The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 71, September, 1863: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
Religion
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 71, September, 1863: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
Notwithstanding our work was commenced six weeks too late, and other
hindrances occurred, detailed in the second report of the agent, some
eight thousand acres of esculents,--a fair supply of food,--and some
four thousand five hundred acres of cotton (after a deduction for
over-estimates) were planted. This was done upon one hundred and
eighty-nine plantations, on which were nine thousand and fifty people,
of whom four thousand four hundred and twenty-nine were field-hands,
made up of men, women, and children, and equivalent, in the usual
classification and estimate of the productive capacity of laborers, to
three thousand eight hundred and five and one-half full hands. The
cotton-crop produced will not exceed sixty-five thousand pounds of
ginned cotton. Work enough was done to have produced five hundred
thousand pounds in ordinary times; but the immaturity of the pod,
resulting from the lateness of the planting, exposed it to the ravages
of the frost and the worm. Troops being ordered North, after the
disasters of the Peninsular campaign, Edisto was evacuated in the middle
of July, and thus one thousand acres of esculents, and nearly seven
hundred acres of cotton, the cultivation of which had been finished,
were abandoned. In the autumn, Major-General Mitchell required forty
tons of corn-fodder and seventy-eight thousand pounds of corn in the
ear, for army-forage. These are but some of the adverse influences to
which the agricultural operations were subjected.
It is fitting here that I should bear my testimony to the
superintendents and teachers commissioned by the associations. There was
as high a purpose and devotion among them as in any colony that ever
went forth to bear the evangel of civilization. Among them were some of
the choicest young men of New England, fresh from Harvard, Yale, and
Brown, from the divinity-schools of Andover and Cambridge,--men of
practical talent and experience. There were some of whom the world was
scarce worthy, and to whom, whether they are among the living or the
dead, I delight to pay the tribute of my respect and admiration.
Four of the original delegation have died. William S. Clark died at
Boston, April 25th, 1863, a consumptive when he entered on the work,
which he was obliged to leave six months before his death. He was a
faithful and conscientious teacher. Though so many months had passed
since he left these labors, their fascination was such that he dwelt
fondly upon them in his last days.
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