First Bay Point and then Hilton Head. 3 turns and the Confederate flags came down. The whites evacuated in confusion.

Late in November the Adjutant General ordered the seizure of all cotton and any other property that could be used for the U. S. Army. Paid labor was to pick, collect, and pack the cotton preparatory to its shipment in transports to the Quartermaster in New York where it was sold on the public account. In the execution of this order General Sherman appointed Wm. H. Nobles agent of the United States to collect and store cotton found in the deserted section of South Carolina, who received six per cent on the market value of the cotton stored. Nobles, and his assistant, James Adrian Suydam, had by Christmas sentaway cotton to the value of $30,000. Brigadier-General Rufus Saxton said, upon the arrival of Edward L. Pierce, the agent of the Treasury Department, "he will have little to do but take the credit of collecting a couple of million dollars' worth of cotton." Of the cotton already picked and stored before the arrival of Du Font's fleet, Pierce thought there were 2,500,000 pounds, an estimate which indicates that the crop was unusually large.

In December, 1861 U. S. Agents were appointed by Capt. Saxton as Quartermaster to take possession of crops and other goods.

Captain Saxton as Quartermaster was also in charge of the contraband labor and controlled the contraband camps established. He appointed Banard K. Lee as the supervisor of the camps. The laborers were paid little in