s, and fortunately the same
"cotton-agents" who were despatched by the authorities at Washington
to collect and ship the property were able, by employing negroes for
the purpose, to make a beginning towards solving the problem.

In another month the next step was taken; the Secretary of the
Treasury sent down Edward L. Pierce, of Milton, Massachusetts, as a
special agent charged with the duty of getting under way some method
of managing the negroes and starting a cotton crop for 1862. Mr.
Pierce, who the summer before had had charge of the contrabands at
Fortress Monroe, did his work quickly and well, and his suggestions
for organization were promptly adopted and put into practice by the
Government. Meanwhile he had written to "benevolent persons in
Boston," setting forth the instant need of the negroes for clothing
and for teachers, meaning by the term "teachers" quite as much
superintendents of labor as instructors in the rudiments of learning.
The response to this appeal was immediate. An "Educational Commission
for Freedmen"[1] was organized in Boston, New York and Philadelphia
were quick to follow, and on March 3, 1862, there set sail from New
York for Port Royal[2] a party of men and women who were almost
without exception inspired purely by the desire to help those who had
been slaves. Government made them an allowance of transportation,
subsistence, and quarters; and, since few could afford to give their
services, the Commissions paid them salaries of from $25 to $50 a
month.

There was a good deal of courage in what these people did. The climate
of the Sea Islands is unwholesome; the rebels were more than likely,
from across the narrow Coosaw River, to invade the territory held by
Northern troops; it was not improbable that the negroes might refuse
utterly to work; it was not impossible that they might wreak vengeance
for their wrongs on every white man who should try to control them.
Furthermore, as a rule these men and women knew little of any kind of
agriculture, and still less of the local conditions under which they
were to do their work, or of the people with whom they were to deal.
They had, in fact, no other guides to action than enthusiasm and good
sense, and of the latter, in particular, they carried widely differing
amounts. Some, who went supplied with too little of either, were back
in their Northern homes before summer was under way; the majority,
making what they could of the means, or lack of