E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Diane Monico,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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COPYRIGHT 1906 BY ELIZABETH WARE PEARSON
With Commodore Dupont's capture, on November 7,1861, of two earth forts which the rebels had recentlythrown up at Hilton Head and Bay Point, South Carolina,the Sea Island region became Union territory.The planters and their families having fled precipitately,the United States Government found itself inpossession of almost everything that had been theirs,the two chief items being the largest cotton crop everyet raised there, nearly ready for exporting, and severalhundred demoralized, destitute slaves, the number ofwhom was daily being increased by refugees andreturned fugitives. The negroes were plainly a burdensomeproblem, the cotton a valuable piece of property.The first thing to do was obvious, and fortunatelythe same "cotton-agents" who were despatched by theauthorities at Washington to collect and ship the propertywere able, by employing negroes for the purpose,to make a beginning towards solving the problem.
In another month the next step was taken; theSecretary of the Treasury sent down Edward L. Pierce,of Milton, Massachusetts, as a special agent chargedwith the duty of getting under way some method ofmanaging the negroes and starting a cotton crop for1862. Mr. Pierce, who the summer before had hadcharge of the contrabands at Fortress Monroe, did hiswork quickly and well, and his suggestions for organizationwere promptly adopted and put into practice bythe Government. Meanwhile he had written to "benevolent[Pg xii]persons in Boston," setting forth the instantneed of the negroes for clothing and for teachers,meaning by the term "teachers" quite as much superintendentsof labor as instructors in the rudiments oflearning. The response to this appeal