This drafting business is simply folly. Hunter is an ignorant, obstinate fool.[122] General Saxton is very much opposed to the measure, especially after promising the men again and again that they would not be taken unless they were willing to go; but he says he has done all he can to dissuade Hunter without any effect, and if he should go further in the matter, either he or Hunter would have to go home, and he is not willing at this crisis to raise this additional difficulty. Hunter's order was published in the _New South_[123] last Monday. For a full week before the negroes had been anxiously questioning us about this strange news that "they want to take we to make soldiers." Up to Monday I was able to tell them that I had heard such stories, but did not believe them; but Tuesday night, when I got home, I told them how matters stood, and they confessed that for a full week before hardly a man on the plantation under sixty years of age had slept in his bed. A strange white face drives them from the field into the woods like so many quails; they will not go to church, they will not go to the Ferry. Two Sundays ago I happened to ask one of the elders at church, to make talk merely, how soon the next Society meeting took place at Pine Grove. It was last Saturday evening. My question to Demus was reported at the meeting, they immediately became suspicious of some trap to catch them, they grew anxious, a cry arose that there were soldiers out on the plantation, the men left the praise-house, and the meeting, instead of continuing all night, broke up about midnight with some confusion.[124] They were caught last year, they will not be caught again. They cannot understand how it is that the Government, for whom they have been working, and in whom they have learned to place confidence as a protection, should wish to interrupt their work here. It is a terrible discouragement to them, just as they are starting their first fair trial for themselves, to be forced, I do not say into the military service, for very few will be caught, but forced to abandon their crops, and skulk and hide and lead the life of hunted beasts during all this precious planting season. The women would be physically able to carry on for some time the men's share with their own, but they would be very much disheartened, and would need constant encouragement. Under this terrible uncertainty and fear, the work has begun to slacken. Even the head men on the plantations are losing courage. I make as light of the evil as I can, but I am always met by the remark: "We are a year older than we was last year, sir." Their trust in me is a little surprising. They converse in my presence about their dodging life, and I could easily take any ten of them I chose alone; or, with the aid of one other, I could take the whole plantation. "If we didn't trust to you, sir, we should have to leave the plantation entirely; you are the only person to protect we now,