e Civil War there might be an
influx for a few months but it would not continue.[34] They would return
when sure that they would be free. Starr thought that, if necessary, these
refugees might be used in building the much desired Pacific Railroad to
divert them from the North.

There was little ground for this apprehension, in fact, if their
readjustment and development in the contraband camps could be considered
an indication of what the Negroes would eventually do. Taking all things
into consideration, most unbiased observers felt that blacks in the camps
deserved well of their benefactors.[36] According to Levi Coffin, these
contrabands were, in 1864, disposed of as follows: "In military services
as soldiers, laundresses, cooks, officers' servants and laborers in the
various staff departments, 41,150; in cities, on plantations and in
freedmen's villages and cared for, 72,500. Of these 62,300 were entirely
self-supporting, just as any industrial class anywhere else, as planters,
mechanics, barbers, hackmen and draymen, conducting enterprises on their
own responsibility or working as hired laborers." The remaining 10,200
received subsistence from the government. 3,000 of these were members of
families whose heads were carrying on plantations, and had undertaken
cultivation of 4,000 acres of cotton, pledging themselves to pay the
government for their subsistence from the first income of the crop. The
other 7,200 included the paupers, that is, all Negroes over and under the
self-supporting age, the crippled and sick in hospitals. This class,
however, instead of being unproductive, had then under cultivation 500
acres of corn, 790 acres of vegetables, and 1,500 acres of cotton, besides
working at wood chopping and other industries. There were reported in the
aggregate over 100,000 acres of cotton under cultivation, 7,000 acres of
which were leased and cultivated by blacks. Some Negroes were managing as
many as 300 or 400 acres each.[37] Statistics showing exactly how much the
numbers of contrabands in the various branches of the service increased
are wanting, but in view of the fact that the few thousand soldiers here
given increased to about 200,000 before the close of the Civil War, the
other numbers must have been considerable, if they all grew the least
proportionately.

Much industry was shown among these refugees. Under this new system they
acquired the idea of ownership, and of the security of wages and learned
to