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
