_Arrival of the "missionaries" at Port Royal.--The household at Pine Grove.--First impressions of the blacks.--General Hunter's attempt to recruit a negro regiment.--The Planter episode.--The labor situation.--Establishment at Coffin's Point.--Hunter's proclamation of freedom.--Details of plantation work.--Lincoln's preliminary proclamation of emancipation.--Unwillingness of the negroes even to drill.--General Saxton's efforts to raise a negro regiment.--The cotton crop of 1862.--Mr. Philbrick's plans for buying plantations._ FROM E. S. PHILBRICK _Boston, February 19, 1862._ Dear ----: I think you will not be greatly astonished when I tell you that I am off for Port Royal next week. I go under the auspices of the Educational Commission to make myself generally useful in whatever way I can, in reducing some amount of order and industry from the mass of eight or ten thousand contrabands now within our lines there. Boston is wide awake on the subject, and I am determined to see if something can't be done to prove that the blacks will work for other motives than the lash. The Treasury Department offer subsistence, protection, transportation, and the War Department offer their hearty cooperation to the work undertaken here by private citizens, but can't take any more active part at present for reasons obvious. They ridicule the idea that these blacks can ever again be claimed by their runaway masters, which is a satisfactory foundation for our exertions in overseeing their labor and general deportment. You don't know what a satisfaction it is to feel at last that there is a chance for me to _do something_ in this great work that is going on. The next letter describes the sailing of the first party of superintendents and teachers. E. S. P. TO MRS. PHILBRICK _New York City, Sunday, March 2._ We have a rather motley-looking set. A good many look like broken-down schoolmasters or ministers who have excellent dispositions but not much talent. As the kind of talent required where we are going is rather peculiar, the men may be useful, but I don't believe there will be a great deal of cotton raised under their superintendence. _Str. Atlantic, March 5._ We all repaired to the Collector's[3] house Sunday evening, and were sworn in squads of half a dozen with our hands on the Bible, after which our passports were made out and signed by Mr. Barney in his library with the whole thirty-three of us standing about.