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قراءة كتاب Letters from Port Royal Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868)
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Letters from Port Royal Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868)
contributing a thousand dollars to the work and volunteering his services on the ground, where he was given charge by Mr. Pierce of three plantations, including the largest on the islands; being a person of some means, with an established reputation as an engineer and a very considerable business experience, he was from the first prominent among the volunteers. When, in the following year, he became personally and financially responsible for a dozen plantations, this prominence was increased a hundredfold. Thus he found himself the victim of the vituperation hurled by many Northern friends of the blacks at the "professed philanthropists" who went to Port Royal to "make their fortunes" out of the labor of the "poor negro." The integrity of Mr. Philbrick's motives stands out in his letters beyond the possibility of misinterpretation. This record is a witness of what sort of thing he and his kind were ready to do to redress the wrongs of slavery.
The extracts have been arranged in chronological order, except in a few cases where chronology has seemed less important than subject-matter. They tell a complete story, the greater part of which falls within the period of the Civil War. They give a vivid notion of the life from the midst of which they were written; of the flat, marsh-riddled country, in which few Northerners saw any lasting charm; of the untidy, down-at-the-heels plantations; of the "people," wards of the nation, childish, irritating, endlessly amusing; of the daily toil of Northern men in managing farms and of Northern women in managing households under Southern and war-time conditions; of the universal preoccupation with negro needs; of the friendly interchange of primitive hospitality; of the underlying sense in the writers' minds of romantic contrast between their own to-day and the yesterday of the planters,—or a possible to-morrow of the planters. It is not with matters military or political that these letters deal. They record the day to day experiences of the housekeeper, the teacher, the superintendent of labor, and the landowner. For this reason they form a new contribution to the history of the Port Royal Experiment.
KEY TO MAP OF THE SEA ISLANDS OF
SOUTH CAROLINA
Plantations. | |
Cherry Hill (T. A. Coffin) | 16 |
Coffin's Point (T. A. Coffin) | 12 |
Corner (J. B. Fripp) | 5 |
Eustis | 2 |
Alvirah Fripp (Hope Place) | 18 |
Edgar Fripp | 20 |
Hamilton Fripp | 10 |
J. B. Fripp (Corner) | 5 |
Capt. John Fripp (Homestead) | 8 |
Capt. Oliver Fripp | 22 |
Thomas B. Fripp | 9 |
Fripp Point | 11 |
Frogmore (T. A. Coffin) | 19 |
Rev. Robert Fuller ("R.'s") | 4 |
Hope Place (Alvirah Fripp) | 18 |
Dr. Jenkins | 21 |
Mary Jenkin | 28 |
Martha E. McTureous | 14 |
James McTureous | 15 |
Mulberry Hill (John Fripp) | 17 |
The Oaks (Pope) | 3 |
Oakland | 6 |
Pine Grove (Fripp) | 13 |
Pope (The Oaks) | 3 |
"R.'s" (Fuller) | 4 |
Smith | 1 |
Dr. White | 27 |
Brick Church (Baptist) | 24 |
White Church (Episcopal) | 23 |
St. Helena Village | 7 |
Fort Walker | 26 |
Fort Beauregard | 25 |
Camp of the First South Carolina Volunteers (Colonel Higginson) | 1 |
LETTERS FROM PORT ROYAL
1862
Arrival of the "missionaries" at Port Royal.—The household at Pine Grove.—First impressions of the blacks.—General Hunter's attempt to recruit a negro regiment.—The Planter episode.—The labor situation.—Establishment at Coffin's Point.—Hunter's proclamation of freedom.—Details of plantation work.—Lincoln's preliminary proclamation of emancipation.—Unwillingness of the negroes even to drill.—General Saxton's efforts to raise a negro regiment.—The cotton crop of 1862.—Mr. Philbrick's plans for buying plantations.
FROM E. S. PHILBRICK
Boston, February 19, 1862. Dear ——: I think you will not be greatly astonished when I tell you that I am off for Port Royal next week. I go under the auspices of the Educational Commission to make myself generally useful in whatever way I can, in reducing some amount of order and industry from the mass of eight or ten thousand contrabands now within our lines there. Boston is wide awake on the subject, and I am determined to see if something can't be done to prove that the blacks will work for other motives than the lash.
The Treasury Department offer subsistence, protection, transportation, and the War Department offer their hearty coöperation to the work undertaken here by private citizens, but can't take any more active part at present for reasons obvious. They ridicule the idea that these blacks can ever again be claimed by their runaway masters, which is a satisfactory foundation for our exertions in