rth the next day. Though
providing for their wants quite freely, the people seem more frugal
with their money than last summer, and I am glad to see them so.

As far as I can learn now there are very few gins able to work[67] in
the department. I have some very good seed here and at Pine Grove
which I think I can gin on the spot. Mr. S.[68] came and spent a night
here. He came to hire some men to go with him to pick up a lot of
stray timber on commission for the Government. So my plans for ginning
cotton here are postponed for a while. I had flattered myself that we
were fairly rid of him, and the men were beginning to take an interest
in plantation work in his absence, but he turns up again just as
disagreeable as ever.

There have been great exertions made the week past to fill the ranks
of the first negro regiment. A Rev. Mr. Fowler has been appointed
chaplain and is at work recruiting, appealing to their religious
feelings. He spent two nights here and talked in the praise-house,
both evenings. The women came to hear him, but the young men were shy.
Not one came near him, nor would they come near me when he was
present.

The last time I saw General Saxton he seemed to think our whole
destiny depended on the success of this negro recruitment. It _is_
certainly a very important matter, but I think as before that it is
doomed to fail here at present, from the imbecile character of the
people. I thought while at work with Mr. Fowler that if I were to go
as Captain I might get a company without trouble, but I failed to get
a single man when seriously proposing it to them. If I had been able
to raise a company to follow me and the same men would not have gone
without me, I think I should have accepted General Saxton's offer,[69]
but although I consider the arming of the negroes the most important
question of the day, I don't feel bound to take hold unless I can give
an impetus to the undertaking. I think it would have been attended
with some degree of success a year ago at this place, directly after
the masters left, when the negroes had more spite in them and had seen
less of their facilities for making money which they have enjoyed this
summer, and if General Hunter had not made his lamentable blunder, the
men would not have been disgusted with camp-life at least, but it is
difficult enough to get any one of them to feel any pluck. We
succeeded in getting Ranty to promise to go, and he seemed quite
earnest, but when