see the fundamental difference between freedom and slavery. Some
Yankees, however, seeing that they did less work than did laborers in the
North, considered them lazy, but the lack of industry was customary in the
South and a river should not be expected to rise higher than its source.
One of their superintendents said that they worked well without being
urged, that there was among them a public opinion against idleness, which
answered for discipline, and that those put to work with soldiers labored
longer and did the nicer parts. "In natural tact and the faculty of
getting a livelihood," says the same writer, "the contrabands are inferior
to the Yankees, but quite equal to the mass of southern population."[38]
The Negroes also showed capacity to organize labor and use capital in the
promotion of enterprises. Many of them purchased land and cultivated it to
great profit both to the community and to themselves. Others entered the
service of the government as mechanics and contractors, from the
employment of which some of them realized handsome incomes.

The more important development, however, was that of manhood. This was
best observed in their growing consciousness of rights, and their
readiness to defend them, even when encroached upon by members of the
white race. They quickly learned to appreciate freedom and exhibited
evidences of manhood in their desire for the comforts and conveniences of
life. They readily purchased articles of furniture within their means,
bringing their home equipment up to the standard of that of persons
similarly circumstanced. The indisposition to labor was overcome "in a
healthy nature by instinct and motives of superior forces, such as love of
life, the desire to be clothed and fed, the sense of security derived from
provision for the future, the feeling of self-respect, the love of family
and children and the convictions of duty."[39]

These enterprises, begun in doubt, soon ceased to be a bare hope or
possibility. They became during the war a fruition and a consummation, in
that they produced Negroes "who would work for a living and fight for
freedom." They were, therefore, considered "adapted to civil society."
They had "shown capacity for knowledge, for free industry, for
subordination to law and discipline, for soldierly fortitude, for social
and family relations, for religious culture and aspiration. These
qualities," said the observer, "when stirred, and sustained by the
incitemen