decisions. According to the Fugitive Slave Act, Northern officials should
have helped in capturing and returning them. When General Butler learned
that the South was using slaves to erect military defenses, he declared
that such slaves were contraband of war and therefore did not have to be
returned. Congress stated that it was not the duty of an officer to
return freed slaves. However, on at least one occasion, Lincoln gave
instructions to permit masters to cross the Potomac into Union lines to
look for their runaway slaves.

In August, 1861, a uniform policy was initiated with the passing of the
Confiscation Act. It stated that property used in aiding the insurrection
could be captured. When such property consisted of slaves, it stated that
those slaves were to be forever free. Thereafter, slaves flocked into
Union lines in an ever-swelling flood. Besides fighting the war, the
Union army found itself bogged down caring for thousands of escaped
slaves, a task for which it was unprepared. In some cases confiscated
plantations were leased to Northern whites, and escaped slaves were hired
out to work them. In December of 1862 General Saxton declared that
abandoned land could be used for the benefit of the ex-slave. Each family
was given two acres of land for every worker in the family, and the
government provided some tools with which to work it. However, most of
the land was sold to Northern capitalists who became absentee landlords
with little or no interest in maintaining the quality of the land or in
caring for the ex-slave who did the actual labor. These ex-slaves were
herded into large camps with very poor facilities. The mortality rate ran
as high as 25 percent within a two-year period.

Gradually, a very large number of philanthropic relief associations, many
of which were related to the churches, sprang up to help the ex-slave by
providing food, clothing, and education. Thousands of school teachers,
both black and white, flocked into the South to help prepare the ex-slave
for his new life.

In the beginning, Lincoln had been very reticent in permitting the use of
slaves or freedmen in the army. As early as 1861 General Sherman had
authorized the employment of fugitive slaves in "services for which they
were suited." Late in 1862 Lincoln permitted the enlistment of some
freedmen, and, in 1863, their enlistment became widespread. By the end of
the war more than 186,000 of them had joined the Union forces. For