FORAGING EXPEDITIONS
As I have previously related, the men frequently led foraging-parties to places where supplies, necessary for the Department were obtained. In this way, boat loads of pine and oak wood for the hospitals and Government offices, a steam boat load of cotton in bales for the protection of the gun boats, and numbers of horses and mules, with forage for the same for the Commissary's Department, cattle, swine, sheep, &c., were obtained at no other cost than the small wages of the men. Without doubt, property far exceeding in value all that was ever paid to the blacks, was thus obtained for the Government.
BRINGING IN SUPPLIES OF CATTLE
INDUSTRY OF THE BLACKS COMPARED WITH THE POOR WHITES
Under my appointment as Superintendent of the Poor, from Major General Burnside, I had to attend to the suffering poor whites, as well as blacks. There were eighteen hundred men, women and children of the poor whites, who felt compelled to call for provisions at my office. To these eighteen hundred was distributed gratuitously, during three months, as follows:
| TO 1,800 WHITE PEOPLE
Beef .................. 116 barrels |
TO 7,500 COLORED PEOPLE
Beef ....................... 4 1/2 barrels |
While to the seventy-five hundred poor blacks, over four times the number there that were of the whites, there was called for and given in the same time (see above):
Or an average in most articles of sixteen times as much, was called for by the poor whites, as was wanted by the poor blacks. At that time, work was offered to both to the whites at the rate of $12.00 the month, to the blacks at the rate of $8.00 the month.
MISCEGENATION AT THE SOUTH
As Superintedant of the poor, the duty of burying the dead was committed to me. In the fulfilment of this duty I was one day called upon to provide a coffin and grave for a young colored man, who had died under somewhat suspicious circumstances. He had been, apparently, in perfect good health but six hours before his death; and the only cause assigned for his decease was, that he had run a small tack in his foot a day or two before, and that possibly he had died of lock jaw.
On visiting the house, or hovel, on the outskirts of the town, where his body lay, I found that he had been living with, and working for a man who was said to be his owner, that this master, though the owner of twelve or fourteen slaves, was living in that hovel, in open concubinage with a negro woman who was not his slave; that he had previously lived at periods of a year or two with other negro women, and that on one or two occasions he had quarreled with them and threatened their lives. As these women were still living in huts in the immediate neighborhood, I visited them, and found that the slave owner had, in one instance, made an attack with a knife on his black paramour, and that she had barely escaped with her life. In proof of this assertion she exhibited her dresses and showed the slits in them made by the knife. The hovel in which this master and his black partner lived, was one story in height, with one window about two feet square. a mud chimney with a barrel on top, a broken door, covering a lop-sided entrance leading to an interor, consisting of but one room, without carpet, with two or three rickety chairs, a small pine table and other wretched furniture. The man fled on our arrival, and though we afterwards found him, the difficulties of a post mortem examination sufficiently accurate to prove the presence of poison on the body of the deceased, and the press of occupation upon the few surgeons in the department, compelled us to release him.
THE LIGHT COLOR OF MANY OF THE REFUGEES
Is a marked peculiarity of the colored people of Newbern. I have had men and women apply for work who were so white that I could not believe they had a particle of negro blood in their veins, except upon the broad belief according to the declaration of St. Paul "that God had made of one blood all the nations of the earth." I have spoken elsewhere of the great beauty of many of the quadroon girls who attended my school for the more advanced scholars. Many of them were as white and as comely as any Italian, Spanish, or Portuguese beauty. So remarkable is the difference in the color of the blacks of the South from these of the North, that the conviction is constantly forced upon the mind, that slavery if left to itself but a few generations longer would have died out of itself, from this cause alone.
INDUSTRY OF THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN
The women and children supported themselves with but little aid from the Government, by washing and ironing, cooking and making pies, cakes, &c., for the troops. The few women that were employed by the Government in the hospitals received four dollars a month, clothes and one ration.
THE ARRIVAL OF THE FREED PEOPLE
The freed people came into my yard from the neighboring plantations, sometimes as many as one hundred at a time, leaving with joy their plows in the field, and their old homes, to follow our soldiers when returning from their frequent raids; the women carrying their pickaninnies and the men huge bundles of bedding and clothing, occasionally with a cart or old wagon, with a mule drawing their household stuff. They were immediately provided with food and hot coffee, which they seemingly relished highly, for they were usually both hungry and tired from their oftentimes long journeys and fastings. Their names were at once registered in the books; and after one night's rest, they would find habitations in the deserted town, and be industriously at work, the men for the Government, and the women for themselves.
Those in the neighborhood of Newbern were ordered to report at my office, as soon as they arrived within our lines. They obtained quarters in the outhouses, kitchens and poorer classes of buildings, deserted by the citizens on the taking of Newbern. They attended our free schools and churches regularly and with great eagerness. They were peaceable, orderly, cleanly and industrious. There was seldom a quarrel known among them. They considered it a duty to work for the United States Government: and though they could, in many cases, have made more money, at other occupations, there was a public opinion among them that tabooed any one that refused to work for the Government. The churches and schools established for their benefit, with no cost to the Government, were of great value in building up this public opinion among them.
My office was in a fine old homestead, gracefully shaded with large elm, walnut, and pine trees, with a garden of over an acre, filled with plum, peach, apple, and fig trees; with beds of lilies, tulips and rose bushes, heavy with clusters of those fragrant flowers, The trees were filled with mocking birds and other charming feathered songsters.
The consequence of this system, of having all the refugees report at the one central office, and of having their names, ages previous occupation, number in family, where they came from, and the place to which they were assigned to work, or where they went to reside, was, that we could not only always readily find them for the special duty for which they were fitted, whenever they were wanted, but, they never became vagrants or objects of charity on our hands. As I have before remarked, we never could get enough of them, consequently those appeals for "old clothes, money, books, &c." which has been heard so often from other Departments, were not necessary, and for that reason, were never made from the Department of North Carolina, while I had charge of the freed people. The only appeal that I ever made, was privately, through Mr. Larned, for some medicines for the hospital which the medical director of the department had not in his stores at the time, or he would have supplied me with them. On two occasions I was offered a salary by the freed-people, if I would take charge permanently of the congregation of St. Andrew's Colored Church, in Newbern, which fact plainly proves they were no "paupers."
The only clothing that was distributed by the Government to redeem its promise of "clothes" as well as $8.00 per month, during my term of office, was four hundred suits of captured rebel uniforms, and a good supply of large size soldiers' shoes, turned over to me by the regimental quartermasters because they would not fit the white soldiers off our army, yet the money the freed-people earned by their well directed industry, enabled both the men and women to dress decently, and in no way to suffer from the lack of clothing. The Government, however, should have redeemed its promise, as the blacks thoroughly knew their rights.
I was succeeded in office by the Rev. Mr. Means, whose faithfulness in the work was proven by his laying down his life in the service, and the present superintendent, the Rev. Horace James, is one of the best friends of the freedmen to be found in the country.
CHURCHES OPENED
Soon after our arrival in Newbern, I was invited by the Elders of the African Methodist Church to hold services with them. The local preacher, a white man, who had formerly presided over them, was still there and preached every Sunday morning; and at three in the afternoon, they had their class meeting. Notwithstanding these two meetings were well attended, the services over which I was invited to take charge at five o'clock were usually crowded. The church had a gallery all round, and seated about six hundred. Another church edifice, a Baptist, which held three hundred and fifty, and had been closed some years, I opened, and here also I had a full attendance every morning, at the same time the Methodist Church services were being held.
On Roanoke Island, the blacks, for want of a church edifice, had constructed a spacious bower, cutting down long, straight, pine trees and placing them parallel lengthwise for seats, with space enough between for their knees constructing a rude pulpit out of the discarded Quartermaster's boxes, and overarching the whole with a thick covering of pine branches. Many of their colored preachers exhort with great earnestness and power, and usually present the Gospel with simplicity and truth.
COTTON HOARDS IN THE SWAMP
CHRISTIAN PIETY OF THE BLACKS
One peculiarity of great, if not vital importance that must be considered in forming a plan for the proper and judicious treatment of this people, is their earnest and loving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Without the ability to read, except in a very few instances, with but little leisure to attend places of public worship, and through long and painful years of oppression, they have been blessed by the grace of God, with a simplicity and clearness of understanding of the fundamental doctrines of the truth of salvation as it is in Jesus Christ, that is most astonishing. If one would learn what precious comfort may be found in Christianity, in the midst of the severest trials, with which human nature ean be afflicted, let him go among this people. In the evening after the toils of the day are over, you will hear from the cabin of nearly every family, the sweet sound of hymns, sung with plaintive and touching pathos to some familiar tune, and listen quietly as you pass by, and you will hear it followed by the earnestly beseeching voice l of prayer. Their religious meetings are usually crowded. Before the rebellion broke out, these meetings had been discouraged by the State authorities, whether from fear of the slaves I cannot say, though I always heard this given as the I reason.
THEIR DISLIKE OF THE REBELS
When our army took Newbern, about fifty of the enemy's, wounded under the care of two of their surgeons fell into our hands. These two doctors made constant complaints of their inability to get any of the negroes to assist them in the hospital. As we found no difficulty in having always plenty of excellent help from the blacks in that way, remembering how cruelly many of our wounded at the previous battles of Bull Run and elsewhere had been treated by the rebels, and desirous to set a good example, I tried hard to remedy the defect, and sent a number of negroes to their assistance, but all to no purpose. At last, at a prayer-meeting one evening, I appealed to their religious faith, calling their attention to those passages in our Saviour's teachings, when he says: "If thine enemy hunger feed him, and if he thirst, give him drink;" and then told them of the euemy's hospital, and calling their attention to the fact, that these misguided people were now in our hands as prisoners of war. I asked them if there were not four Christian men among them, who would, for the sake of the Saviour, forego their dislike, and volunteer to take care of the hospital for us. Four gave in their names, and served in the hospital faithfully for two months, until the rebels were exchanged.
The duties of the day, at my office, were always opened with prayer, singing and reading a chapter of the Bible, and every black about the place, usually from ten to twenty, attended these services cheerfully. For quiet, cleanliness and order, I will venture to say, the head-quarters of the Superintendent of the Poor, though frequently crowded with hundreds of poor whites and blacks, compared favorably with any other office in the Department.
Copyright 
1998