Norfolk Va July 1st 1864

My Dear Friends

Box "No 10" is safe in my hands. I propose a summer regimen of wholesome neglect for my negroes. "I can do without it" would be very becoming for warm weather. "I want" looked warm and comfortable, and was an absolute necessity in the winter; but is cumbrous for summer wear. It stifles the moral sense and chokes independence; but, if discarded now, it may, when the cold days come again, be looked upon as a superfluity.

Have I told you that I hope, if I am in the field next winter, to furnish remunerative work to women? I can command as many sewing machines as I may desire, but I think it unwise simply to teach the use of them. To teach it too to women unlikely to go far from Norfolk, where many private machines are now lying idle while their owners beg work from door to door. Now, if the Government will let the machines sew for it, the machine-worker can be furnished with present means of support and those who become experts, may secure here, or elsewhere, permanent situations in manufacturing establishments. That will be one spoke in my grand industrial wheel. I have already put into the hands of a shoemaker five sets of tools, for apprentices, all of whom shall be cripples, incapable of active work. But some efforts, even on a large scale, could not meet my demand for Ready opportunity for labor with the assurance of a ready reward. Let the transmutation of dollars into clothing cease at the North.

—Stores for the negroes are now liberally supported, at all their central camps. Those persons who find employment at the hands of chance and circumstance can avail themselves of the opportunity furnished at these stores to buy at less than market prices, and they may well thank the good fortune that has made two feet sufficient for each one to stand upon, and two hands quite enough for his main-stay. To each we (all of us) furnished opportunity and now we further honor them by leaving them atone. But why should we increase the misfortune and degradation of those who have drifted away from all things needful for their physical comfort, and now find themselves stranded on our fallow shores? They open their mouths and we feed them, and they stretch out their arms and we clothe them. “Yes,” we say, “heads were made to push with, hands were made to work with.” “There is work for you now, at the North, but you mustn’t go there. There’ll be work for you here, at the South, when the war is over!! Here’s a nice broad shelf we of the North have made for you. Pocket your hands and tuck up your feet, you wont need them here. Crawl upon it. Leave all to us. We won’t let you fall off.” This is what you of the North (or rather we, your representatives) have done. But there is a highway, that leads to Independence, which the negro would gladly travel, if the North would pave it. Every foot-fall therein should be labor which would bring the sweat to his brow, and weariness to his frame. But the courage, in his heart, would be freshened by that sweat and it would be a crown of manliness to his brow. On the stage, at the North, you have “The Ticket-of-leave-Man.” When our houses of opportunity are opened here, the negro shall enter them with his ticket of leave to be a man. Let come that day, O Government! Even in these burning days, with the thermometer 1000 in the shade, our benighted friends still work vigorously at [?] planting. One is sometimes oppressed by the moral significance of the solemn earnestness they exhibit. We have 100 hard working students in our night school, which is presided over by Miss Smith and Miss Collins, members of our family. Some of our scholars come to us fresh from Richmond and its vicinity.

Far out, on a sandy point, stretching into the ocean, stands Cape Henry lighthouse. Opposite it lies the dark point of Cape Charles, whose lighthouse was destroyed, not long ago, by the rebels. A plan to destroy Cape Henry lighthouse, and to murder its guard, was recently detected, so increased vigilance is maintained there night and day. A colored company is stationed there—isolated, solitary, and inactive. It is officered by noble men who are ambitious for the welfare and reputation of their company. One of them appealed to my sister and myself, some time ago, for books, and we determined to visit them so that we might learn their actual wants. On the very day of our arrival, their captain received some primmers, from a tract society, and he declared to us his intention to put one into each man’s hands. We gathered the men and found their zeal needed no quickening. They were very apt, and those who knew no letters, learned a number of words, in the one lesson we gave them. To one of the men, my sister said, “Are you free now to run and do just as you please?” “Oh no,” he said, “I’m free to hold myself, to learne, to show my best behavior to everybody, to serve my country, and to 1e always a gentleman but I'm not free to do anything else. I want to do all I can to show the white people our race is of some account.” Books and teachers find the colored man, even if his home is the wilderness, and I know they will brighten the days of the soldiers on Cape Henry, like blooming flowers in its sandy waste.

Far from town, and near Cape Henry, we saw an occupied schoolhouse, the first we had seen in Virginia, and curiosity prompted us to visit it. The teacher, a young Virginian, told us the house was used for a public school before the war, and she had permission to teach a private school there. She had but three scholars, but they were bright and well advanced. Scattered about in the woodlands, in all directions, in this part of Virginia, are tidy school-houses and pretty churches; but the school-master is far abroad, and the minister is away, and so are the people.

Since I wrote you last, my sister and I have made a delightful visit to Yorktown. It is now very easy for us to leave our own school, and so we readily assented to a very urgent invitation, from the Phila. friends (who are doing a large missionary work there) to aid them in organizing their schools which had for some time been struggling to secure a permanent foothold. Yorktown would be a fine point for a Northern tourist to visit. There one may see what the Negro can do with small opportunities, and may learne how surely the effort of his white patron meets with a speedy reward. A mile from the fort is Sabletown, a village of 500 negro cabins; while a half mile beyond it, is Acretown, a neat, negro village built by Genl. Wistar. Each cabin is enclosed with its acre, by a curiously interlaced slab-fence (the universal cabin enclosure in these parts). The acre [sic] are contiguous in their rear, so air and space are meted out in double measures. The cabins are built of an uniform pattern and absolute neatness is enforced upon the premises, by military authority. There the friends have built a school-house which, like the one at Sable-town, is occupied as a church on Sundays. A large Sunday-school is also kept, in each place. Uniform neatness, taste, and cleanliness characterize the dress worn on Sundays. The combination of colors, known at the North as “niggerfied,” are seldom, if ever, seen here (in the South). Upon a hill, a few rods above Sabletown, the friends have built a mission-house, a school-house, and a store. To the mission-house the people flock for sympathy, advice, and assistance. The school-house bell calls 400 children daily to their teacher and summons hundreds of adults to the night-school; while the store is thronged with customers.

But few soldiers are now left to represent the large force which has garrisoned Yorktown since our forces took possession of it. With the Army, must have departed the means of support for the Negro. Efforts are constantly made to induce the negroes to remove from their huddling places upon government farms. Some still find work with the troops who remain and, satisfied with the present, shrink from looking for a new home, while the multitude wait patiently for the gates of Richmond to open that they may rush therein. Here and there, as we move about the country, we find many freed people longing for Richmond. All who come from its neighborhood refuse to find a home elsewhere. But I see no reason why the Yorktown community, if 2000, should be more than very transient. Today it is prosperous, firm, and full of interest. The money earned is still on hand, the garden vegetables supply the table, and the store satisfies a variety of domestic wants. But Yorktown is out of this world and, if we do not again make it a stronghold, each man must look to himself alone for the reward of his labors.

The positive influence for good that emanates from the zealous friends who have made their home in Sabletown is marked in its results upon the reverential, receptive people. It seems like a well-regulated realm there. Forty couples, over whom “The Matrimonial” had never “been read,” because no state law could make it binding, were married in the church, while we were there, and were feasted at the Mission-house with huge slices of rich, frosted wedding cake, and lemonade without stint. The Superintendent of Contrabands united with one of the energetic teachers in compelling all living as man and wife to take the choice of separation or marriage. Many unwillingly assented to marriage, while others indicate a full appreciation of the necessity, propriety, and dignity of the ceremony. It was a strangely picturesque and impressive sight to see, in the twilight, the neatly dressed couples, moving from their various quarters and drawing near our doorway. Old men and women, hand in hand, coming up to their “bridal.” “Take her by the hand,” one old man said as he led his wife forward. Everyone had an air of serious modest reserve. Some were young enough to blush, and all seemed to say, “This is our marriage day.” After the ceremonies in the church, the newly married were invited to the house, where the great cakes were cut for them and the air was sweetened by the magnolias and brilliantly illuminated by the kerosene. Our good friends anticipate immediate and wholesome results from the occasion. The colored people easily assume the responsibilities, proprieties, and graces of civilized life. As a class, their tastes are comely, though they are acquainted with filth. I fancy they see the moral significance of things quite as readily as white people. Eighty other applicants urged their claim to enter the pale too late to make preparations for them, but in a week they will promise faithfulness to each other and each will have a gift of a candle in its stick. The candle will be lighted that it may shine on their new way.

We are near the front, you know, so the soldier, as well as the slave, gets near our sympathies. On our return from Yorktown, we were obliged to pass across the deck of a hospital-boat. Nearly every man aboard had lost a leg, or an arm. The amputations were very recent for they were in the battle of the 22d of June. The flies are a worrying nuisance both to sick and well, in this climate, and so I rejoiced when I saw the indications of thoughtful kindness that hung in the branches over the soldiers cots. It was late and dark when we touched the wharf. No boats were due at that time so, in place of the usual bustle, all was very still—Before us, we saw men with lanterns, and, nearby, the glare of white sheets —We knew the dead were there. The surgeon stood by and superintended the removal of the bodies from the cots to the coffins. An attendant carelessly took a waistcoat from one body, fumbled in its pockets, and threw it to a colored man standing by, saying, “Here boy, here’s a waistcoat.” But the man took it not. The surgeon said to us, when pointing to one body, “That poor man has no name. We could learne neither his name nor his regiment.” We came on to Norfolk and were met by a very large body of Norfolk ladies and gentlemen, bearing white flowers. A hearse stood in waiting, and a number of the stately gentlemen went on board the “City of Hudson,” expecting to take from it the body of a rebel general. But they did not find it there, and she whispered, and bowed, and walked grimly away.

I must tell you what excellent care the colored soldiers received in the Balfour Hospital, in Portsmouth. Hundreds of them have been brought here from Bermuda Hundred and my sister found among them many of her old camp pupils. Noble men they are and I rejoice that noble men and women are in charge of them. I have seen in no hospital such genuine, direct, and gracious courtesy as the hired nurses in the Balfour show to their colored patients. Our hospitals are full, or the poor men, who touched at the Fortress, would not have gone on, in the heat, to Washington. The soldiers generally are cheerful and even those robbed of legs and arms are often very gay; but the colored soldiers excell in jollity. One man, who had lost his arm, said to me, “Oh I should like to have it, but I don’t begrudge it” Another said, “Another arm robbed. Well, there’s one thing, ‘twas in a glorious cause, and if I’d lost my life I should have been satisfied. I knew what I was fighting for.” “ ‘Twas my effort to take Petersburg,” one said, “and I worked as hard as I could. “(Next fall there will be no lack of cripples for my shoe-shop.)

We have our sympathies called out, almost every day, for the innocent children who are harshly beaten by their will-enemies, their harsh mama’s. Close by us lives a black woman who lashes her little boy with a raw-hide. We have remonstrated repeatedly, but she “Reckons I shall beat my boy just as much as I please, for all Miss Chase,” and she does beat him till his cries wring the anguish from our hearts. We complained of her to the Provost Marshall and, for a few days, she has been more quiet, so we think he must have visited her. “A few licks now and then, does em good,” a sweet woman said to us once in extenuation of her practice of beating. Many a father and mother have begged me to beat their children at school. “Spare the rod and spoil the child,” is on every mothers tongue. “Now you whip her and make a good girl out of her,” the kindest mother says when she trusts her sweetest child to us. .

A good old Craney Island friend of ours, wise and faithful in her home relations, and conscientious and loving in her business relations with the whites on the Isd. found her first husband, a few weeks ago, in a crowd of supposed strangers at the Rope-walk. “Twas like a stroke of death to me,” she said, “We threw ourselves into each others arms and cried. His wife looked on and was jealous, but she needn’t have been. My husband is so kind, I shouldn’t leave him if he hadn’t had another wife, and of course I shouldn’t now. Yes, my husband’s very kind, but I ain’t happy. No. He hasn’t any enemy but himself as I knows on and perhaps I ought ‘nt to worry about him, but I do.” Thinking again of her first husband from whom she was early parted, she said, with keenest feeling, “White folk’s got a heap to answer for the way they’ve done to colored folks! So much they wont never pray it away!” “I didn’t thought ‘twas written folks should sell folks,” another Craney Island friend of ours said,—adding, “God dont tell me any such thing.” That was Aunt Nancy, the good old soul who cared for us tenderly, when we were sick on Craney Island. We asked her, a few days ago, if she sometimes attended services in a colored church close by her home. She said, “I haven’t been there since the church’s been sittin there. ‘Taint my way to have such long meetins. My way’s the right way, and the straight way. The spirit dont stay so. It comes and goes you know.”

We thought she was right—”They begin with a meeting and end with a party, don’t they?” my sister said - And so it seems. The excitable people protract their evening meetings far into the night. It is customary with them to continue the exercises of prayer and singing after the benediction has been pronounced. Their spiritual gratifications are emotional, rather than rational, and they rock, and sing, and wail, and bowl, till their own most lazy patience is exhausted It is very common for a large congregation to accompany the preacher, or prayer, by a wailing chant, swaying their bodies all the time, and often drowning the voice of the speaker. It is usually the women alone who are so unseemly. In their prayer-meetings, one or many grow “Happy,” jump, and spin, throw their arms into the air, embrace those near them, shake all the bands they can reach, screech words of religious rapture, and give an occasional staccato howl, - horrible and startling. The minister has great control over these exhibitions. Some ministers will not countenance them, and check them easily; but most of them encourage the noisy. It is an important question how fast and how far it would be advisable for the whites to check such customs. The congregations have manifested determined opposition to settling white preachers. Few white men would have the tact gently to lead their loving spirits. The lash and the auction block could dictate to them, but not the preacher. They must find out that their way is not the best way, without being told so, or they will never change it.

The stumbling preachers sometimes say striking things. I heard one say, “The spirits of the wicked have gone to the wasted ends of creation’ ‘- (worse than the place of fire!) “Nebrecomezer was a Roman Catholic.” “No eyes and couldn’t see, no ears and couldn’t hear, no actions and couldn’t do nuthin.” “I have been asked to take the pasticheer of the church.” “Bless the brother who has the privilege of standing in the shoes of John, but let him stand behind the cross.” “I pray that the dry bones may be enleavened.” “On our sin-buckled canes, Lord, we bend to thee, Oh thou adore-double-name!” Another preacher said, “On our bended bow-canes, we bow down to thee, oh thou most gracious magazine.”

The “Praises” (Hymns) of the negroes, as you know, were often poetic and picturesque

Oh happy is the child who learns to read When I get over
To read that blessed book indeed.

CHORUS:
When I get over, when I get over
‘Twill take some time to study
When I get over.

“De Lord commanded brother Jonah one day, when I get over, when I get over, to preach the word in Ninevay, when I get over, when I get over, etc. But Jonah he went on the contrary way, So God Almighty stormed upon the sea. The Captain and mate were sore afraid, and dere anger fell on brother Jonah’s head. Dey cast brother Jonah overboard, to appease de angry Lord. The Lord sent a whale upon the sea, which did swallow brother Jonah verily. So in his belly be did lay, Three long night and three long day. When dey cast him on de lily-white shore, Lily-white corruption (!) of Ninevah. Ah brother mind how you get hold on the cross, Lest your foot should slip and you get lost. You must learn to watch as well as pray, you must learn to do as well as say. You must bear your cross from day to day, In the straight and narrow way. Whenever I gets on the other shore I’ll argur with ‘ee Father and chatter with ‘ee son. I’ll sit up with 'ee Father in ‘ee Chariot of 'ee Son, Talk about 'ee world I’ve just come from.” Sing this in a drawling chant and say its pretty.

“You must watch the sun and see how she run
I hope for to get up into Heaven
I ‘se afraid he’ll catch you with your work undone
For I hope for to get up into Heaven
Says my guide, I hope for to get up into Heaven.”
“If I had uh died when I was young, I shouldn’t uh had this race for to run I shouldn’t uh sinned as many has dun. De prettiest thing that ever I dun, was seek religion (or de Lord) when I was young.” “My Lord ‘liver Daniel, My Lord ‘liver Daniel, My Lord, ‘liver Daniel, Why not ‘liver me. Daniel was a curus man: he pray three times a day My Lord histed 'ee winder, fur to hear brother Daniel pray My Lord ‘liver Daniel, &c. So Jesus listen all ‘ee night, Listen all 'ee day, Listen all ‘ee night, Fur to hear one sinner pray.”

I wish you could drive out with us upon some of the government farms. They are almost all upon the water and are approached through woodlands. A Massachusetts woman was left, by her rebel husband, upon a lovely farm upon the oyster-famed Lynnhaven river. We took her farm this spring and she wailed like a woman to the manor born. “Do send me to Richmond, to save my funeral expenses,” she cried. When her husbands colored sister refused to accompany her, she urged the propriety of her doing so by saying, “You are a near relation to the family.” She took the guard, put in charge of the estate, to the family burying-ground, and with tears in her eyes, begged him to keep the sacred spot in order. The graves were without head-stones and the place was an overgrown waste.

One noble woman told us of the efforts made by her mistress to retain her and said, “I said to my Missis if folks owns folks, then folks owns their own children.”” No, they don’t,” her mistress replied. “White folks owns niggers.” “Well, then,” the woman said, “Government owns you and everything.” We asked one of Gov. Wise’s slaves if he ever heard the Gov. speak of the Yankees. “No,” he said, “but I often heard him speak of the Damn Yankees.” Sometimes the women take our playfulness seriously - Finding some newcomers at the rope-walk, poring over their books, Sarah said to their guardian Auntie, “Put the books in the fire, Auntie, ain’t that the place for them?” “Oh no, Missis,” she replied, “looks better in their hands. Likes to see em there.” “We have the consumption of being called refugees,” a man said to us. “Where’s your husband, Auntie,” my sister said inquiring of an old woman. “Don’t know, Missis, hadn’t had him but a week, when Massa sold him away from me and havn‘t heard of him since.”

The good Craney Island woman, who found her early love the other day, said to us, once, when we told her she had a nice new dress, “New? No indeed, ‘tis a sad enough dress to me. One night Massa came home and threw a package at my head so hard it knocked me down. When I opened it, it didn’t make me feel glad, for I knew something was the matter, for he didn’t give me such things. I sat up all night to make it, for he told me to make it before morning; and right soon in the morning he came and bad me put it on, and he carried me to Richmond prison, to be sold, for I was the best hand he had and he bad to raise some money right away. He sold me away from my husband he’d just married me to and from all my friends. He asked so high for me that I had to stay there three weeks before I was bought. I put that dress away, as soon as I was sold, and I haven’t bad the heart to put in on since. I knew ‘twas given to me (when I first saw it) to make me sell well. To make ‘em think I had a kind master. Now I have my old man with me and all my children but one son whom I study about all the time, cause he hasn’t good sense. I mourn for him and seek for him constantly. Oh, I feel as if I must get him and be kind to him, and give my life to him because I don see why a babe, before he’s born, should suffer for things goin on in the world. Master worked me so hard, he warnt quite bright, so I feel as if I ought to do more for him than for anybody else.” One Craney Islander once said, to us of the Island, “I shall always respect her, as long as I live, and, if I could, I’d go and see her once in awhile, for I’ve got three children buried on her.”

Have I ever told you that, next to driving the colored people into the country, Genl. Butler desires to drive them upon their feet? He does not wish them to remain helpless paupers upon Government farms, so he gives (or allows the Superintendents to give) but $10. a month to the men laborers and $5. to the women, obliging them to pay, from their wages, for their rations. There is great demand for them, at high wages. The enterprising relieve the Government, at the first opportunity, and enrich themselves; but many refuse high wages. Timidity restrains some. (The dread of the rebels is universal with them)—Indolence restrains some. Stupidity still enslaves a few. At such low wages, you can readily see that means to purchase clothing are wanting. It would be [?] to draw, from Northern charity, clothing for those able, but unwilling, to earn the means to purchase. “I don’t want to” and “I won’t” are cold and naked, shall we aid them? Is it not time that long-suffering charity should draw its rule and line, let it cut off whom it may? We’ll talk about all these things, “When I get over.”” ‘Twill take a long time for to chatter, when I get over, when I get over,” for my sister and I intend to run North this summer, With your permission? We are worthless vessels now and need to be remoulded. So, when a transport goes to Boston, we shall sail in her, designing to stay in Massachusetts till October. ‘Till we meet adieu. Love to all my friends.

Yours very sincerely,
L. CHASE.