relief agencies were at work. In the North, especially in the border states
and in New York, charitable organizations collected and forwarded great
quantities of supplies to the Negroes and to the whites in the hill and
mountain counties. The reorganized state and local governments sent food from
the unravaged portions of the Black Belt to the nearest white counties, and
the army commanders gave some aid. As soon as the Freedmen's Bureau was
organized, it fed to the limit of its supplies the needy whites as well as the
blacks.

The extent of the relief afforded by the charity of the North and by the
agencies of the United States Government is not now generally remembered,
probably on account of the later objectionable activities of the Freedmen's
Bureau, but it was at the time properly appreciated. A Southern journalist,
writing of what he saw in Georgia, remarked that "it must be a matter of
gratitude as well as surprise for our people to see a Government which was
lately fighting us with fire and sword and shell, now generously feeding our
poor and distressed. In the immense crowds which throng the distributing
house, I notice the mothers and fathers, widows and orphans of our soldiers .
. . . Again, the Confederate soldier, with one leg or one arm, the crippled,
maimed, and broken, and the worn and destitute men, who fought bravely their
enemies then, their benefactors now, have their sacks filled and are fed."

Acute distress continued until 1867; after that year there was no further
danger of starvation. Some of the poor whites, especially in the remote
districts, never again reached a comfortable standard of living; some were
demoralized by too much assistance; others were discouraged and left the South
for the West or the North. But the mass of the people accepted the discipline
of poverty and made the best of their situation.

The difficulties, however, that beset even the courageous and the competent