving much behind us. I cannot bear the thought of going while these poor people must stay — Aunt Bess, whose leg is so bad; and some of the babies are ill now — they will suffer so in the woods and marshes if they have to fly. While we were packing this morning, Susannah, then Rina, came and asked anxiously about our going. I told them all we knew — that we might have to go off, but would not if we could help it; that our soldiers had all gone off to take Charleston and that Secesh might come down to attack us, and then the gentlemen would insist upon our going. Mr. Pierce came home about eleven, and he thinks we may remain. So we have composed ourselves as best we can. The gentlemen are going to patrol to-night, but I am more afraid of the exposure than of Secesh for them, and us too.

Mr. Pierce has gone to Beaufort again. Several gentlemen were here to-day, Mr. Horton among them, who wanted to know if we were “going to trust the Lord and keep our powder dry.” I want to have Mr. Pierce secure half a dozen guns for each plantation, and then if Secesh come, call upon the negroes to help us and stay. I am sure we shall be safe. I am entirely opposed to our flying. If Mr. Pierce were not going North, this would be the case, I am pretty sure, but he is determined to have us safe while he is gone. We have a boat in readiness to set out by water, and the horses are kept fresh to take us by land. One of them died to-day of poison plants, or colic, — one of the handsome bays.

I have been in other excitement lately and feel almost ill from it. But first about the alarm at Beaufort. It was so great that the arsenal was open, and anybody wishing it could go in and get a gun. It appears that the Pennsylvania regiment, or a guard of fifty, were stationed at Port Royal Ferry, and on this alarm they ran, after firing, and burned the bridge between themselves and the enemy. Their panic alarmed Beaufort. The ladies fled to the gunboats and to Hilton Head. They will return to-morrow probably. All Beaufort was in confusion. To-night all is safety and quiet there. We have had quite a cosy evening here — Mr. Pierce, Mr. Hooper, Miss Winsor, and I.

SOURCE: Rupert Sargent Holland, Editor, Letters and Diary of Laura M. Towne: Written from the Sea Islands of South Carolina 1862-1864, p. 63-5

Edward William Hooper, November 11, 1863

Beaufort, S. C, November 11th, 1863.

The cotton crop has done very fairly this year. The entire crop, from the private as well as Government plantations, will be about double that of last year, or even more than double. The government will have this year about one hundred thousand pounds of ginned cotton. The first frost came last night, and that will cut off a good deal of cotton that would have ripened in the next fortnight if there had been no frost. The money paid out to the people for their labor on this cotton is very considerable, and makes the industrious ones very well to do.

E. W. Hooper.

SOURCE: New-England Educational Commission for Freedmen, Extracts from Letters of Teachers and Superintendents of the New-England Educational Commission for Freedmen, Fourth Series, January 1, 1864, p. 7

Diary of Laura M. Towne: April 17, 1862

Beaufort, S.C., April 17, 1862.

At Mrs. John Forbes',¹ formerly Mr. Tripp's house,— a modern built new building with expensive sea wall and other improvements. The wind blows freshly nearly all day and the tide rises over sandy, grassy flats on three sides of the house. These sands are full of fiddler-crab holes, and are at low tide the resort of negro children with tubs on their heads, crabbing. Soldiers, fishermen, and stragglers also come there, and we see not a little life. Boats frequently pass by, the negro rowers singing their refrains. One very pretty one this morning Moses told me was: —

“De bells done rang

An' we goin' home —

The bells in heaven are ringing.”

Every now and then they shout and change the monotony by several very quick notes, or three or four long-drawn-out ones. One man sings a few words and the chorus breaks in, sometimes with a shout or interjecttional notes. Another song was, “We're bound to go” — to heaven, I suppose. Another had a chorus of “Oh yes, ma'am,” at every five or six bars.

Yesterday Caroline² took us to her mother's house. They were expecting us and were neatly dressed, and elegantly furnished indeed was their room. It had straw matting and a mahogany bureau, besides other things that said plainly “massa's” house had contributed to the splendor, probably after the hasty retreat of “massa's” family. The two women there were both of the colored aristocracy, had lived in the best families, never did any work to speak of, longed for the young ladies and young “mas'rs” back again, because April was the month they used to come to Beaufort and have such gay times. But if their masters were to come back they wanted to go North with us. They begged us to stay, for “seemed like they couldn't be happy widout white ladies ‘roun’.” They hoped it would be healthy so that we could stay, but they thought it would not be so, because the city is not cleaned as it used to be. They would have gone with their masters, both of them, but they had relations whom they did not want to be parted from, “except by death,” who were not going. One of them had gone at first, but ran away and found her way back here, “by de direction of de Lord.” They were both nice women. In the quarters we afterward went to, we saw a dirty family and two horribly ugly old women. They had got a lesson from some one and said, “We got to keep clean or we'll all be sick.” They were not putting their lesson to use.

The little cook-house belonging to this fine mansion is dark and dirty, but nearly empty. Cut-glass tumbler and flower glass on the mantelpiece spoke of the spoliation. Caroline, who escorted us, walked a little distance behind, without bonnet or any outdoor garment. She, however, wore a silver thimble very ostentatiously and carried a little bit of embroidered curtain for a pocket handkerchief, holding it at the middle with her hand put daintily at her waist. We passed a soldier — they are at every corner — and he said something rather jeering. Caroline stepped up, grinning with delight, and told us he said, “There goes the Southern aristocracy with their nigger behind them.” She seemed to be prouder than ever after this. She is rather pretty, very intelligent and respectful, but not very industrious, I fancy.

The walk through the town was so painful, not only from the desertion and desolation, but more than that from the crowd of soldiery lounging, idling, growing desperate for amusement and occupation, till they resort to brutality for excitement. I saw a soldier beating a horse so that I think it possible he killed him. Others galloped past us in a most reckless, unconscionable manner; others stared and looked unfriendly; others gave us a civil military salute and a look as if they saw something from home gladly. There are two Pennsylvania regiments here now, I think. The artillery is encamped near here.

Besides soldiers the streets are full of the oddest negro children — dirty and ragged, but about the same as so many Irish in intelligence, I think, though their mode of speaking is not very intelligible.

The streets are lovely in all that nature does for them. The shade trees are fine, the wild flowers luxuriant, and the mocking-birds perfectly enchanting. They are so numerous and noisy that it is almost like being in a canary bird fancier's.

This morning we went — Mrs. Forbes, Mr. Philbrick,³ and I — to two of the schools. There are not many pupils now, as the General is sending all the negro women and children to the plantations to keep them away from the soldiers. They say that at Hilton Head the negroes are getting unmanageable from mixing with the soldiers, and this is to be prevented here. Women and children, some with babies, some with little toddling things hanging about them, were seated and busily at work. We saw in the school Mrs. Nicholson, Miss White, and Mr. Nichols, who was teaching the little darkies gymnastics and what various things were for, eyes, etc. He asked what ears were made for, and when they said, “To yer with,” he could not understand them at all. The women were given the clothes they make up for their children. I saw some very low-looking women who answered very intelligently, contrary to my expectations, and who were doing pretty good sewing.

There are several very light children at these schools, two with red hair, and one boy who has straight black hair and a head like Andrew Jackson, tall and not wide, but with the front remarkably developed so as to give it an overhanging look. Some, indeed most of them, were the real bullet-headed negroes.

In Miss White's school all of them knew their letters, and she was hearing a class spell words of one syllable.

I have seen little, but have had two talks with both Mr. Pierce⁴ and Mr. French,⁵ and have heard from Mrs. Forbes much of what has been going on as she sees it. Mr. Hooper⁶ also enlightens me a little, and Mr. Philbrick. They all say that the cotton agents have been a great trouble and promise still to be, but Mr. French says we have gained the victory there. There seems to me to be a great want of system, and most incongruous elements here. Some of the women are uneducated and coarse in their looks, but I should think some of them at least are earnest and hard workers. Perhaps they are better fitted for this work than people with more refinement, for it certainly takes great nerve to walk here among the soldiers and negroes and not be disgusted or shocked or pained so much as to give it all up.

The Boston and Washington ladies have all gone to the plantations on the islands near here, where I am also going, and that leaves Mr. French and the New York party for the mainland, or I mean for Beaufort and this island. . . .

I have felt all along that nothing could excuse me for leaving home, and work undone there, but doing more and better work here. Nothing can make amends to my friends for all the anxiety I shall cause them, for the publicity of a not pleasant kind I shall bring upon them, but really doing here what no one else could do as well. So I have set myself a hard task. I shall want Ellen's⁷ help. We shall be strong together — I shall be weak apart.

I think a rather too cautious spirit prevails — antislavery is to be kept in the background for fear of exciting the animosity of the army, and we are only here by military sufferance. But we have the odium of out-and-out abolitionists, why not take the credit? Why not be so confident and freely daring as to secure respect! It will never be done by an apologetic, insinuating way of going to work.

I wish they would all say out loud quietly, respectfully, firmly, “We have come to do anti-slavery work, and we think it noble work and we mean to do it earnestly.”

Instead of this, they do not even tell the slaves that they are free, and they lead them to suppose that if they do not do so and so, they may be returned to their masters. They keep in the background with the army the benevolence of their plans or the justice of them, and merely insist upon the immediate expediency, which I must say is not very apparent. If they do not take the  higher ground, their cause and reputation are lost. But the work will go on. May I help it!

_______________

¹ Mrs. John M. Forbes. Mr. Forbes had rented a house in Beaufort for a short time.

² A negro servant.

³ Edward S. Philbrick, of Brookline, Massachusetts, who had volunteered for service in the Sea Islands, and been given charge of three plantations.

⁴ Edward L. Pierce, the government agent.

⁵ Rev. Mansfield French.

⁶ Edward W. Hooper, later Treasurer of Harvard College.

⁷ Miss Ellen Murray.

Rupert Sargent Holland, Editor, Letters and Diary of Laura M. Towne: Written from the Sea Islands of South Carolina 1862-1864, p. 3-9