Whitehead Farm No. 1
5th mo. 1863

Dear Ones at home:

Sarah and I are domiciled with the man who wrote the following, to Dr Brown; "Dr Brown, Sir I wish you would be kind enough to let me know if those ladys that were at my house to day are coming up here to teach school if they are I shall be obliged to move my family for we have never been used to Negro equality nor to White Ladys going in the kitchens and kissing the Negroes. Sir, I am a union man and ever shall be but I am not an abolitionist nor never can be as fer you I believe you are a perfect Gentleman you have always treated me as such and I am willing to do all I can for you and the Government but if you allow those Ladys to live on the farm you will get very little work done by the Negroes and it will end my peace fer this year as fer Mr. Giny he need not give himself any trouble about their teaching my children I am able to school my children as yet without sending them to a Negro school.

Yours Respectfully,
Wm Wakefield, Overseer"

*****

Sarah glories in being nomenclator of the first babe among the new-born freemen upon Gov. "Wise's estate. "John Brown Wise" he is hight, and Sarah highted him, and she stood on Gov Wise's threshold, when she said "This be thy name!" I had the pleasure of taking the inventory of Gov Wise's household goods. I handled every dish of his superb dining-sets (said) I wondered if his blood-stained fingers gave the rosy hue to his finger-bowls; counted his very neat and pretty carpets; sat on the sofa where he has found rest, and which, he, perhaps, is now longing for. Saw his books, papers, and pictures, and thought How long it would be before he would see any of them again. I could not help mourning with the Wise-mourners, when I saw the carefully saved noses, handles, and covers, of very old and probably sacred pieces of china; and I really wanted to put them again into the hands that once itched to cement them. Gov Wise's farm is upon the East branch of the Elizth river, which makes a sharp turn around his estate, and heightens its picturesque beauty. Noble ash-trees stand on his lawn and the house, though old, is large, and wears a certain air of country stateliness. Six or eight negroes were left by his family in their old quarters. They told me they had no wish to see him back again; and they spoke of him with little affection. One woman told me she often heard the Gov talk with his family and friends about John Brown. The Govs elegant family-carriage stopped the way at my front-door, this very morning, and I was honored with an invitation to ride upon its cushioned-seat. To the Gov. we are indebted for our milk and butter--Sarah and I, for the time being, are sole proprietors of one of his cows....

As little milk as she can give gives the cow, and as poor (perhaps, also, as much and as rich) and her butter is not golden. Then to the tender mercies of Gov Wise's carriage I trusted myself, and, on the comfortless seat I sacrificed the vigor of my back-bone. The roads are hard to travel, and we expect in vain when we fancy the Virginians will mend any of their ways. Level as New Jersey is the country, round about, but over hill, then into hollow rolls the carriage, tumblety-bump; and, after rain has fallen, horse and wheel plough through mire (when the mire does not hold them fast.) A drive in any direction takes one through the woodlands, which are novel, and of surpassing beauty. The Southern pine, of delicate foliage, shoots its straight shaft far up into the blue; the hanging moss festoons the branches, and brambly vines luxuriant and various, bind all the motley trees in close fellowship. The foliage of the trees is more delicate than that of our forest-trees, the leaves sport in the breeze [?] more freely, and more grace and beauty crown the Southern trees. The farm-houses, (Every-body out of town lived! on a farm) are invariably distant from the street, to which a gate by the roadside gives them communication. The houses are generally small, and unpretending; but those that have fallen into our hands are mostly very handsomely furnished, and, as good luck did have it whether it would or no, are charmingly planted on the river-banks. On the Bradford-farm we pant for breath; there, the woods fell for one-man's comfort, and the encircling woods of the hollow-square where his house is planted say "There is no beyond." And you believe them and you hope for nothing, and care for nothing, but keep on sighing because there is nothing. Martha Chase is shut in by woods on the Baker farm; but her horizon politely retires a quarter of a mile from her presence, and a road that starts from the plain and hides in the woodland premises something with its perpetual, "Come and see." But no house with its outside kitchen and negro-quarters can look lonely. Outside kitchen!! Sarah's and my horror by day and our servant's chamber by night! We run to it, scream to it, send to it, try hard to get something done in it, and try still harder to get something brought out of it. It is our haystack, and every-thing that belongs in the house is the pin we must hunt for there. We have four regular servants; and volunteer-aids, unnumbered; but, if we call on Polly, she summons Betty; and "Mary Jane do this," is sure to wake the echo, "Oh, Albert, whar's Albert!" Our kitchen is a heart-wearying treadmill. We can't get ahead of our smutty servants and their smutty kettles. A kettle clean, and in waiting for its stated work is a kettle that can not, could not and will not be seen! Our china is washed in our parlor, that porcelain and delf need not mar each other; but when the stores go from parlor to kitchen the china goes also; the silver seeks society, and goes with the saucer, the pitchers go to the pump; because we have four pails, and because they are very small and because the cistern is a great way off, and when they come back they stop in the kitchen because they don't belong there, and because that is going visiting. All the "people" stop "in the kitchen" also, because they don't belong there and because we tell them so. And our some-time smoking food stops in the kitchen, because its long past meal-time, and it did not happen to find its way into the parlor half an hour too early. From our large, four-sided, Craney Island house we came to our present crowded quarters, and when we put our stores into our parlor-closet, the uninvited, a host that no man could number, came in to partake of them. While I write, I listen to the music of falling grains of rice which the flies work from a dish to the floor. If the sugar bowl is uncovered for a moment, the blackness of blackness enshrouds it, and, like lumps of (negro) sugar the flies lie piled to its mouth. How hard it rains! thought Mr Lovell and we, as we woke in the mornings. The flies make their mark, emphatically, upon current literature. They work faster than I do, and fill all my sheets in advance of my pen. Our other dark little friends, who swarm about us do their best to relieve us of the pests. They fan us while we eat, and while we sleep. Oh! give me a slave to fan me while I sleep! (as the poet did not say) They would fain worship us, the little things. I suspect my head will fall a victim—not to the fever and ague, but to the fevre de negre, which is to scratch the head of himself or any other. I, one day, foolishly gave up my head to four little beseigers who robbed my head to enrich their own. They drew my torn hair over their wool, appealing to each other for compliments on their good looks. They like to handle us, to pull at our hoops, and hang about us. We find we can't keep them at a distance, so we let them creep, kitten-like into our parlor, remembering we are in Virginia, and doing as the Virginians do. But we are obliged to deny them the coveted comfort of a seat in our rocking chair, since my fine-toothed comb has detected in my head what was once seen on a church-going lady's bonnet. . . .

Soldiers and their horses are constantly in our door-yard. Suffolk is pouring its hordes upon us. Genl Getty has taken one of our farms for his head-quarters, and is running a line of intrenchments through two or three others; and we expect the labor upon five or six must be sacrificed to the invading friend. Two or three fortifications are building very near us, and we confidently look for the war to come into Africa.

Four days ago, an order came from head quarters to send out pickets to seize all negroes and their teams on the highway without passes. And I, with my permanent pass, was startled by being stopped just beyond a picket-station near home, by some dusty soldiers, who demanded my pass. I asked for an explanation, and was allowed to pass on with Shorty whom the soldiers coveted. Very few people have passes for an indefinite period; and one soldier said to the other, "She's got the very best kind of a pass." On our return from the farm, three other wandering soldiers screamed out to Shorty, "You'd better look out, or you'll be confiscated." Whenever our servants have wished to go to near farms I have written passes for them; and yesterday, knowing that all men who cannot give a good account of themselves are to be put at work upon the fortifications, I wrote "My servants," on the boys passes. Thanks to the accident of my living on a Government Farm, and holding a pass which takes me to all the Farms in this Department, my passes pass; and I saw my boys again. On the Farm where Genl Getty and his staff are quartered is a flaxen haired blonde, the fairest of the fair; who sits alone and sings and paints. Four or five months ago, when the Dr took the farm, he found her living upon it, with a slave woman belonging to Mr Wilson, who was in the rebel-army. He cross-questioned her with little satisfaction, and was convinced she was a spy. He tried to convince her that it was unwise for her to remain; and he urged her to join her friends. Finding, two months ago, that she was frequently visited by officers, he begged her to come and live under our protection, but she refused. Determined to do all in his power to protect her, he obtained from Genl Viele an order forbidding soldiers to trespass upon Government farms and caused the order to be posted upon that farm, and upon neighboring farms. Pretty and accomplished though she is, the colored woman cannot be made to acknowledge herself to be her mother but the neighbors know that the black and white are mother and child.

When I made my first visit to the nearest farm the overseer's wife tracked into the kitchen after me, and said, "I should like to know why folks don't go round giving white children books and slates!" My time was too precious to heed the intruder, and so I went on with my talk to the negroes. Mrs Armstrong, standing six feet high, was determined to show me the extreme lowness of her stature as a Virginia white! and, while I offered a book to a woman near me, said, "Jane, what's the use of your learning to read, I'd like to know. You're a great deal too old, you cant learn." So Jane refused my book and slate, and "Did not wish to learn!" A few days ago, I visited the farm again, with clothing; and Mrs Armstrong (having, I suppose learned that I represented power it was wise in her to respect) was extremely gracious with her, "Miss Chase, would you like this?" "Oh yes, Polly, study all you can and learn, you ant a bit too old to learn." "Have you got a book, Jane?" "Oh Moses, you've got one, that's right."

Upon one of the farms this letter was handed me for Dr Brown. "Mr Willis Criss has been hear and wanted me to have him, and I dont want to have aneything to do with him and I dont him to come here whare I am. Mr Jerimiah Standing has been hear and has ben hear ever since last Cristmust on the place and I want to take him as my Husband and he has ben my husband ever since he has ben hear. I want to keep him as my husband. Mr Criss has ben hear and has threatened to kill my husband. I want you to keep him a way from hear and he does not belong to the farm at tall. Hannah Standing."

Coming from the Wise farm a few days ago, we picked, up five miles from Norfolk an old negro man with a runaway's pack on his back. He misunderstood our driver's inquiry and said, "No, I shant go back tonight, I reckon I'll stop awhile." We told him to jump into our clothing-tumbler and we found he was taking his first free walk. Refugees crowd into Norfolk and Portsmouth. The colored residents hold weekly charity meetings to aid them and government strives to feed them, and give them work, but hundreds are overlooked. While we were at the Wise farm a woman and two children found an asylum there--an asylum in the human stable, now washed and made clean by the blood of John Brown! "What do you need?" We say as clothing-women. Not being understood, we say, "What do you want?" To which in the language, that is plainer than words, there is one invariable reply, "Whatever I can get!'' With no means of knowing what is greed and is need our anxiety and responsibility is unceasing and wearisome. We dined at a distant farm, the other day, and the colored cook, who had taken great pains to make the table attractive, to us, said, after dinner "I should have been very much interested if you had not eaten dinner here.'' Sarah handed an old man, (a good reader,) a testament, and he inquired eagerly, if he should find "Revolutions in it." Our servants ask if they shall "Pull any rubugs for us." If they shall pick "snaps" (string-beans) for dinner. If they shall "Cup the cow." Laugh, convulsively, whenever we say, "Hark!" to each other. Saying they never heard anything but Stop!" The mail! the mail! and the mail carrier. Excuse my short letter.

Ever lovingly LUCY,
Portsmouth Va—June 13 1863