re carried off were
dead before this--starved. York was five weeks getting back here, and
arrived about Christmas.

Limus came for a reading-lesson, a man about fifty, driver on one of
Mr. Soule's plantations next this, who comes over almost every day for
me to teach him. He has a wife here and grown children, and another on
the other plantation, the rascal. He is very smart and learns
well.[31]

Mr. Philbrick had business with Mr. Pierce, and did not come home to
dinner. But he got into more business than he expected before he came
back, and I never saw a poor man show suffering more than he did when
he came in after ten o'clock and told us what he had received orders
to do the next day. While he was at Mr. Pierce's, writing, young
Hazard Stevens came over with despatches from General Hunter[32]
ordering all the agents to send him in the morning all the able-bodied
black men between the ages of 18 and 45, capable of bearing arms, on
the plantations. There was no explanation whatsoever of the reasons
for the demand, no hint of what was to be done with them, and nothing
but our confidence in General Hunter's friendliness to the race gave
us a shadow of comfort. But that would avail little to the negroes,
who would lose the confidence they are beginning to feel in white men.
Yet there was but one thing for us to do, and it was with heavy,
aching hearts that at midnight we separated. Companies of soldiers
were to be sent from Beaufort in the night and distributed to the
different plantations to prevent the negroes from taking to the woods,
so that we were not surprised at being roused about two hours after by
thundering knocks at the front door, echoing through all these empty
rooms with a ghostly sound. This proved to be Captain Stevens again,
alone, who had stopped to enquire the way to some of the other
plantations he had to notify, and say that the soldiers would be here
in about an hour. We had scarcely got to sleep again before we all
were roused by their arrival, and eight men, a Captain and Sergeant of
the New York 79th Highlanders, tramped through the house. Mr.
Philbrick gave them a pail of water and some hardtack, for they had
had a long walk, and then they stretched themselves on the floor of
one of our empty parlors as quietly as could be, considering
themselves in luxury. We slept as best we could the rest of the night,
and were up early to get the soldiers their breakfast and get ready
for the heart-sicke