er to make
trouble. Cato has gone over to Pine Grove and begun to build a house.
I daresay he will take Rose into it bye and bye, when it is done.

I have been very busy lately weighing pease and cotton and measuring
corn. The latter is not very pleasant, for I have to stay in the
corn-house and keep tally from nine to three o'clock, and the weevils
are more numerous than were the fleas the first week we came here to
live. Mosquitoes are about gone, but we have sand-flies again. No
fleas yet that I am aware of.

FROM C. P. W.

_Oct. 23._ General Saxton returned, as you know, with full powers from
the President to raise one or if possible five negro regiments. I
think it will be difficult to induce the men to enlist. Their
treatment in the spring and summer was such as to prejudice them
against military duty under any circumstances. They were forcibly
drafted, were ill-treated by at least one officer,--who is a terror to
the whole black population,--have never been paid a cent; they
suffered from the change of diet, and quite as much from homesickness.
I think if their treatment in the spring had been different, it would
be possible to raise a regiment on these islands; as it is, I think it
will be surprising if they fill a company from St. Helena. I think,
too, that it would be very difficult, under any circumstances, to
train them into fighting condition under six months, and if they had
at the first the prospect of coming into actual conflict with the
Secesh, the number who would be willing to enlist would be extremely
small. They have not, generally speaking, the pluck to look in the
face the prospect of actual fighting, nor have they the character to
enlist for their own defense. They can understand the necessity of
their knowing how to defend themselves, they acknowledge their
obligations to help the Yankees, and do their part in keeping the
islands against their old masters; a good many of them express their
willingness to fight under white officers, and some have intimated a
desire to know something of drill and how to handle a musket. But they
are very timid and cautious. They fear that when they have learned
their drill they will be drafted. They are very reluctant to leave
their homes to go and live on Hilton Head or Port Royal, in camp, away
from their families and crops. The mere mention of "Captain Tobey,"
with a hint that "General Saxton wants the black people to help the
white soldiers keep the Sece