Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/29

 as a lamb. He was certainly the man for the task intrusted to him of making soldiers out of the "contrabands" of South Carolina and Georgia. He expressed himself as very much pleased with his success so far in that direction, and spoke very highly of the aptitude of the negroes for military service. I also made the acquaintance of his assistant adjutant-general, Edward W. Hooper, son of the well-known Massachusetts Congressman, Samuel Hooper, and one of many Harvard graduates who, from the loftiest motives, had left college to enter the service. In the same spirit, this exemplary character devoted his life after the war to the public weal in various capacities, ending with the treasurership of Harvard College. I likewise met there, for the first time, Mrs. Frances D. Gage, a lovable woman of middle age, an able writer for the press (she wrote the best letters on the "contrabands" to the Tribune), and an enthusiastic anti-slavery advocate and champion of other reforms. She was one of the Freedmen's Bureau agents, and discharged her duties with untiring zeal, true benevolence and great ability.

Immediately after my Beaufort trip I had an opportunity to witness the novel and interesting spectacle described in the following reproduction of my letter to the Tribune on the subject:

, January 22, 1863.

General Hunter and staff yesterday afternoon improved the return of clear weather to visit and review the 1st Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers. I was glad of the early opportunity to see what appeared to me the most interesting feature of South Carolina, and satisfy myself, by personal observation, as to the relative success of the experiment of transforming the black freedmen into Union soldiers.

The party steamed up Beaufort River on the Beaufort packet Flora to Smith's plantation, some eight miles distant, where the black volunteers had their encampment. We were transferred from the steamer to the right bank in small boats, and, after passing through a magnificent grove of live-oak trees and a "street" of the regimental camp, reached an implanted cotton field, where a line of