Half of them made no engagements at all; and, in a week after their discharge, the streets of Natchez were full of ragged, hungry negroes who had spent all their money and lost all their clothes; and were anxious to contract for a year’s work with the first planter who came along.
Reid describes the plight of discharged negro soldiers who struggled to find work after the war.
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But why should a sensible man deal with such folly?
With her, then, we should most sedulously cherish a cordial friendship, and nothing would tend more to knit our affections than to be fighting once more, side by side, in the same cause.
In November nothing could exceed the hatred which seemed everywhere felt to the freedmen.
These Southern Rebels have their fate in their own keeping, and they are nursing their wrath to keep it warm.