ot
very cheerful.

FROM W. C. G.

_Nov. 15._ Our island work is acquiring a little more system, but I'm
not sure that the people are as good as they were six months ago.
Great mistakes have been made, and I'm afraid the experiment so far
only shows the absolute necessity of avoiding errors which common
sense pointed out before any experience. Still, my belief isn't
altered that the slaves would speedily become a self-supporting
people, either by a system of wise and humane care, or by the opposite
method of letting them alone to feel the misery consequent on idleness
and the comfort that with very many would at once result from
industry.

FROM E. S. P.

_Nov. 16._ I had a talk with General Saxton. He was feeling very blue,
had just been to Hilton Head to get some tents for his new recruits of
which he enlisted about a hundred on his recent expedition to St.
Mary's.[74] There are some 3000 tents in warehouse there, but General
Brannan[75] refused to open it for him, alleging the advice of the
Medical Department, which closed it because yellow fever had been near
it. Now it is notorious that whenever one of General Brannan's men
wants anything from the same warehouse, he gives a special order and
it is opened for him, but not for General Saxton, the _Abolitionist_.
So the new recruits have to sleep in open air these frosty nights,
dampening their ardor somewhat. General Saxton agreed with me that if
there is no more earnestness and sincerity among other army officers
than among the specimens we have had here, we should all go to the
dogs. His expedition was so successful that he was in good spirits
till balked by General Brannan. The best item in it was that one of
the rebel prisoners taken was marched to Beaufort jail guarded by one
of his former slaves! The conduct of the negro troops was very well
spoken of by their officers, but is the subject of a good deal of
ribaldry among the white soldiers at Beaufort, who exhibit a degree of
hatred really fiendish towards the black regiment, taking their cue
from their commanding officer, of course.

We had a very interesting discussion on Wednesday about the future
management of the plantations. I advocated the subdivision of the
land, allotting to each family what it could cultivate and measuring
their crops separately. Mr. Bryant, who came from Edisto last
June,[76] preferred working the people in a gang with a foreman, and
paying them by the month. His people had