march; he had to go at once to his house for his cap, say good-bye to his wife and come to us to leave his will, for he said he never expected to come back. We made as light of the whole thing as we could, but did not dare to say anything (as we knew nothing) which might make them feel afterwards as if we had deceived them, for the thing they dread is being made to fight, and we knew that there had been men about trying to recruit for Hunter's pet idea, a regiment of blacks. _One_ man had been obtained on this island! We told Joe that Mr. Philbrick knew nothing about it and was going with them himself, and gave him a letter Mr. Philbrick had written asking for him to be returned as a personal favor, as he was a house-servant. He did the same thing with each of the drivers, for the good of the plantation crops. The men were easily collected, ten here, and went off after all with much less emotion than we expected; the soldiers behaved admirably, delighted with the treatment they had received, and cheering the negroes with tales of money and clothes, treating them most kindly. Mr. Philbrick called all the hands together at Coffin's and told them the simple fact, all that he himself knew, and named the men who were to go, and the whole thing was accomplished with much less _apparent_ suffering than we had supposed possible. Many of the men were not averse to trying their hands at life in the world, for many of their number have been and still are at work for officers, etc., at Hilton Head and Bay Point, etc., with most desirable pecuniary results, but they are afraid of being made to fight. Flora, our heroine, said the women and boys could take care of all the cotton and corn if the men did have to go--that they did not trust many white people, but they did trust Mr. Philbrick.