Well-authenticated instances of cruelty to slaves were brought to notice without being sought for.  The whipping-tree is now often pointed out, still showing the place where it was worn by the rope which bound the sufferer to it.  On the plantation where my own quarters were was a woman who had been so beaten when approaching the trials of maternity as to crush out the life of the unborn child.  But this planter had one daughter who looked with horror on the scenes of which she was the unwilling witness.  She declared to her parents and sisters that it was hell to live in such a place.  She was accustomed to advise the negroes how best to avoid being whipped.  When the war began, she assured them that the story of the masters that the Yankees were going to send them to Cuba was all a lie.  Surely a kind Providence will care for this noble girl!  This war will, indeed, emancipate others than blacks from bonds which marriage and kindred have involved.  But it is unpleasant to dwell on these painful scenes of the past, constant and authentic as they are; and they hardly concern the practical question which now presses for a solution.  Nor in referring to them is there any need of injustice or exaggeration.  Human nature has not the physical endurance or moral persistence to keep up a perpetual and universal cruelty; and there are fortunate slaves who never received a blow from their masters.  Besides, there was less labor exacted and less discipline imposed on the loosely managed plantations of the Sea Islands than in other districts where slave-labor was better and more profitably organized and directed.

The capture of Hilton Head and Bay Point by the navy, November 7th, 1861, was followed by the immediate military occupation of the Sea Islands.  In the latter part of December, the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Chase, whose foresight as a statesman and humane disposition naturally turned his thoughts to the subject, deputed a special agent to visit this district for the purpose of reporting upon the condition of the negroes who had been abandoned by the white population, and of suggesting some plan for the organization of their labor and the promotion of their general well-being.  The agent, leaving New York January 13th, 1862, reached that city again on his way to Washington on the 13th of February, having in the mean time visited a large number of the plantations, and talked familiarly with the negroes in their cabins.  The results of his observations, in relation to the condition of the people, their capacities and wishes, the culture of their crops, and the best mode of administration, on the whole favorable, were embodied in a report.  The plan proposed by him recommended the appointment of superintendents to act as guides of the negroes and as local magistrates, with an adequate corps of teachers.  It was accepted by the Secretary with a full indorsement, and its execution intrusted to the same agent.  The agent presented the subject