5 THE FREEDMEN’S SAVINGS BANK
roe in 1861, set the example of confiscating captive
 slaves and organizing them to work for their
own support. When Port Royal was captured
by the Federals in 1862 the Negroes of the Sea
Islands were organized under agents sent from
the North by the United States Treasury Department.
 For three years, under a system resembling
 benevolent serfdom, these agents
trained the Negroes for the responsibilities of
freedom. And elsewhere along the Atlantic coast
where the Federals secured a hold, colonies of
refugees were thus organized to work for their
own living. The lands, houses, and movable property
 of the Confederates were used for the benefit
 of the refugee slaves who, by the end of the
war, had begun to work without supervision and
in some cases had purchased property.
A similar policy was pursued by the commanders
 in the Southwest. After the fall of Vicksburg
and Port Hudson the Negroes near the Mississippi
 River from Cairo, Illinois, to New Orleans
passed under the control of the Federal armies,
whose commanders, in order to lessen suffering
and prevent starvation, gathered them into
camps or colonies near the military garrisons.
Officers of the army, usually chaplains, were detailed
 to look after Negro affairs, to collect the
homeless ones into these colonies, to provide for
the distribution of supplies and for medical attention
 to the sick. General Grant had begun
this policy in 1862 when he set all the Negroes
near his army in West Tennessee to picking cotton
 and gathering corn in the deserted fields.
Chaplain John Eaton supervised this work and

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