l
ourselves of any such privileges. I should like to have the question
asked him, "How the Coffin's Point people are to get supplies?" If we
are forbidden to keep a store there, it certainly cannot be forbidden
us to send a wagon-load of goods there for the supply of that
plantation whenever needed, which will answer our purposes well
enough. In order to avoid any trap-springing by parties who might
think it a smart thing to tell Colonel H. we had not discontinued the
store, it would be best to have a plain talk with him on the subject.
We don't want to _keep store_, but supply the plantations, and need
not keep any considerable stock on hand at these "exposed" points.

The next group of letters returns to the subject of negro
recruitment. By this time various Northern States, in
despair of finding enough men at home to make out the number
of recruits required of them by the general Government,
were getting hold of Southern negroes for the purpose, and
their agents had appeared in the Department of the South,
competing for freedmen with offers of large bounties. At the
same time General Foster made up his mind that all
able-bodied negroes who refused to volunteer, even under
these conditions, should be forced into the service. If the
conscription methods of the Government up to this time had
not been brutal, certainly no one can deny that adjective to
the present operations. Yet it will be seen that experience
has tempered the indignation of the superintendents, though
not their distress.

FROM C. P. W.

_Aug. 9._ Lieutenant-Colonel Rice, agent for Massachusetts, has come.
After looking about a little, he does not think the prospect of
getting recruits _very_ brilliant, but his agents are at work in
Beaufort streets, and may pick up a few men. He intends to send native
scouts on to the main to beat up recruits; $35 a man is offered for
all they will bring in. Colonel Rice intended to come down here
to-day, but had to go and see General Foster and Colonel
Littlefield,[172] Superintendent of Recruiting. (He--Colonel L.--calls
it recruiting to conscript all he can lay hands on.) There is to be,
not a draft, but a wholesale conscription,[173] enforced here.
Lieutenant-Colonel Strong of the First South (Thirty-Third United
States Colored Troops)[174] enrolled all colored men last month. It is
possible, if the men can be made to understand this, that a few can