former owners, as
requested by the President, but that the task was rather difficult, as
you may imagine; and though the former owners had promised to "absorb"
the labor, and provide for the negroes' wants, etc., they found the
negroes had ideas which they were not quite prepared for, and, in
short, got so disgusted with the prospect of getting the said negroes
to work for them under the new order of things that they did not seem
so anxious to "absorb" them as before, and as General Howard did not
feel like driving off the negroes to put the old owners in possession,
he left things pretty much as he found them,[188] except that the old
owners, who went there confidently expecting to have all their own
way, went off with a flea in the ear. I have nothing more from the
Charleston lawyer, but Mr. Tomlinson reports that Charleston lawyers
told him they didn't see how to get around our tax-titles, though they
would doubtless carry them into court as soon as they have courts, and
give the lawyers plenty of work.[189]

Dr. Clarence Fripp began to practice medicine on St. Helena, living
with John Major, but afterwards got a contract surgeon's berth from
General Saxton, and is now in the Village, next door to his old house,
now occupied by Miss Towne! He made a professional visit at Coffin's
Point and dined with them!

A picture of Clarence Fripp on his return to St. Helena, and
a glimpse of his situation from his own point of view, are
given in a letter to the New York _Nation_ from Dennett, a
special correspondent (see page 320). Dennett writes that,
among the Northern soldiers and traders in the hotel at
Hilton Head, there was also "a person who had the easily
distinguishable appearance and manners of a South
Carolinian. This gentleman, a person of some fifty odd years
old, dressed tolerably well in a suit of grey clothes, with
a large display of crumpled linen at the collar and cuffs of
his coat, sat before the stove smoking, and talking very
freely about his present poverty and his plans for the
future." After explaining that he had left St. Helena when
Dupont forced an entrance, leaving his plate and furniture
behind, and that his plantation had been sold, Dr. Fripp set
forth the situation in which he now found himself. "Some
Massachusetts man had bought it, and he didn't know when
he'd get it back.... Up in Greenville he soon spent all his
mon