Norfolk, Va. Nov. 29th 1863

My dear Miss Lowell:

Let me congratulate you on your new “Organization.” You work at home, and my sister and I work here, and we all give thanks for the day that has dawned, and for the work it has brought with it. I will trust myself in your hands, especially since the Moth Socy will keep me tied to its apron strings. I thank you, kindly, for your willingness to call me one of you. And I will gladly write to you occasionally.

Two or three days ago, 4 hundred negroes followed on the heels of a force sent out from Norfolk in search of guerillas, and now we find them at our doors. Two weeks ago, four hundred other negroes, accepting a cordial invitation from colored soldiers, came to town. Not to spend the winter, not to tarry but a night, but with their faces firmly turned forever and a day from their homes? Such floods we look for all through the winter.

The dark flock run out of their clothes, and run away from their beds,

you will “fit” if we will measure, is it not so? I have never found it necessary to send directions for cutting and making. Let all material be stout. Shirts made of bagging, or something of the nature of linen-crash, are very desirable. Colored shirts of stout cloth are useful. Stout pantaloons for men and boys are always wanted. Stout dresses too, for women. Baby-clothes are in great demand. Sewing materials, shoes, and knitting yarn, we look for, (but don’t find) in each box we open.

We want everything! At all times! And in all quantities! Is that intelligible? It is so very true, that I feel very much disinclined to tell Societies of any special need. Why should not some societies send shoes only, others shirts, other dresses, and all send what they can most easily secure? “A little of all, if you please”—though, I am willing to say, since I speak not for myself.

I wish you could go with my sister and myself into Hall’s Jail Yard, and to the Pest House, just after the arrival of refugees. Tumbling about amongst boxes, beds, tables, and tubs, the little ones with their shining eyes and frolicsome ways, sing “Jubilee” for the whole community. While the more anxious parents sit on table-corners, or lean against the brick walls, too unsettled in the face of an uncertain future to find rest either for body or mind. My sister saw many reunions yesterday. One woman came to her, leading a girl of eighteen, and said, “See my daughter, they sold her away from me when she was just old enough to rock a cradle, and see how they’ve done her bad, see how they’ve cut her up. From her head to her feet she is scarred just as you see her face.”A man from one of the farms just came to me for a blanket, saying, “I make out tolerably well myself, but my children, you see it grieves my mind.”

I feel obliged to confine my charities to refugees, and to the laborers on Govt farms, though Norfolk and Portsmouth swarm with pauper-stricken negroes. Ten acre lots are offered the refugees, and until their own hands have raised the cabins, Dr. Brown finds homes for them. Genl Butler has made housetaking so easy that the Dr proposes putting them into houses in town. With our new Genls here and at the Fortress, we hope to be recognized as a “Department” worthy of reverential deportment from the powers that be.

Our general care-taking includes, of course, teaching, in which our success has been brilliant (so much I say for the African, alone.) Yesterday, my sister repeated an oft-repeated experiment of ours.

She formed a class of the new-corners at the Jail-Yard, and made of them discipline-drillers and boys of letters! in a few moments. Satchels and school-bells make truants and idlers; but, to the dark ones who have broken through the fence of wit holding, and have run into golden opportunities, round 0 and crooked S are a surprise and delight. And the picking-up propensity which slavery engendered in the pinched African, stimulated anew by enlarged opportunity makes thrifty husbandmen of them all. So they shoulder the ax a-x, pick up the b-o-x box, play with c-a-t and d-o-g and fill their baskets with a multitude of words.

Will you be so kind as to tell Miss Stevenson that we think her proposition to send another teacher to Norfolk a wise one. We will promise to find work for her, and will give her a home with us.

Tell her to bring bed-tick and bedding, and, if she fancies good things, preserves.

Yours,

LUCY CHASE
Norfolk, Va. Novr. 29th

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