THE NEGRO AT THE CLOSE OF THE CIVIL WAR 9
Thus, at the close of the war, all the Negroes
were somewhat better prepared for freedom than
they were in 1861: the slaves on the plantation
by the increased opportunities given during the
war for the development of self-reliance and in-
dependence of character; the Negro soldiers by
their experience in army life; and the Negroes
in the colonies and on the abandoned plantations
by their sufferings, by having to rely upon them-
selves, and by their familiarity with the customs
of free and half free labor; and all of them by the
partial throwing-off of servile habits.
DEMORALIZATION AT THE CLOSE OF THE WAR
Conditions following the surrender of the
Confederate armies and the consequent general
emancipation were not favorable for the well-
being of the Negroes. Nearly 200,000 Negro
soldiers, somewhat unfitted by army life for
peaceful pursuits, were gradually mustered out
of service with no homes to go to and with
several hundred thousand of their relatives scat
tered over the border states and in the camps
and Negro colonies. To unite families was diffi-
cult and often impossible. The abandoned plan-
tations were soon given back to the white owners,
a proceeding which unsettled the Negroes who
had expected a division of property. The refugee
colonies were disbanded one by one, throwing
numbers of blacks into the world with no plans
and with hardly any faculty for making plans.
Many of those who had remained slaves until
1865 now attached themselves to the armies of
Occupation or crowded around the garrison posts.