Week after week was spent in making personal investigations, measuring
and preparing bundles for those nearly naked. As new refugees were
daily coming in, the officers found it necessary to organize a new
camp over the river, in the rear of Vidalia, Louisiana, on the Ralston
plantation. As a few hundred were gathered there we went over and
found them exceedingly destitute. There were twenty families, mostly
of those recently enlisted as soldiers. Some of them were almost ready
to desert. Said one, "They say we are free, and what sort of freedom
is this, for us to see our families without a board, shingle, or
canvas to cover their heads? We are concluding to leave our regiment
and build something to shelter our wives and children. They haven't
got a place to sleep at night except in the open field." We told them
we would make their families our first care, and advised them not to
leave. Upon this they became more calm, and concluded to wait armpits,
as I chose to keep my arms out in case of tipping over. Here came
brother Reed, one of the teachers, offering to aid me; but he had no
pass or transportation, and no time to get it. I called the attention
of a passing general to my necessity for help, to be able to return
before the firing of the sundown gun. He said if he was in command he
would allow him to go with my load, and advised him to try it. On we
hastened, but met an ambulance that Captain Howe had sent to the new
camp for a sick woman with two small children. It was obliged to
return, not being able to pass through the lines, as the provost
marshal was not to be found. The supposition was very strong that the
lines were closed, as it was the weakest point in the post, and the
smoke of rebel fires was in sight on Lake Concordia. A battle had been
fought a few days before, and another attack was-daily threatened. The
driver and brother Reed were doubting the propriety of crossing the
river. "For if the lines are closed," they said, "the President
himself would not be permitted to pass." But I told them as they did