T. E. R. to C. P. W.
St. Helena, Dec. 10. Your letter has been a reminder of my duty, but cotton ginning is my only excuse. It has proved much more of a bore this year than usual, for it is nothing but tief, tief, all the time. We do not get more than one fifth191 of the weight of seed cotton after it is ginned, and the probabilities are that they steal the balance; but we are perfectly helpless, for we cannot prove it against any of them. I have had about a bale of cotton stolen at the “Oaks” since I put it in the cotton-house. I can assure you there is nothing to be made this year.
We had a call from Dennett (correspondent of Nation) on his Southern tour, a few weeks ago. He said he was disappointed in not getting better reports of the negroes here on these islands, for he had been looking forward to this place, feeling sure he should find something good to offset the many evil reports he had heard of them all the way down through the country. He thinks Mr. Soule and Mr. H. very much demoralized on the negro question.192
General Gillmore was removed for being unfriendly to Freedmen’s Bureau, and General Sickles is now in command. He told Saxton193 to let him know what was wanted and he should have it, so things are moving on very smoothly now. Tomlinson194 has been on a trip through South Carolina to see what the condition of the people was and at what points he could establish schools. They have them started in nearly all the principal points. He says the whites do not know that they have been whipped yet, and many of the negroes don’t know they are free.
Mrs. Bryant has opened a pay school [at T. B. Fripp’s], older scholars paying one dollar per month and young ones fifty cents. She has about sixty scholars. Alden has opened a store on the place.
The negroes’ Union Store is raised and covered, but I guess will never be stocked.195