page_0042

500.

regulary paid, he saw that he had made a mistake and
ordered the negroes out again. This man's name was Thomlin-
son, and he remained in Charleston several years, having been
interested afterwards in a phosphate company of which he was the super-
intendent. At the time that the hospital incident occurred
I had several conversations with him about the situation at
the South. He was extremely disappointed at the turn that
things took when Sherman's order about the land for the
negroes was disregarded by the president, and the manner in
which he spoke of the southern slaveholders and their rebel-
lious conduct, as contrasted with the loyalty of the blacks, whom
he considered as having been grossly deceived in being thus
turned adrift with nothing to start life on, proved to me that
he was typical of a large number at the North whose opinions
of the southern planters were that they were a base lot who were
capable of any infamy. Thomlinson was considered to be one of
the few bureau officers who was really honest, and when Scott's
first term as governor was over and he was running for the
second tern, Thomlinson was also a candidate, but the vote
for him was very small.

The bureau officer X who occupied the Smyth house had charge
of a district in which the Cooper river plantations were, and, as he
could be useful to me, I called upon him, and the next day he re-
turned the visit. He was a perfect adventurer who had probably
been a mate on some merchant vessel, and when the war commenced
he was commissioned in the US naval service and was in com-
mand of a river gunboat when the war ended. He was imme-
diately afterwards discharged and then was appointed an agent
of the Freedman's Bureau. He was to go up the river in a steamer
a few days after I saw him and I decided to go with him, as
he could be of use to me at my plantation.

The steamer which took us up was the Planter, and her captain
was a mulatto named Bob Smalls who had run her out from
the harbor during the war to the Federal blockading fleet
beyond the bar. He was not its captain at the time but one of
the hands on board, and he made the start from one of the city
wharves in the morning when steam was up and before the white
captain, Relyea by name, had arrived. The latter should have
been on board through the night and, after an investigation into his conduct, was
discharged for gross carelessness. This was a brilliant and fear-
less act on the part of Smalls and he was amply rewarded by
being commissioned as captain in the US navy and placed in com-
mand of the Planter. He was also voted afterwards a large sum of
money by Congress. At the time of my trip up Cooper river the vessel
was still in commission and Smalls its captain as an officer of
the navy. I had a long conversation with him during the return trip
which he sought himself, but it did not amount to much. It referred
principally to his services in the federal navy with his steamer aas
a patrol or picket boat along the arms of the sea and rivers in-
side of the South Carolina coast line. He mentioned several instances
where he outwitted Capt "so and so" in command of the rebel pickets
during his tours of observation, but, in justice to him, I do not remember
that he indulged in any bitterness against his owner when he was
a slave or against any of the whites in
Charleston.

X His name was Martel.