The Freedmen by Editor

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 13, 1864

The Freedmen.

By Editor

As those who are conscientiously opposed to bearing arms can be assigned to the care of the freedmen, if they so choose, instead of paying the $300, or going to do duty in the hospitals, any information concerning these freedmen is of interest. The following sketch which we extract from an article in the American Missionary for September, shows in what condition they come into our lines, and gives something of an idea of what is to be done in taking care of them.

"THE CONDITION OF THE ESCAPING FREEDMEN."

"They escape from desolated plantations, they traverse territory gleaned and impoverished by passing and re-passing armies, they fly with little clothing or bedding, they find no homes ready for them, no food or fire or shelter, they are weary and hungry and sick. They do not come, a few scattered individuals or families, that local charity might supply, but they come by hundreds and thousands together. In the aggregate of last year they have poured out a population as large as Connecticut could send out, if all its men, women and children should go forth in one grand exode; and the coming twelve-month bids fair to exceed the past. Surely no stinted or tardy charity can supply such masses.

"The condition in which they come within our lines may be seen in the following extract from a letter of Mr. N. M. Mann, Agent of the Sanitary Commission:

""The return of Sherman's expedition had been anticipated by us all as sure to bring along a crowd of blacks, but no one had formed any idea of the utter destitution, the squalid misery, in which they would come. All the way from Meridian this black river followed in the wake of the army, increased by constant accessions, till, sullen and slow, it wound its way into Vicksburg with four thousand five hundred souls. Following through a country twice ravaged by a devouring host, they had literally nothing left them for subsistence but the remnant left by our troops. Foraging parties scoured the country on either hand, to obtain supplies for the soldiers, but no one brought these people food, and houses and barns pillaged and burnt left nothing for them, save what the hungry soldier could spare.

"Just at dusk the train of contrabands came in. Slowly and sadly they dragged along through the streets. Wagons were loaded with children, whose weary, despairing look will haunt me, I believe, as long as I live. A mother or two in each, trying to sooth the little ones, crying with hunger and fatigue, all clothed in the dirt-colored homespun they always wear, worn to rags and tatters, leaving them in many cases almost naked. Hundreds of them had not rags enough to be decent. As if nature sympathized with them in their misfortunes, the shades of night came on as they passed through the city, and partially screened from the crowd of gazers this saddening, sickening sight'"