All they did was
needed, for the destitution of the freedmen was often reported as "too
appalling for belief," and the situation was growing daily worse rather
than better.

And daily, too, it seemed more plain that this was no ordinary matter of
temporary relief, but a national crisis; for here loomed a labor problem
of vast dimensions. Masses of Negroes stood idle, or, if they worked
spasmodically, were never sure of pay; and if perchance they received
pay, squandered the new thing thoughtlessly. In these and in other
ways were camp life and the new liberty demoralizing the freedmen. The
broader economic organization thus clearly demanded sprang up here and
there as accident and local conditions determined. Here again Pierce's
Port Royal plan of leased plantations and guided workmen pointed out the
rough way. In Washington, the military governor, at the urgent appeal of
the superintendent, opened confiscated estates to the cultivation of
the fugitives, and there in the shadow of the dome gathered black farm
villages. General Dix gave over estates to the freedmen of Fortress
Monroe, and so on through the South. The government and the benevolent
societies furnished the means of cultivation, and the Negro turned again
slowly to work. The systems of control, thus started, rapidly grew, here
and there, into strange little governments, like that of General
Banks in Louisiana, with its 90,000 black subjects, its 50,000 guided
laborers, and its annual budget of $100,000 and more. It made out
4000 pay rolls, registered all freedmen, inquired into grievances and
redressed them, laid and collected taxes, and established a system of
public schools. So too Colonel Eaton, the superintendent of Tennessee
and Arkansas, ruled over 100,000, leased and cultivated 7000 acres of
cotton land, and furnished food for 10,000 paupers. In South Carolina
was General Saxton, with his deep interest in black folk. He succeeded
Pierce and the Treasury officials, and sold forfeited estates, leased
abandoned plantations, encouraged schools, and received from Sherman,
after the terribly picturesque march to the sea, thousands of the
wretched camp followers.

Three characteristic things one might have seen in Sherman's raid
through Georgia, which threw the new situation in deep and shadowy
relief: the Conqueror, the Conquered, and the Negro. Some see all
significance in the grim front of the destroyer, and some in the bitter
sufferers of the lost cau