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.