ey to support his family, but if he'd had money he
couldn't have saved his property. How was he to come back
inside the Yankee lines and pay the tax? The Commissioners
knew very well it couldn't be done; the sale was a perfectly
unfair thing." In coming back now to Beaufort, he said "he
hoped to be able to pick up a little medical practice; but
if his profession failed him, he supposed his son and
himself could put up a cabin somewhere in the vicinity, and
get fish and oysters enough to live on." He even talked of
circulating a handbill at Greenville asking for money for
his needs, and Dennett adds: "This gentleman, it is
currently reported, has made several visits to the
plantation which he formerly owned, and the negroes living
there have collected for his use nearly a hundred
dollars."[190]

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 fifth[191] 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 Saxton[193] to
let him know what was wanted and he should have it, so things are
moving on very smoothly now. Tomlinson[194] 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 a