From H. W.
May 17. Primus has come home. He deserted a week ago and has been all that time getting here. He says that he has not drilled but once since he was taken to camp, that he has been sick all the time, but that he has not been in the hospital. Of course, not being volunteers, there is a great deal of shamming, and they have to be very strict; in short, they pursue the old masters’ system of believing they lie until it is proved they have spoken the truth,—a most elevating process! and he had a large blister put on the back of his neck and was kept in his tent. Finally Captain Hoyt took him to Colonel Montgomery and told him that he thought the man was really sick and not fit to be kept, but the Colonel was very short with him and said drill was the best cure for him. Then Primus ran away, and is now in his bed here. Mr. Philbrick has seen him and says it is impossible to tell whether he is sick or not, but he understands fully the consequences of desertion, and that Mr. Philbrick and C. cannot employ him again. Mr. Philbrick told him that he should not inform against him, but that if the officers asked him if he had come home he should have to tell them that he had. “I know dat, massa, but I won’t stay dere.” He understands that we are helpless. He says, and we have learned in other ways, that all who were drafted have been deserting. One day they brought in fourteen, and the next day twelve of them had gone, and the next the other two. They can’t pretend to get them back again, and of course the demoralization must be great. It will be very bad for Primus now, if they do not take him, to live on here an outlaw, working his wife’s cotton but not able to resume his plow or his old position in any way—yet if he is taken again he will never make a good soldier. The whole thing is wrong from the foundation, and should be given up, and all those who did not volunteer sent to their homes—if any are then left in the regiments. Yet I don’t see how that could be done unless Hunter went off, and some other Major General repealed his orders.
To return to matters of plantation management.
C. P. W. had recently been sent home by Mr. Philbrick to buy and send a schooner-load of provisions, merchandise, etc., for the “store.” He found himself “an object of regard and curiosity,” “engaged out to dinner and tea to ‘talk Port Royal’ many days ahead.” Apropos of the things he bought for Coffin’s Point, he wrote: