ols a sort of footing which they wouldn't
otherwise have, after our troops get scarce. The old feeling has
already blossomed out and borne fruit in Louisiana, where all the
freedmen's schools have just been extinguished or snuffed out at a
single pinch, except in New Orleans city, one lady teacher being shot
through the head.

A sweeping order has mustered out over a hundred generals of the
Volunteer Army, General Saxton among the rest. I don't know who takes
his place in the Freedmen's Bureau. This institution will probably be
continued by Congress with enlarged powers, but it is but a drop in
the bucket, after all.

C. F. Williams is busy sharing out land. He sells the whole of Fripp
Point in small lots to the negroes of both places, and some others
from outside. The whole place measures only four hundred and sixty
acres, bought for seven hundred and fifty, and the Captain John Fripp
place is only four hundred and sixty instead of one thousand for which
I bought it! By the way, the old man is dead, leaving his three
daughters in poverty, to earn their living as they best may. Julian
Coffin has visited Mr. Soule, etc., asking leave to go into his old
room, to take some of his father's old books, and left after a few
hours, since which none of us have heard anything further of them.

There seems to be less law than ever there. I am about making
representations at Washington to see if I can't get some improvement.

I lost about $2800 on the negro cotton ginned in New York, and paid
over about $2500 on account of the cotton which they ginned there! I
also lost some $2000 on cotton taken from Mr. ---- in Beaufort, he
turning out a knave. Our crop of 1864 paid our Company a profit of
about $19,000. I shall just about pay expenses on the crop of 1865,
not much more, I think. The caterpillar and the drought didn't leave
much cotton.

T. E. R. TO C. P. W.

_Feb. 3, 1866._ I am a _gentleman of leisure_ and, like most every one
else here, am living on the interest of what I have lost. I am no
longer a member of the noted firm of N., R., and W. We dissolved
January 1, and N. and W. continue the business at the old stand. I
decided that there was not salt enough for three certainly. There is
no money here to speak of, and what there is will go to Beaufort where
there is liquor sold or given away. I have also given up
cotton-planting; it is not a very lucrative business when it brings
only sixty-six cents.

I made arran