wife, or
husband were often lost to one another. The very old people and the
young children were often left behind for the former master to care for.
Regiments of Negro soldiers were mustered out in every large town and
their numbers were added to the disorderly mass. Some of the Federal
garrisons and Bureau stations were almost overwhelmed by the numbers of
blacks who settled down upon them waiting for freedom to bestow its full
measure of blessing, and many of the Negroes continued to remain in a
demoralized condition until the new year.

The first year of freedom was indeed a year of disease, suffering,
and death. Several partial censuses indicate that in 1865-66 the Negro
population lost as many by disease as the whites had lost in war.
Ill-fed, crowded in cabins near the garrisons or entirely without
shelter, and unaccustomed to caring for their own health, the blacks who
were searching for freedom fell an easy prey to ordinary diseases and to
epidemics. Poor health conditions prevailed for several years longer. In
1870, Robert Somers remarked that "the health of the whites has greatly
improved since the war, while the health of the Negroes has declined
till the mortality of the colored population, greater than the mortality
of the whites was before the war, has now become so markedly greater,
that nearly two colored die for every white person out of equal numbers
of each."

Morals and manners also suffered under the new dispensation. In the
crowded and disease-stricken towns and camps, the conditions under which
the roving Negroes lived were no better for morals than for health,
for here there were none of the restraints to which the blacks had
been accustomed and which they now despised as being a part of their
servitude. But in spite of all the relief that could be given there was
much want. In fact, to restore former conditions the relief agencies
frequently cut off supplies in order to force the Negroes back to work
and to prevent others from leaving the country for the towns. But
the hungry freedmen turned to the nearest food supply, and "spilin de
gypshuns" (despoiling the Egyptians, as the Negroes called stealing from
the whites) became an approved means of support. Thefts of hogs, cattle,
poultry, field crops, and vegetables drove almost to desperation those
whites who lived in the vicinity of the Negro camps. When the ex-slave
felt obliged to go to town, he was likely to take with him a team and
wagon a