r points. I do not know just how many slaves the Confederate
Government required each master to furnish for its service, but I know
that 15 of the 465 slaves on my master's, Col. M.E. Singleton's,
plantation, were sent to work on fortifications each year during the
war.

The war had been going on two years before my turn came. In the summer
of 1863 with thousands of other negroes, gathered from the various parts
of the state, I was freighted to the city of Charleston, South Carolina,
and the group in which my lot fell was sent to Sullivan's Island. We
were taken on a boat from the city of Charleston, and landed in a little
village, situated nearly opposite Fort Sumter, on this island. Leaving
behind us Fort Moultrie, Fort Beauregard, and several small batteries,
we marched down the white sandy beach of the island, below Fort
Marshall, to the very extreme point, where a little inlet of water
divides Sullivan's from Long Island, and here we were quartered under
Capt. Charles Haskell.

From this point on the island, turning our faces northward, with Morris
Island northwest of us, and looking directly north out into the channel,
we saw a number of Union gun boats, like a flock of black sheep feeding
on a plain of grass; while the men pacing their decks looked like
faithful shepherds watching the flock. While we negroes remained upon
Sullivan's Island, we watched every movement of the Union fleet, with
hearts of joy to think that they were a part of the means by which the
liberty of four and one-half millions of slaves was to be effected in
accordance with the emancipation proclamation made the January
preceding. We kept such close watch upon them that some one among us,
whether it was night or day, would be sure to see the discharge of a
shot from the gun boat before the sound of the report was heard. During
that summer there was no engagement between the Union fleet and the
Confederates at that point in South Carolina. The Union gun boats,
however, fired occasional shots over us, six miles, into the city of
Charleston. They also fired a few shells into a marsh between Sullivan's
Island and Mount Pleasant, but with no damage to us.

WHAT WORK THE NEGROES DID ON THE ISLAND.

After we had reached the island, our company was divided. One part was
quartered at one end of the Island, around Fort Moultrie, and we were
quartered at the other end, at Fort Marshall. Our work was to repair
forts, build batteries, mount guns, an