garrison, or go to the towns where the Freedmen's Bureau was in process of
organization. To the Negroes who remained at home--and, curiously enough, for
a time at least many did so--the news of freedom was made known somewhat
ceremonially by the master or his representative. The Negroes were summoned to
the "big house," told that they were free, and advised to stay on for a share
of the crop. The description by Mrs. Clayton, the wife of a Southern general,
will serve for many: "My husband said, 'I think it best for me to inform our
Negroes of their freedom.' So he ordered all the grown slaves to come to him,
and told them they no longer belonged to him as property, but were all free.
'You are not bound to remain with me any longer, and I have a proposition to
make to you. If any of you desire to leave, I propose to furnish you with a
conveyance to move you, and with provisions for the balance of the year.' The
universal answer was, 'Master, we want to stay right here with you.' In many
instances the slaves were so infatuated with the idea of being, as they said,
'free as birds' that they left their homes and consequently suffered; but our
slaves were not so foolish."*

* "Black and White under the Old Regime", p. 158,


The Negroes, however, had learned of their freedom before their old masters
returned from the war; they were aware that the issues of the war involved in
some way the question of their freedom or servitude, and through the
"grapevine telegraph," the news brought by the invading soldiers, and the talk
among the whites, they had long been kept fairly well informed. What the idea
of freedom meant to the Negroes it is difficult to say. Some thought that
there would be no more work and that all would be cared for by the Government;
others believed that education and opportunity were about to make them the
equal of their masters. The majority of them were too bewildered to appreciate
anything except the fact that they were free from enforced labor.