10 THE FREEDMEN'S SAVINGS BANK 
That they would never have to work any more, 
never be hungry or cold again, was the belief of 
many of those last emancipated. These were also 
possessed by the general idea that in order to be 
really free they must leave their old homes for 
new ones and must take new names. Men fre- 
quently deserted their families and took on new 
“free” wives. Thousands wandered over the 
country living from hand to mouth—eating 
berries, green corn from the fields, and stolen 
chickens and pigs. In the crowded cabins near 
the towns and the military posts want and dis- 
ease, often epidemic, thinned the numbers of the 
Negroes until it was estimated that the blacks 
had lost by death as heavily as did the southern 
whites during the war. For several years after 
the war the death rate among the Negroes in the 
cities was twice as large as that of the whites. 
J. D. B. DeBow? stated in 1867 that the laborers 
had decreased twenty-five per cent in number 
since 1860, an estimate certainly too large except 
for the congested camps and colonies. 
The system of labor based on slavery was of 
necessity disorganized as a result of emancipa- 
tion. In May and June, 1865, industry was, as 
far as the Negroes were concerned, almost at a 
standstill. Those who were congregated in the 
towns and about the garrisons could find little 
to do, and those still in the country were too 
excited over their new freedom to work regularly. 
Latham, an English traveler who went through 
the South in 1866, said that the Negroes had 
secured old muskets and had become “a race of 
2 Editor of DeBow’s Review.