eating Secesh everywhere as you have been in taking the
town, guess it'll take you some time!" Indeed, the negroes had somewhat
less confidence in our power than at first, on account of our not having
followed up the capture of Bay Point and Hilton Head. The same quaint
old creature, speaking of the disregard of the masters for the feelings
of the slaves, said, with much emphasis, "They thought God was dead!"

I visited Barnwell Island, the only plantation upon which is that of
Trescot, formerly Secretary of Legation at London, a visit to whom
Russell describes in his "Diary." But the mansion is not now as when
Russell saw it. Its large library is deposited in the Smithsonian
Institution at Washington. Its spacious rooms in the first and second
stories, together with the attics, are all filled with the families of
negro refugees. From this point, looking across the water, we could see
a cavalry-picket of the Rebels. The superintendent who had charge of the
plantation, and accompanied me, was Charles Follen, an inherited name,
linked with the struggles for freedom in both hemispheres.

The negro graveyards occasionally attracted me from the road. They are
usually in an open field, under a clump of some dozen or twenty trees,
perhaps live-oaks, and not fenced. There may be fifty or a hundred
graves, marked only by sticks eighteen inches or two feet high and about
as large as the wrist. Mr. Olmsted saw some stones in a negro graveyard
at Savannah, erected by the slaves, and bearing rather illiterate
inscriptions; but I never succeeded in finding any but wooden memorials,
not even at Beaufort. Only in one case could I find an inscription, and
that was in a burial-place on Ladies Island. There was a board at the
head of the grave, shaped something like an ordinary gravestone, about
three feet high and six inches wide. The inscription was as follows:--

OLd Jiw
de PArt his
Life on the
2 of WAY
Re st frow
LAuer

On the foot-board were these words:--

We ll
d OW N.

The rude artist was Kit, the son of the old man. He can read, and also
write a little, and, like his deceased father, is a negro preacher. He
said that he used to carry his father in his arms in his old age,--that
the old man had no pain, and, as the son expressed it, "sunk in years."
I inquired of Kit concerning several of the graves; and I found, by his
intelligent answers, that their tenants were disposed in families and
were known. The