. Bullock's hospital in Savannah.
Except when the work was very pressing the slaves were to be sent home for
the rest of the day upon the occurrence of heavy rains in the afternoon,
for Manigault had found by experience "that always after a complete
wetting, particularly in cold rainy weather in winter or spring, one
or more of them are made sick and lie up, and at times serious illness
ensues."[34]

[Footnote 34: _Plantation and Frontier_, I, 122-126.]

In 1852 and again in 1854 storms and freshets heavily injured Manigault's
crops, and cholera decimated his slaves. In 1855 the fields were in
bad condition because of volunteer rice, and the overseer was dying of
consumption. The slaves, however, were in excellent health, and the crop,
while small, brought high prices because of the Crimean war. In 1856 a new
overseer named Venters handled the flooding inexpertly and made but half
a crop, yielding $12,660 in gross proceeds. For the next year Venters was
retained, on the maxim "never change an overseer if you can help it,"
and nineteen slaves were bought for $11,850 to fill the gaps made by the
cholera. Furthermore a tract of pine forest was bought to afford summer
quarters for the negro children, who did not thrive on the malarial
plantation, and to provide a place of isolation for cholera cases. In 1857
Venters made a somewhat better crop, but as Manigault learned and wrote at
the end of the year, "elated by a strong and very false religious feeling,
he began to injure the plantation a vast deal, placing himself on a par
with the negroes by even joining in with them at their prayer meetings,
breaking down long established discipline which in every case is so
difficult to preserve, favoring and siding in any difficulty with the
people against the drivers, besides causing numerous grievances." The
successor of the eccentric Venters in his turn proved grossly neglectful;
and it was not until the spring of 1859 that a reliable overseer was found
in William Capers, at a salary of $1000. Even then the year's experience
was such that at its end Manigault recorded the sage conclusion: "The truth
is, on a plantation, to attend to things properly it requires both master
and overseer."

The affairs of another estate in the Savannah neighborhood, "Sabine
Fields," belonging to the Alexander Telfair estate, may be gleaned from
its income and expense accounts. The purchases of shoes indicate a
working force of about thirty hands. T