THE NEGRO AT THE CLOSE OF THE CIVIL WAR J 
a reasonably short time many individuals might 
attain economic independence. Wages were high 
after the war; the cost of living was not great in 
the South and the Negro’s expenses for the neces- 
sities of life were not heavy; land was a “drug on 
the market” and could be purchased for a mere 
fraction of its former value. If the weaknesses of 
the Negro could be strengthened, if he could at 
once take advantage of the opportunities offered, 
his place in the social organization would be 
better assured. 
GRADUAL EMANCIPATION 
What was the actual condition of the Negro 
population when “Freedom cried out”? An ex- 
amination of the conditions surrounding the race 
during the latter years of the war and in 1865 
will lead to a better understanding of the eco- 
nomic difficulties that it had to solve, and will 
help to a better appreciation of the possibilities 
of the Freedmen’s Bank system. It must be re- 
membered that, although the mass of the Ne- 
groes was not free until after the surrender of the 
Confederate armies, large numbers of them had 
before that time passed through a transition 
stage toward freedom. In North and South in 
1860 there were half a million free Negroes, many 
of whom had acquired property. The Federal 
army, as it invaded the South, gave practical 
freedom to many thousand slaves in the border 
states and in the theatres of war. During the 
first year of war these “contrabands,” as they 
were frequently called, were employed as labor- 
ers in the Federal camps and on the military