From H. W.
[Jan. 29.] Mr. Philbrick vaccinated all the children here last year, and the few cases we have had have been among those grown persons who were vaccinated many years ago, and have all been very mild. It may run through the place, but it is not likely to be violent, and the quarters are too far off to expose us.
Feb. 26. Rose came up as usual, but had such hot fever that I sent her home to add one more to the sick list there, where all but one have “the Pox,” taken from Hester. I expected Rose would not escape. Moreover, Uncle Sam now has it, so Robert may give out in a few weeks; but no one has been very ill, and no one yet has died here. It seems to be a milder form than that which appeared at the Oaks and at Mr. Eustis’, where a number have died, or else they give them more air here, which is I believe the fact. I do not go to the quarters now at all. I can do no special good in going, and they send to me for what they want.
[March 21.] Monday morning just after breakfast Rose came into the parlor with a funny expression on her face and asked me if I had been into the kitchen. “Well, Aunt Betty got de Govement lump, for true; I shum yere and yere,” pointing to her chin and cheek. So I went downstairs, and there was Betty on the floor, fairly in for the small-pox. I find the people call it “Govement lump,” and those who have it “Union,” those who don’t “Secesh,” while the fever which precedes the eruption goes by the very appropriate name of “Horse Cavalry!”
March 9. In the evening, a little after nine o’clock, the air was suddenly filled, as it seemed to me, with a strange wild, screaming wail. At first I thought it must be the mules; but it rose and fell again and again in such agony, as I thought, that Mr. Soule and William went out to investigate, while I opened the window to listen more distinctly. It seemed to come from Uncle Sam’s house, and though now more subdued I thought it the sobbing of strong men, and that I could distinguish Titus’ and Robert’s voices. But the gentlemen soon came back, saying that there were evidently a good many people in Uncle Sam’s house having a merry time. I said that was strange, for he was not well, and that it sounded so like distress to me that I should think, if I supposed him sick enough, or that they ever manifested grief so audibly, that he had suddenly died. Several times before I went to bed I thought I heard the same sound, though more subdued. As I went upstairs to bed there began, at first quite low, then swelling louder with many voices, the strains of one of their wild, sad songs. Once before when Uncle Sam was sick they have had their praise-meeting up there, for he is the Elder. But it was not praise-night, and as the hymn ceased and I could distinguish almost the words of a fervent prayer, I was quite sure that, as is their custom, they were sitting up and singing with the friends of the dead,—all of the plantation who were not watching with the sick in their own homes. And so it proved. The night was wild and stormy, but above the tempest I could hear, as I woke from time to time, the strangely “solemn, wildly sad strains” which were continued all the night through. At sunrise they ceased and separated; the air of their last hymn has been running in my head all day. Then came the stir in the house—Robert making fires—I knew his step—and then Betty at my bedside to ask about the breakfast. “And Bu’ Sam dead too,” was her quiet remark when her business was done. “I dunner if you yeardy de whoop when he gone.”
This practice of sitting up all night with the dying, H. W. justly enough condemns as “heathenish:” “The houses cannot hold them all, of course, and they sit round out-of-doors in the street, the younger ones often falling asleep on the ground, and then they ‘hab fever.’” But of course it was useless to expostulate with them; to their minds the omission of the watch would be a mark of the greatest disrespect.
The next two extracts furnish further comments on the mismanagement preliminary to the land-sales.