E. S. P. to Mrs. Philbrick
Coffin’s Point, Nov. 10. Arrived here about 6. I found people in the field picking cotton at R.’s places, and found on nearly all my fields the cotton still green and blossoming, while on most of the Government plantations the grass had stopped its growth long ago and the crop was about over. I find old Frank (the wily) in confinement in the harness-room for some row among the people last Sunday, awaiting trial. Oh, the horses, how they do look! A few months among our Northern fixings make everything look so wretched down here.
There is a circular just issued by General Saxton, pointing out the plantations which are to be sold to the negroes, and advising them to stake out their claims and build cabins on them as preëmptors, which will not attract many of my people, I think. The McTureous places, T. B. Fripp’s, Hamilton Fripp’s, and others are to be so sold, as soon as the necessary surveys are made. I doubt the policy of this sort of thing until the time shall have passed for the redemption of the land by the old owners, though none may ever appear to redeem. I am afraid some rows may arise from the difficulty of fixing and recording boundaries among a lot of negro squatters, should there be many such.
These plantations, about to be sold at auction to negro preëmptors, were those which had been reserved for this purpose from the sale of March 9, 1863 (see p. 171). The order of the President (dated September 16), from which General Saxton got authority for his circular just mentioned, also provided for the sale at auction of about twenty plantations in lots not to exceed three hundred and twenty acres. This latter provision, which might possibly result in preventing many negroes from owning any land at present,—since the plantations reserved for them alone were not large enough for all,—presently brought about infinite trouble, through disagreement among the authorities.