FKEEDMEN OF THE SOUTH. 



429 



$5 per month ; for children between the ages of 12 and 

 15, half price. Children under 12 years of age shall 

 not be used as field hands, and families must be kept 

 together when they so desire. The tax on the product 

 of the plantation, in lieu of rent, shall be at the rate of 

 $2 per bale of 400 pounds of cotton, and 5c. per bushel 

 on corn and potatoes. 



Seventh. While military protection will not be guar- 

 anteed for the safety of persons engaged in cultivating 

 the soil, yet all troops will be required to give protec- 

 tion where it can be done without injury to the service, 

 and it is confidently believed that the military organ- 

 ization of the negroes will afford all the protection 

 necessary. 



Eighth. Commanders of the army will render the 

 commissioners such military assistance as may be 

 necessary, without injury to the service, for the execu- 

 tion of their duties. The commissioners will report 

 their proceedings to the Secretary of War every two 

 weeks. 



Given under my hand at Milliken's Bend, Louisiana, 

 April 15th, 1863, by authority of instructions from the 

 Secretary of War. 



L. THOMAS, Adjutant-General. 



This plan would have answered a tolerable 

 purpose had the lessees of the plantations been 

 honest, upright, humane men ; but, with few 

 exceptions, they were adventurers, and camp 

 followers, who were ready to turn their hands 

 to any opportunity of getting gain by the op- 

 pression of the poor, the weak, or the de- 

 fenceless. Adjutant-General Thomas, himself, 

 had not made sufficient allowance for human 

 depravity, and hence had not guarded so 

 closely as he should the rights of his hum- 

 ble proteges ; and the commissioners appoint- 

 ed seem to have identified their interests 

 with the lessees, and not at all with the poor 

 negroes who were to be employed. The wages 

 prescribed were much smaller than were paid 

 by the planters for the hire of slaves for the 

 sam'e work when cotton was but ten cents a 

 pound, while at this time it was worth seventy 

 cents; the clothing, which by the terms of the 

 contract was to be furnished at cost, was actu- 

 ally supplied at a most exorbitant profit, and 

 while a portion of their wages ($2 per head) 

 was withheld for medical attendance, no phy- 

 sician was ever allowed to see them, and no 

 medicines furnished on most of the plantations. 

 The provisions concerning families were also 

 shamefully evaded, and on many plantations 

 every rainy day, or day when there was no op- 

 portunity for work, was deducted, and even the 

 little pittance which remained was not paid, 

 nor were they furnished with food according to 

 agreement. In short, the plan enured, in its 

 results, wholly to the benefit of the lessees, 

 many of whom made large fortunes on the sin- 

 gle year's labor. There were of course some 

 exceptions, though but few, to this state of 

 things. Fifteen small plantations were leased 

 by negroes themselves, some of whom culti- 

 vated them by the aid of their own families, 

 while others employed a number of other ne- 

 groes. They all did well ; and in a few instan- 

 ces in which men of a high and humane char- 

 acter leased plantations, and carried out their 

 contracts in the spirit in which Gen. Thomas 

 had conceived them, they found the people 



whom they employed grateful and contented, 

 and willing to labor faithfully, while their own 

 receipts were such as amply compensated their 

 exertions and expenditure. 



Meantime the suffering, sickness, and mor- 

 tality at many of the camps where the feeble 

 and infirm freedmen were collected, were ter- 

 rible. James E. Yeatman, president of the 

 Western Sanitary Commission, visited these 

 camps from Cairo to Natchez, in the autumn 

 of 1863, and while in some of them the freed- 

 men employed by the Government in chopping 

 wood or other work, supported themselves and 

 those dependent upon them in tolerable com- 

 fort; in others, and these the largest camps, 

 there had been great distress and frightful mor- 

 tality the result of overcrowding, want of 

 ventilation, malarious localities, the prevalence 

 of small pox, want of medical attendance, poor 

 and insufficient food, and lack of clothing. 

 Many of the people under these causes were 

 seriously affected with nostalgia or home sick- 

 ness ; their condition being more wretched 

 than it hnd been on the plantations. At the 

 camp at Natchez, where there had been 4,000 

 freedmen, the number was reduced to 2,100 by 

 deaths, from fifty to seventy-five having died 

 per day during July and August ; at Young's 

 Point, near Vicksburg, the mortality had been 

 equally great for three months ; De Soto and 

 President's Island were among the worst of 

 these camps. Camp Holly Springs, and Camp 

 Shiloh, near Memphis ; Helena, and the Freed- 

 man's Hospital, were in better condition, and 

 some of them had good schools for the instruc- 

 tion of those who desired to learn to read. 



About 35,000 colored people are gathered in 

 these camps between Cairo and Natchez, and 

 about four fifths of them under proper man- 

 agement could earn their own support. 



On the 10th of August, Gen. Grant, finding 

 that the number had greatly increased in his 

 department after the fall of Vicksburg, issued 

 the following general orders, intended to ameli- 

 orate their condition, and facilitate their em- 

 ployment : 



General Orders, No. 51. 



HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF TITB TENNESSEE, ) 

 VICKBBUBG, Miss., August 10th, 1S63. f 



I. At all military posts in States within this depart- 

 ment where slavery has been abolished by the procla- 

 mation of the President of the United States, camps 

 will be established for such freed people of color as 

 are out of employment. 



II. Commanders of posts or districts will detail suit- 

 able officers from the army as superintendents of such 

 camps. It will be the duty of such superintendents 

 to see that suitable rations are drawn from the Sub- 

 sistence Department for such as are confided to their 

 care. 



III. All such persons supported by the Government 

 will be employed in every practicable way so as to 

 avoid as far as possible their becoming a burden upon 

 the Government. They may be hired to planters or 

 other citizens, on proper assurances that the negroes 

 so hired will not be run off beyond the jurisdiction of 

 the United States ; they may be employed on auj- pub- 

 lic works, in gathering crops from abandoned planta- 

 tions, and generally in any manner local commanders 

 may deem for the best interests of the Government in 



