E. S. P. to C. P. W.
Beaufort, May 1. We are led to admire more than ever the cool discrimination of the General commanding the Department. The other day some officer conceived the idea that the superintendents of St. Helena in general, and W. C. G. in particular, were opposing the draft, employing able-bodied men, etc.; also that shots had been fired at the black soldiers on his plantation. It was so represented to General Hunter, and he ordered on the spot that he should be arrested and sent out of the Department. Fortunately Captain Bryant, who was to have executed the order, was a man of sense and consulted Captain Hooper, who told him that General Saxton didn’t want to spare Mr. G., and that as he had no written orders he had better hold on. The editor of the Free South has been amusing himself by throwing out owlish insinuations to the effect that speculators and others on St. Helena had better take heed of General Hunter’s orders, for the prospective profits of a speedy fortune would hardly warrant the risk, etc., etc.
The next paragraph gives another version of the search for black recruits.
Captain Thompson came to Coffin’s on Wednesday with about fifty men. They caught no one but Primus, who felt safe and didn’t hide. If he had behaved himself he wouldn’t have been taken, but got into a passion and talked so wild that he was taken out of punishment for his impudence, and then held on the ground that his influence must be against the draft, and as he was foreman, his power must be considerable! Captain Thompson pretended to have orders to shoot men running, and scoured the Fripp Point place through Lieutenant O. E. Bryant and some black soldiers. They met no young men except Sancho and Josh, whom they chased down into the marsh opposite Coffin nigger-house, and then shot Josh. He was taken with a bullet in his leg and a buckshot in his head, carried to the village, and placed under Dr. Bundy’s care. Of course, Sancho was taken, too, and brought up to camp. He had an Enfield rifle with him, and admits that he fired it to “scare away the soldiers,” after Josh was hit, but not before. The black soldiers all say he fired first, and no white man was present to see. I came up to lay the matter before the General, but he is not well. Captain Hooper has taken it in hand and promises to investigate it. The Major of the Second Regiment130 was down here, but I couldn’t see him. He may have given such orders to Thompson as he pretends. They seem to have got enraged because they couldn’t find any men on those three plantations after having been quartered at the village for two weeks, and imputed their want of success to G. and myself. I shouldn’t be surprised if I am ordered out of the Department at any moment.
Then comes the sequel.