y of these very men, the solid
mask under which Nature has concealed all this wealth of mother-wit.
This very comedian is one to whom one might point, as he hoed lazily
in a cotton-field, as a being the light of whose brain had utterly gone
out; and this scene seems like coming by night upon some conclave
of black beetles, and finding them engaged, with green-room and
foot-lights, in enacting "Poor Pillicoddy." This is their university;
every young Sambo before me, as he turned over the sweet potatoes and
peanuts which were roasting in the ashes, listened with reverence to
the wiles of the ancient Ulysses, and meditated the same. It is Nature's
compensation; oppression simply crushes the upper faculties of the head,
and crowds everything into the perceptive organs. Cato, thou reasonest
well! When I get into any serious scrape, in an enemy's country, may I
be lucky enough to have you at my elbow, to pull me out of it!

The men seem to have enjoyed the novel event of Thanksgiving-Day; they
have had company and regimental prize-shootings, a minimum of speeches
and a maximum of dinner. Bill of fare: two beef-cattle and a thousand
oranges. The oranges cost a cent apiece, and the cattle were Secesh,
bestowed by General Saxby, as they all call him.

December 1, 1862.

How absurd is the impression bequeathed by Slavery in regard to these
Southern blacks, that they are sluggish and inefficient in labor! Last
night, after a hard day's work (our guns and the remainder of our tents
being just issued), an order came from Beaufort that we should be ready
in the evening to unload a steamboat's cargo of boards, being some of
those captured by them a few weeks since, and now assigned for their
use. I wondered if the men would grumble at the night-work; but the
steamboat arrived by seven, and it was bright moonlight when they went
at it. Never have I beheld such a jolly scene of labor. Tugging these
wet and heavy boards over a bridge of boats ashore, then across the
slimy beach at low tide, then up a steep bank, and all in one great
uproar of merriment for two hours. Running most of the time, chattering
all the time, snatching the boards from each other's backs as if they
were some coveted treasure, getting up eager rivalries between different
companies, pouring great choruses of ridicule on the heads of all
shirkers, they made the whole scene so enlivening that I gladly stayed
out in the moonlight for the whole time to watch it. And