"There was no fighting near us and nothing was much injured in our immediate neighborhood.

"There was no fighting near us and nothing was much injured in our immediate neighborhood. Everything is greatly changed by the freeing of the Negroes. White people will be benefited by this change, after a little. But it is very uncertain what will become of the blacks.
"They do not know what to do with themselves now that they are free -- and very many of them will, (I fear, must) die for want of food and clothing and fuel, and medical attention.
"Their former owners are for the most part trying to do for them all they can -- but that is but little. Out of every hundred negroes, old and young, not more than twenty were working men and most of these twenty were taken away by the war -- and have never returned. Most of them probably died or were killed. So now there is nobody to raise bread and meat for those too young or too old to work.
"The white inhabitants all thro' the South have gone to work very heartily. But they have their own families to provide for and this they can do only with great difficulty. The war swept away a great many of their able bodied men and left thousands of widows and orphans without money and without means. All over the country the fences were burned, barns and farming tools and mills destroyed -- all the horses mules and oxen carried away or eaten up -- and these people are without money! Now with the best intentions in the world to help their late servants, they have but little in their power.
"And while many of the white race must perish this winter, a much larger proportion of the black must disappear before Spring. No matter who is in fault or whether any body is to blame for this state of things, thousands will be in their graves before next Christmas! No power can help it -- at least none on earth!!"