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624   DOUGLASS MONTHLY.   MARCH, 1862.

employed under Col. Reynolds in picking cotton, bagging it, and carrying it from the plantations to the boats which bring it to Hilton Head.  The plan has been adopted of paying them according to the amount of work which they perform, and it operates well.  A healthy emulation is excited, which proves far more effectual in making them industrious than the dread of a hundred lashes, and every good man must feel encouraged at the evidence which this single fact affords that even South Carolina negroes of this generation are not so brutalized as to be beyond reclamation.– For myself I cannot believe, after what I have seen of these despised creatures, that they have sunk so low in the scale of humanity that it is impossible to elevate them by appealing to their moral sense, notwithstanding the cheap cant and increasing whines respecting their ignorance, laziness and worthlessness.

I am glad that Mr. Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury, feeling the magnitude of the question respecting the treatment of these slaves, whom the war has thrown upon the protection of the government, has at last sent here to inquire into their condition.  Mr. Edward C. Pierce, of Boston, came down o the Baltic, commissioned, as I  understand it, to look after their interests.  He is a gentleman of enlarged views, much experience of the negro character, and possesses an earnest, philanthropic desire to devise some plan which shall meet the requirements of their case.  From a short conversation with him, I was impressed with the idea that he brings to his work the right spirit, and I hope that his investigations will result in giving the government a basis upon which to erect a sound policy.  There are not about 8,000 negroes upon the islands which are held by our forces, and not more than one-seventh of this number are supported and gain a livelihood in the camps.  The remainder prefer living upon the plantations where they exist as best they may.  When we first came here the larger portions of the corn and potato crops were taken possession of by regimental foraging parties, and the negroes were thereby deprived of this means of subsistence.  Soon, if they remain where they are, hunger will compel them to apply at the camps for supplies, as it is not probable that they will go back to their fugitive masters for relief.  Therefore it is that the urgency of the case demands a plan on the part of the government for their employment and subsistence.  Why not use them in cultivating cotton?  Already the season has come for preparing the fields for the planting of the seed in March and April, and, as I have already stated under, proper direction, there can be no question respecting their readiness to work.  To my mind this project seems worthy of a trial.

From another correspondent.
I am constantly hearing and seeing new instances of the anxiety of the negroes here to assist the Yankees.  The other day an old fellow taken aboard of one of the vessels was overhead praying vigorously that 'de Lord would bress these d––d Yankees.'  Poor Sambo had never heard us designated in any other way, and gave the entire title in his prayer.  They do more than pray, however, every day or two some are asking to be allowed to fight.  At Edisto, recently the blacks have brought in their captive masters to our forces, and again and again individuals have asked for arms.  I have had frequent assurances of such facts from officers in command of reconnoitering parties both of the army and navy.  One of the former has told me that a negro under his command snatched a musket from one of the troops and fired at a flying rebel.  Another said that a black man exclaimed to him, 'Massa, you only give us bowie knives and guns, and we shot fast enough.'  These may not be representative incidnts;  I hardly incline to think they are.  But I certainly hear more such stories than a month ago.

SIGNIFICANT FACTS TO BE PONDERED.– The policy that controls the war may be clearly understood by a brief recapitulation of a few characteristic items.

few characteristic items.

1.  Gen. Wool, to whom, more than any military commander, the country was looking, to hold the highest post, next to Gen. Scott, was first sent off to occupy a commissary post at Albany, and when the public voice demanded his appointment to a military command, he was housed up in Fortress Monroe.  Gen. Wool has had the bad reputation of not being particularly friendly to slavery.

2.  Commodore Stringham, who took possession of Hatteras, had the imprudence to employ the help of colored refugees, in doing it, and of stating the fact to their credit, in his report.  Care was quietly taken to get him put out of the active service, immediately.

3.  Gen. Fremont proclaimed freedom to the slaves of rebel slaveholders in Missouri.  The proclamation was immediately modified, and in humble obedience to the demands of the pro-slavery press and the Legislature of Kentucky, he was superseded in his command, on the eve of a battle which, had it been fought, would probably have cleared the Missouri of the rebels, and open the way for the conquest of the rebels in the South Western States ere this;  an enterprize on which Gen. Fremont was about entering.  The expected battle has never been fought, nor the projected advance made.

4.  Gen. Lane proposes to enter upon the same South Western expedition that had been contemplated by Gen. Fremont, taking care to stipulate that he should be allowed to conduct the expedition in his own way, which was understood to be the employment of all recruits who would come to his banner.  Just as the command is about to start, the supreme command of it is placed in the hands of Gen. Hunter, the successor Fremont, who repels from his camp all fugitive slaves.

5.  Secretary Cameron makes a report in which he vindicates the policy of employing slaves to put down the rebellion.  The President strike out that part of his report, and soon after, in obedience to renewed demands of the Kentucky Legislature, removes the Secretary from office.

6.  Gen. Sigel, a most energetic commander reputed to be unfriendly to slavery, was so snubbed by his superiors that it became necessary for him to resign.

7.  Gen. McClellan who proclaimed protecttion to slave property in Virginia, was promoted to the command vacated by the resignation of Gen. Scott.  He approves the act of his subordinate, Gen. Franklin forbidding the Hutchinsons's to sing the songs of freedom, to the soldiers.

8.  Gen. Sherman issues a Proclamation to propitiate the slaveholding rebels of South Carolina, and forbears to push his conquests beyond the nesghborhood of Fort Pulaski.– Gen. Sherman appears to enjoy the confidence and approbation of the Government.

Neither the country, nor foreign countries, nor history, nor posterity, can be persuaded that all these coincidences were accidental.– Principia.


CAPT. WM. D. MATTHEWS has returned from the East where he has been for some time past soliciting aid for the contrabands of Kansas in the city of Boston.  He was well received and made welcome on the most friendly terms.–  The city of Boston contributed cash $215, and a quantity of clothing;  city of New York, cash $40 and two boxes of clothing;  Rochester, N. Y., Miss Susan B. Anthony $26, Miss Rosa Douglass one package clothing;  Cleveland, Ohio, cash $29, and one box of clothing.  Net sum of cash, $310, for which the contributors are kindly thanked by their friends in Kansas.  The friends in Philadelphia have promised us aid which will be sent to Kansas as soon as possible.

– During the year 1961, there were imported into New York from Foreign countries 8940 bales of cotton, valued at $663,141.–  During the present year, the imports of that article must amount to many millions of dolalars.  The planters of our southern States have heretofore enjoyed the exclusive privilege of supplying the North with cotton.–  Like other privileges, it needed to be lost, in order to have its value appreciated.

The Paris correspondent of the London Star and Dial writes:

The allusion to the civil war in America has been touched upon in a manner worthy the actual policy of the French Government.  This moment, before I could return from the scene of to-day's ceremony, or before the 'Discours d l'Empereur' has been posted, I find that a member of the Imperial household has sent to me a note containing that particular paragraph, which, while deploring the consequences the war between the North and South have in compromising the commercial interests of France emphatically declares that it is the duty of neutral powers to abstain from interfering by armed force to put an end to its evil results on foreign commerce.  This bears out fully the statements which it has been in my power to make lately in relation to the tendencies of the policy of the Emperor, and the fallacies of the hopes held out to the Southerners by some of the English and French newspapers, that France had decided upon aiding England to break the blockade.


THE SLAVES OF LANE'S BRIGADE.
[Correspondence of the New York World.]

I wrote you some account of these anomalous individuals about a month ago.  Perhaps the results of further observations will be interesting.  This experiment of Lane's is the first of the kind in the history of the slavery question.  For many years the underground railroad has carried passengers with good success and a remarkable freedom from accidents;  but its operations were necessarily secret, contrary to law, and opposed to the public opinion of the community into which the fugitives were introduced.– These circumstances entailed on the negro a necessity for concealment.

His individuality was constantly prevented from asserting itself by the knowledge that when his actions attracted attention the probabilities of detection and consequent return to slavery, were greatly increased.  Haunted by this ever-present fear, oppressed by the unfriendly feeling of the people among whom he lived, he must ever be ready "to fold his tent like the Arab, and as silently steal away."– Thus the only favorable condition for determined and persistent effort – security – could not exist in the mind of the fugitive.  Dwarfed in his manhood, imprisoned in a tomb of silence, seeing only danger in ambitious effort, the fugitive retained the vices and indolence of his former state – in fact often degenerated in freedom, thereby furnishing a text to every pro-slavery zealot.

The negroes liberated by the Kansas Brigade, have had a better chance, and have not failed to improve it.  They were slaves in Missouri (and to be a free white man in Missour is to be a dirty, lazy, ignorant, uncivilized being,) but the magical order of Lane – "All loyal persons, without regard to color, seeking our lines, shall be treated kindly" -- transformed these slaves into men.  It placed them at once in a society where each man finds his level.  The best are at the top always.  They had at once all the responsibilities, as well as the rights, privileges and immunities of freedom.  If they worked they were paid:  if they didn't work they might starve – just as any one else might do.  If they knew how to drive they received teamsters' wages;  if they wished to hire on a farm, they made their own bargain, and from the very start they more than earned their living.

They are shrewd at bargains, watchful of chances to make money, civil and obliging to all;  they are the best teamsters in the brigade, and are used by the quartermasters in preference to soldiers detailed for that duty.  Those who were not needed in the army were hired by the farmers of Kansas, who, in many cases, drove from Lawrence to Fort Scott, 100 miles, to secure them at as good wages as are paid to which laborers.  Some are established in Fort Scott as shoemakers, blacksmiths, carpenters, &c.  Many are engaged in transporting army stores from Leavenworth to the various commands, using their own terms, too great scrutiny not being made into the former ownership of the horses and mules, many of them having made their appearance in camp about the same time as the negroes.  They have established a character for fair dealing with the soldiers, and the kindest relations exist between them.

Let me then repeat what I asserted in a former letter, after a still more extended observation directed to that point, "in every case have ound the slave fit for freedom."