Craney Island, Sepr 30th 1863

Dear ones at home:

This last day of Sepr. 1863 is the last day of the occupation of Craney Island by the Contrabands! Two hundred negroes have just left for Hampton; and Sarah and I are awaiting the arrival of a Norfolk boat, that we may accompany the remaining negroes to Norfolk. Memorable indeed, will be these last days on the Island. Yesterday afternoon, the John Tucker,’ a huge steamer, “came into port,” bringing orders for all destined for Norfolk to be ready for an early boat today, and designing, herself, to hurry away to Hampton with negroes and with bed and board of the contrabands; but though the beds were packed when she came, the boards were still in barracks, and though the eager “Travellers” snatched at their own rooftrees, the tide fell before their work was done; and they stayed to help us remember our last night on Craney Island!

After dark, Sarah and I took a pour prendre conge stroll, when we longed for you all to bear us company. Fires were blazing in the fire-places of the lonely chimneys, and picturesque groups were crooning over the embers. Out on the plain blazed fires, the centre of just such groups as you have heard of “Groups for a painter!” As we drew near one circle, we Oh’d for a Darley, a Walter Brown,2 or a lead pencil. Facing us, sat an old man, with his withered, whisker-shaded face almost lost under his slouched hat; with his shoulders comfortably and cozily raised, as if to fondle his good-natured cheeks; and with his hands resting on the shoulders of a little child who stood between his knees. Around him stood all ages, sexes, sizes and conditions, but prominent amongst them all was the pomegranate young mother, the young wife of the old man upon whose loving and really lovely face all eyes were fixed, because her hand held the skillet, with its promise of supper. That out-stretched hand, grasping the long iron handle, its kindred in color, the golden steaming corn-cake, the fond and hungry children, the crackling fire, doing its best in a picturesque way, outlining each figure til it became a shining mark, the evening darkness, the desert plain, the long rows of house-deserted chimneys, the water all around and very near, and Sarah and I looking upon it all!

At one of the fire-places, whose sides were as numerous as the points of the compass, our welcome was very hearty. The good-dame said, “When my husband came it was ‘God bless Miss Chase, God bless Miss Chase, God bless Miss Chase,’ all the time! and I said, ‘Who is Miss Chase?’ He said, ‘Oh, she’s a good lady, if hadn’t been for her I could never have got to the Island ! ““Yes, yes,” said the man, “I shall love you always. I shall love you as long as I live.” Sarah told me that when she came to the Isd she found him at the office, eager to get permission to come to Craney Island for his family, for whom he had already built a house. Permission was refused but my sister entreated in his behalf, and not in vain, and he was happy and his wife was happy, and they were both thankful. Around one fire the boys had gathered to dance and make merry. The door of a fallen barrack was their springkeeping and upon it they performed their jigs and horn-pipes, time to a variety of strange accompaniments the rapid and regular falling of the hands upon the knees, the beating of feet, or the pleasing accompaniment of a tenor and base voice singing alternate strains of music. Of one of their Union songs I remember a few words “Richmond town is burning down.” “High diddle diddle inctum inctum ah.” The byplays and interludes were as good as the play. If a well-to-do dancer had his coat-sleeve pulled or was threatened with a tripe be turned from his partner, and almost before he was missed was rolling and tumbling with his teaser in the sand. Then all were challenged when one boy said, “You can’t spell every.” “Ev -ev ry ry- evry,” said one and another each trying, all interested, and those who could say, with the pride of sure knowledge, “Ev- ev, Er-er- Ever-y,” looking, for a moment, every inch the pedagogue. Spelling is with them an exciting pastime. When at work toting the barrack-boards to the wharf, men, women and children spelled aloud for their own private ears, though we heard now and then “B-o-a-r-d, Board,” “H-o-u-s-e, House.”

Under the fallen roofs some of the evening fires were built. in doors and out many families were preparing for a feast of rats! Under every barrack the dogs have found more rats than they had power to worry. One hundred and sixty huge rats were found under one barrack. Let many or few come to light, when the floors are raised, the negroes eagerly seize them, skin them, cook them and eat them. “Oh, they taste like chickens,” you are told. “What are you cooking, Aunty?” “Some calls em squirrels, but they ‘r altogether too tame for squirrels; I call em pigs. They ran all round my head last night, crying ‘Peat weet.’ They’ve lived long enough on my good things to be good eating. One night they ate up the whole of my ration of meal and meat, and now I’m going to take my pay. I reckon they’r as good eatin as possum. They only eat bread, and such like. I don’t see any-body around here that won’t eat em, any way. They say no, at first, but I have not seen any-one who did not say yes, after the first taste.”

Sarah and I walked from barrack to barrack to say Good-bye. Every-body was packed or packing, but every-one bad a smile for us. Though most of those we found upon the Island were recent refugees from Suffolk, (and strangers to us) our relation to them is much more intimate and sympathetic than it was with most of our last winter’s friends. They are a superior class; have but recently become paupers and are not demoralized by long clinging to the skirts of the army; (from which insecure position the last winter Craney Islanders were so frequently shaken—dropped as they were at Yorktown, to be dropped again at Hampton, then again in Craney Island, then to be removed to Newport News, only for a season, to be turned back again to Craney Island upon the arrival of Corcoran’s Legion at Newport News.) Then, too, they do not beg of us (probably because we came empty-handed) and consequently have no refusals from us. And, as we are “White folks” it “seems like home” they say, “to have us about,” and they are really glad to see us.

From the barracks, we went, last night, to a religious meeting, where we beard a preacher worthy of a high seat in our Newport synagogue. He is from Gates County, N. Carolina, & and I feel very sure that he must have lived very near Friends, for his musical intoning can have been picked up nowhere but in Friends meeting; and his mode of appeal, of argument, and of illustration were decidedly Quaker-like.

Sarah’s stay here has been a fortnight; while I have’ been’ here a week. We have taught the children, visited the sick, clothed some of the most needy, and done what we could to make the road easy for those who are seeking to join their families. One woman who always came to the school at the first sound of the bell, said to me, one morning, “I feel so anxious to learn ! Every once in awhile I come to the name of God,—and the love of it, the name is so sweet, I can’t help trying to learn!” We often hear the negroes singing this— Jesus been here, been here, been here,—Dun bless my soul, and gone.” Some of them show, unmistakably, that their souls are blessed.

Sarah’s stores for the sick, were, by mischance, left at Norfolk. The well on the Island were suffering for food; and we bad nothing with which to tempt the convalescing. The Island has, until recently, been freely supplied with sweet potatoes from one of the Dr’s farms, three or four miles from the Island; but a few days ago, Mr Lessing received an order from the Commander of the Pass-boat near Norfolk forbidding the removal of potatoes from the farm. Failing to receive rations from town, it being supposed there that each day would be the peoples last on the Island, none were sent, sweet potatoes were our main dependence. For several days, the people have lived on half rations; and have been obliged to work hard in tearing down and removing barracks. Sarah and I, contrary to good military order, bad made, some days before, very satisfactory visits to the farm, and designed going again, on second day last. We were unable to go when the car cried, “I wait” and so lost a chance of being made prisoners. Our sweet potato cart with its potatoes, was seized and taken to the farm, but the horse and driver were allowed to return. Mr Bidgood, the owner of the farm, bad come home, and we supposed took advantage of the fact that there was no overseer upon the farm, and that the farm is now outside the lines, and getting the Comr of the gun-boat into his buggy, he won him to his side.

Oct. 1st! Last night Sarah suggested to Mr Moss that all the beans in the commissary should be cooked at the cook-house, and distributed; so we watched with interest, all news of the progress of the cooking. The beans were few and dried peas and meal were added to the stew, but yet all were not fed. Of meal every-body had enough, so they could hardly be said to be starving, but when good things are lacking, the negroes say “They have nothing to eat.—” They tire of meal, of course; and many of the so lately well-to-do Suffolk people would go hungry before they would make it their staff of life.

Some grumbled this morning when we went our rounds; and most of the people, tired of looking for the moment of departure, “Should be glad when they saw the last of Craney Island.” One jolly soul, who hurried in to a barrack as we were hurrying out of it said to her friends, “Oh I’m sorry she’s gone; I love to hear her talk; she talks so pretty.” She stepped forward to us, and said, “Oh, it’s so funny not to have anything to eat.” It was funny to us to see the different faces put by different dispositions upon the same hard fact. A few days ago, Mr Hand forbad vegetable carts from the mainland to vend their wares on the Island; and the loss of garden-“truck” aggravated the mental suffering, and perhaps accounted wholly for the complaints.

It was a very novel sight to look out in the morning upon ten or twelve market carts, the centre of a greedy crowd. A market on Craney Island would seem to be as unprofitable as coals in Newcastle though from a far different reason. The Island was cold, and bare, and strange to us, when we first made its acquaintance; and it was, in all respects, so savage that it seemed to be the truth I spoke when I said, The tents were left by the Arabs when they silently stole away. The waiting Islanders sit, in these last days, in their doorways, wondering what the future has in store for them. “I want to get a foundation and go to work,” said one to me, “I should enjoy my health better, I know; Ise always used to work.”

Few of them were aware, until we told them, that each man will have a few acres of land attached to his cabin. “Oh, that’s a blessing,” said one. One mother rejoiced for her children. “They’r all hemmed in here. They’ve always run all about the corn-fields, and climbed the apple-trees.” “What to be done this winter?” asked a man. “To those whats exposed to take their families empty-handed, that’s what I want to know.” One asked me how “We hands whom that’s worked at Suffolk could get their pay. Capt Sykes is a more punctualar man than to go away and carry the books.” One man gave us a reason for many of the slaves near the lines remaining still with their masters. “Because they ant willing to go through no supperments.”

When genl Foster visited the Island be ordered large openings to be made in a roofs of the barracks; and they have served, admirably, to keep sickness out in dry weather, and to let it in, in wet weather. In every rain-storm floors and beds were flooded, and colds came after, in due season. When the Genl ordered the removal. of the people Dr Huckins thought it as well to take the logs from the rebel-built cabins for fuel, as to send to the woods on the main-land; so one cabin furnished back-logs for all the cabins. But Dr Clark spared the remaining houses. One of the negroes said to me “We had to tear down the houses on account of the colored population having something to burn.”

 

Octr 2nd. No boat for us yesterday; but today a tug and a barge came early. Upon the tug stepped Mr King, Sarah and myself; and into the barge went the colored people, with all their worldly goods. We left upon the Island, the Commissary and the Druggist with a few colored men to complete the destruction of the barracks.

It was a very pretty sight to look upon the confused crowd of the animate and inanimate floating at our side. Barrel-heads and human heads, canvas-bags without number, all in-doors turned out of doors; looking strangely “not at home.” All enlivened by dashes of brilliant color on the head of or shoulders, and in the faces too, for there is an amazing variety in the hue African. Give me some vermilion, some blue, and some white, and you shall see a tint to be proud of. Lo, behold, this is the blood that runs in my family. Now give me some cadmium, golden cadmium, the very “Rays of the Sun’ ‘—Dont be afraid to take too much of it. No matter if ‘tis the most costly of colors shall it not picture the blood of the F.F.V’s.

The blood of the F.F.V. ‘s, enriched and beautified by its admixture with the sang d’Afrique? Give me some Lake too, some. Prussian blue and some white. But I wont neglect the darker skins. The warm chesnut nut color, shining as the nut from which it borrows its name; enriched and glowing as no white complexion can be with its rosy blood. Purples that might well be called “Royal!’ ‘—and Browns of many shades— I notice as much individuality in the faces of Negroes as I do in those of the whites. Their features are so much lost in the single shadow with which Nature has veiled their faces, that I once fancied that they would be bard to find and recognize. Every shade that light drops upon our faces lifts some feature into greater prominence. But black Sue looks herself as well as white Sue.

We hope to go, in a few days, to the farms where they will be established. No one can grieve over the loss of Craney Island; but we sympathize with the many loyalists cut off from market by the change of “Lines.” A loyal German at Pig Point can reach no market with his sweet potatoes, and must go without flour. He showed his loyalty some months ago, by releasing from prison in Richmond a Union officer, whom be kept secreted for a month in his own house. Of course he is only one of many. Farmers break their contracts with Negroes unscrupulously. Some taunt the negro with his loss of protection, and refuse to share the harvest with him. One farmer steadily refuses to share a large crop with his negro workman “Because he does not pay him twenty-five dollars he owes him.” Knowing well that without a market the negro cannot get $25. I called the attention of the Adjt Genl to these cases, and he proposes securing the crops, and dividing with the negroes. He says there is no legal way by which to aid the German; but he promises to hire a lighter (of course no govt steamer can be employed) and bring up the potatoes making an exception of the German. We have a very familiar acquaintance with the Adj Genl and his wife. We broke his wife down, you know, in our buggy, one day; and then we all broke down together one day, in one of the Dr’s large, three-seated carriages. I had interested them in the flaxen haired, blue-eyed girl, and her negro mother, on the Wilson farm, and we were on our way to see her.

We are frequently charmed with the delicacy and tenderness with which the Negroes express affection for each other. They know how to love, and how to remember. We sometimes witness the unexpected meeting of scattered members of a family. When the John Tucker was at the C. Isd wharf a little girl who had wondered where she should go, as she had no friends to go with, or to go to, strolled upon the deck of the steamer and found in one of the hands her father! After reaching Norfolk there were other surprising meetings and recognitions. Sarah assisted mans- to find their friends, and she found homes for some, and work for others. For some young boys she found work upon the fort near us, with the promise of ten dollars a month. Sarah teaches at the fort, first days, and she exults over the progress of her pupils. We are near the war-fields, still.

The guard on our bridge are from a regt just come to town; and they seem to be as ignorant of military proprieties as they are of military officers. The evening of the same night the P. Marshal and his wife took tea with us, and as they seemed inclined to hurry away early, I said I would send my guard to the bridge to tell the sargeant that Maj. Beauvais would cross late in the evening. “I dont believe Maj Beauvais sent you, he would have sent a written order. Besides, I don’t know him from Jeff Davis,” was the tale brought back, so the Maj thought it as well to leave before the bridge was drawn. I looked from my window just now into a cloud of dust, and saw forty horses tied in one knot led by an artilleryman. They were followed by other troops and multitudes of horses which were knotted together.

Just now too, the four little children we have in our family, wild always, and irrepressibly playful, made such a bustle at our elbows that Sarah cried “Hark!” with amazing spirit. All hushed at once--but the always unquenchable Albert, who burst out in a muffled growl. Little, few-years-old Bennie, his dignified rebuker, who is as solemn in the parlor as he is playful in the kitchen, and who puts censure in his eye and surprise and sorrow on his young lips whenever the other children fail in showing due respect to “white folks” joined with Annie, (whose merriment is never below the gushing point,) in sternly reminding Albert that “Miss Sarah said Hark.” “Oh! I thought she said Bark!” said ingenuous Albert. Annie said, just now, to Sarah, “What do you think I have found?” “Oh, a louse.” “Is it a body-louse,” said Sarah. “What do you call lice found upon the body?” “Jeff Davis’s Calvary,” said Bennie. A gentleman from Yorktown told us a secession song in honor of Jeff Davis and his steed—

Jeff Davis rides a fine bay mare,
While Lincoln rides a mule.
Jeff Davis is a gentleman,
But Lincoln is a fool.

The Adj Genl says the rebel mail brings to light many curious caricatures of Lincoln. His face to perfection, but always set upon foreign shoulders. When the Adj genl was speaking the other day, the excellent opportunity offered for the escape of criminals by the removal of officers, he said many would slip free, through Naglee's removal. Among them was the Capt of a boat, then lying at the wharf. The boat brought into port eighteen hundred gallons of whiskey secreted beneath her iron-sheathing. In the Genl office is now a loaf of bread in which a whiskey flask was buried. The loaf was found in a soldiers mess-box which was undergoing examination at the Custom House and the tin flask was discovered through a small crack in the loaf. Every body declares the loaf was baked in the flask; and I suppose the whiskey may have been introduced through a very small tube. Measures are to be taken to discover the firm enriching itself in this strange contraband fashion. We sometimes see officers breaking whiskey casks and pouring their contents into the gutters. We see little boys too, dipping their hands as in to a brook into the filthy, street-running stream. -

Ever yr’s
LUCY

Oct 5th Va ‘63