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4. Freedmen's Relief
- The University of Alabama Press
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Freedmen's Relief [54.221.159.188] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 06:51 GMT) ] FOLLOWED scores of children to their graves, who, but for ~ t cold and hunger, would have been here today," H. S. Beals = wrote from Virginia in 1863. Nearly every teacher had a similar story. Tens of thousands of slaves fled to the blue-coated Union soldiers seeking freedom and found death instead. Huddled together in contraband camps or in makeshift shelters, many died from disease, exposure, and malnutrition. The misery was so great that instruction often became secondary to teachers who were preoccupied with providing physical relief. They became medical directors, sanitary commissioners , and welfare agents, "angels of mercy" whose errand was preservation of life. 1 A stream of letters from the South gave the same horrifying message of ragged, emaciated, suffering refugees. After Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest led a cavalry raid into southwestern Kentucky in late 1862, many slaves fled to Columbus, where they were crowded into a stable without food or blankets. Through intrigue and violence, kidnappers carried some of the escapees back to slavery despite the efforts of an AMA agent. Frederick Law Olmsted said the contrabands at Cairo, Illinois, were either inefficiently or badly treated, ill fed, poorly clothed, dirty, and sickly. In June there were three thousand refugees in Corinth, Mississippi, with more arriving each day. Some lived in tents. Others were without shelter. "Nearly one thousand have come in during the last week, many sick and destitute of even a change of undergarments," wrote Helen Luckey from North Carolina. J. L. Richardson said the fugitives coming into St. Louis were "most of them fearful, timid, not knowing whether they are among friends or foes." Richardson met them with assurances that they had nothing to fear, "that they have now but one master, who is in heaven," but he could not cover their nakedness. W. T. Richardson 57 58 CHRISTIAN RECONSTR UCTION took a small supply of clothing to a camp near Beaufort, South Carolina , for those who had followed Sherman's army. "Such a company of ragged chId. I never saw before," he wrote. "Mothers begging & pleading for something to cover their poor shivering little ones. My supply was soon exhausted & I was obliged to turn from them with a sad heart."2 The military provided shelter and some rations, and most area commanders appointed superintendents of contraband to assist and supervise fugitives. But even when inclined to do so, the military could not adequately meet the needs of contrabands and carryon a successful war effort simultaneously. General John A. Dix, who admitted in September 1862 that the contrabands at Fortress Monroe were "a very great source ofembarrassment to the troops ... and to the white population of their neighborhood," decided to communicate with state authorities about the feasibility of sending them North. He wrote the governors of Rhode Island and Massachusetts that contrabands could not be defended outside the fort in case ofa Confederate attack. Moreover , about 1,300 were living in exposed tents and dying at a rate of four to six each day. In the face of the privations and perils of camp, Dix added, a number of contrabands had asked permission to return to their masters. Return of fugitives when masters demanded them was prohibited, but when refugees asked to return, Dix believed he had no authority to deny it and he had repeatedly given such permission. Had they been in the North with reasonable care and comforts, he said, the refugees would not have chosen to go back to slavery. The governor of Rhode Island agreed to care for some of the fugitives. Governor John A. Andrews of Massachusetts declined,saying that the contrabands would become demoralized, wandering vagabonds in the North. He suggested they be kept in the South and armed.3 The military could not properly care for contrabands, and the North generally wanted them to remain in the South. Nevertheless, northerners were concerned about the slaves' plight. Scores of relief agencies were formed which sent tons of clothing and food to refugee camps. The AMA made a public appeal for clothes, bedding, Bibles, food, missionaries, and teachers. In 1863 it pleaded in the American Missionary: "Christian friends, are there not, in many towns, those who can serve the freedmen and please the Savior by gathering up a box of clothing for these destitute ones. Don't delay, we pray you; but [54.221.159.188] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 06:51 GMT...