Robert Smalls and the Liberators

Letter from General T.W. Sherman, original commanding officer of Federal occupation forces in Port Royal, South Carolina, in the opening year of the American Civil War:

HEADQUARTERS EXPEDITIONARY CORPS,

Port Royal, S. C., December 15, 1861.

General LORENZO THOMAS,

Adjutant-General U. S. Army, Washington, D. C.:

SIR: For the information of the proper authorities, and for fear lest the Government may be disappointed in the amount of labor to be gathered here from the contrabands, I have the honor to report that from the hordes of negroes left on the plantations but about 320 have thus far come in and offered their services. Of these the quartermaster has but about 60 able-bodied male hands, the rest being decrepit, and women and children. Several of the 320 have run off. Every inducement has been held out to them to come in and labor for wages, and money distributed among those who have labored. The reasons for this apparent failure thus far appear to be these:

1st. They are naturally slothful and indolent, and have always been accustomed to the lash; an aid we do not make use of.

2d. They appear to be so overjoyed with the change of their condition that their minds are unsettled to any plan.

3d. Their present ease and comfort on the plantations, as long as their provisions will last, will induce most of them to remain there until compelled to seek our lines for subsistence.

T. W. SHERMAN,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

P. S.-Besides those who have come in there are many still on the plantations employed in gathering cotton.

Order issued six months later by General Sherman's replacement, General David Hunter. This order was published in Beaufort three days before Robert Smalls commandeered the largest Confederate warship in Charleston harbor, and four days before General Hunter himself met Robert Smalls:

Head-quarters, Department of the South, Hilton Head, S.C. May 9, 1862

The three States of Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, comprising the Military Department of the South, having deliberately declared themselves no longer under the protection of the United States of America, and having taken up arms against the said United States, it becomes a military necessity to declare them under martial law. This was accordingly done on the 25th day of April, 1862. Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible. The persons in these three States---Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida---heretofore held as slaves, are therefore declared forever free.

David Hunter

Major-General Commanding

Ed. W. Smith Assistant Adjutant-General

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