Proclamation had changed the status of the Negro, that steps were taken by the Union for his employment as a soldier. Opinion in his favor gained force after the Draft Riot in New York, when Negroes in the city were mobbed and beaten by the enemies of conscription. Soon a distinct bureau was established in Washington for the recording of all matters pertaining to Negro troops, a board was organized for the examination of candidates, and recruiting stations were set up in Maryland, Missouri, and Tennessee. By the end of 1864 nearly 200,000 Negroes had been enrolled in the army. The exploits of [24]these men at Port Hudson, Fort Wagner, and Fort Pillow are a part of the romance of American History.

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[24]

The Civil War meant more than the emancipation of four million slaves, with all the perplexing problems that that liberation brought with it; it involved the overturning of the whole economic system of the South. To educate the freedmen, to train them in citizenship, and to give them a place in the new labor system, was all a problem calling for the wisest statesmanship and the largest and most unselfish patriotism. Strange contradictions moreover were frequently in evidence to increase the practical difficulties of the situation. Some Negroes, because of personal attachment, refused to leave their former masters; while the South in general, although it laid all its ills at the door of the Negro, violently opposed any considerable effort to have him taken away.

What was the Federal Government to do with the freedman? Of course it could leave him alone. Having emancipated him, it could let him work out his destiny as he would. In view of the situation, however, and the principles for which the war had been fought, such a course was manifestly impossible, especially as the so-called Black Codes of some of the [25]Southern states raised the question if the results of the war were really being accepted in good faith. The next course then was some form of Federal oversight; and thus we have the Freedmen's Bureau. The best exposition of the work of this institution is to be found in the writings of Dr. DuBois. It started the ex-slaves on their new career as free laborers, gave them recognition before the courts, and established the free common school in the South. It did not wholly guard its methods from paternalism, however; it did not live up to its implied promise to furnish the freedmen with land; and, worst of all, when the Negroes in spite of all their disadvantages had actually accumulated a 

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