http://www.nps.gov/shil/planyourvisit/contrabandcamp.htm
What intact, contraband families produced for themselves out of nothing, when left alone in peace: "The camp featured numerous homes, a church, school and hospital. The freedmen cultivated and sold cotton and vegetables in a progressive cooperative farm program. By May 1863, the camp was making a clear profit of $4,000 to $5,000 from it enterprises. By August, over 1,000 African American children and adults gained the ability to read through the efforts of various benevolent organizations. Although the camp had a modest beginning, it became a model camp and allowed for approximately 6,000 ex-slaves to establish their own individual identities."
http://mlsandy.home.tsixroads.com/Corinth_MLSANDY/histcw6.html
"For many who lived and worked at Corinth during its heyday, the
horrors and uncertainty of the war must have ofttimes seemed remote.
But the battlefields were never really far away; the exigencies of
military victory rendered futile any hope of long-term stability for
the camp. The fate of the freedmen was always secondary to the triumph
of the Union cause. General William T. Sherman's Meridian Campaign in
early 1864 brought that fact home to the people of Corinth. [86]
Sherman returned to the Mississippi Valley in January, 1864,
eager to undertake an active winter campaign. His proposed strikes
into Mississippi and Alabama required "about twenty thousand men."
[87] Thus he had already issued orders to recall all the garrisons
"along the Memphis & Charleston Railroad from Corinth back to
Collierville," a point just twenty-four miles east of Memphis. [88]
That such a troop movement would disrupt the work of John Eaton's
Freedmen's Department meant nothing to Ceneral Sherman. [89] "The
order fell like a bomb-shell among our contented people," lamented the
Reverend Mr. Carruthers. "But military orders are preemptory, and
without a reason why, and must be obeyed;..." [90] Although according
to Carruthers the camp was to be evacuated and transported to Memphis
in thirty-six hours, there were, in fact, many delays. The move to the
city began near the end of December, but on January 12, 1864,
Brigadier General J. D. Stevenson, the commander at Corinth,
complained that he still had six hundred more contrabands, for whom
Lieutenant-Colonel Phillips should immediately provide." [91] Bad
weather, damaged bridges, and in Sherman's opinion, plain inertia,
delayed the final evacuation until January 25. [92]
Carruthers reported that the freedmen gave up their comfortable
homes and left their "well-organized village" without complaint, but
the casual destruction of their "model" camp must have shaken
their faith in the benevolence of their Yankee protectors. For as Levi
Coffin noted, "their gardens and farms were abandoned to the rebels,
and they were deprived of the fruit of their labors." [93] They had
little left to show for all the hard work so extolled by their white
friends.
The long journey westward - ninety-three miles from Corinth to
Memphis-and the resettlement proved difficult. An orchard and a
cornfie]d on the bank of the Mississippi, two miles south of the city,
where some seven hundred evacuees from Holly Springs were already
encamped, became the new home for the fifteen hundred Corinth
contrabands. [94] Once again they had to live in tents, with no
stoves or chimneys. To keep warm they had to build a fire in the
middle of the floor. "Such was our condition," explained the Reverend
Mr. Olds, "when the unprecedentedly cold weather ... came upon us."
On New Year's morning the thermometer stood at 11 degrees below
zero! A degree of cold before unknown in Memphis.
It seemed a wonder to me that many of our people did not freeze
to death. Some did die of cold:- but I believe all were those that
were sick at the time. Yet for nearly all of the 5000 freed-men
here [in and around Memphis] those were terrible days of suffering.
[95]
Naturally the move and the harsh weather disrupted the schools,
the churches, the hospitals, and the work of the contrabands. ". . .
just now we have no schools," Olds informed George Whipple on January
9. Not only did the camp site lack adequate facilities, but meeting
the immediate physical needs of the freedmen absorbed most of the
teachers' time. "And there is work enough for them to do for the next
month," Olds estimated. Olds, who at the first of the month received
orders to take "exclusive charge" of the new camp, hoped to reopen the
regular schools and establish an industrial school for the women as
soon as practicable. [96] But on February 20 he had to admit to
Whipple that he had made little progress. [97] The Reverend S. W.
Magill, a traveling inspector for the American Missionary Association,
discovered that the evacuation of Corinth and the other outlying
camps, the lateness of the season, and the emergence of a bitter
jurisdictional dispute between the War and the Treasury Departments
over the control of freedmen's affairs had brought everything to a
standstill. "... people are at a loss what to do," he wrote in
mid-February. "In such a state of things it is difficult to obtain
facilities for teachers & to get the minds of the people set in any
given direction." [98]
What intact, contraband families produced for themselves out of nothing, when left alone in peace: "The camp featured numerous homes, a church, school and hospital. The freedmen cultivated and sold cotton and vegetables in a progressive cooperative farm program. By May 1863, the camp was making a clear profit of $4,000 to $5,000 from it enterprises. By August, over 1,000 African American children and adults gained the ability to read through the efforts of various benevolent organizations. Although the camp had a modest beginning, it became a model camp and allowed for approximately 6,000 ex-slaves to establish their own individual identities."
http://mlsandy.home.tsixroads.com/Corinth_MLSANDY/histcw6.html
"For many who lived and worked at Corinth during its heyday, the
horrors and uncertainty of the war must have ofttimes seemed remote.
But the battlefields were never really far away; the exigencies of
military victory rendered futile any hope of long-term stability for
the camp. The fate of the freedmen was always secondary to the triumph
of the Union cause. General William T. Sherman's Meridian Campaign in
early 1864 brought that fact home to the people of Corinth. [86]
Sherman returned to the Mississippi Valley in January, 1864,
eager to undertake an active winter campaign. His proposed strikes
into Mississippi and Alabama required "about twenty thousand men."
[87] Thus he had already issued orders to recall all the garrisons
"along the Memphis & Charleston Railroad from Corinth back to
Collierville," a point just twenty-four miles east of Memphis. [88]
That such a troop movement would disrupt the work of John Eaton's
Freedmen's Department meant nothing to Ceneral Sherman. [89] "The
order fell like a bomb-shell among our contented people," lamented the
Reverend Mr. Carruthers. "But military orders are preemptory, and
without a reason why, and must be obeyed;..." [90] Although according
to Carruthers the camp was to be evacuated and transported to Memphis
in thirty-six hours, there were, in fact, many delays. The move to the
city began near the end of December, but on January 12, 1864,
Brigadier General J. D. Stevenson, the commander at Corinth,
complained that he still had six hundred more contrabands, for whom
Lieutenant-Colonel Phillips should immediately provide." [91] Bad
weather, damaged bridges, and in Sherman's opinion, plain inertia,
delayed the final evacuation until January 25. [92]
Carruthers reported that the freedmen gave up their comfortable
homes and left their "well-organized village" without complaint, but
the casual destruction of their "model" camp must have shaken
their faith in the benevolence of their Yankee protectors. For as Levi
Coffin noted, "their gardens and farms were abandoned to the rebels,
and they were deprived of the fruit of their labors." [93] They had
little left to show for all the hard work so extolled by their white
friends.
The long journey westward - ninety-three miles from Corinth to
Memphis-and the resettlement proved difficult. An orchard and a
cornfie]d on the bank of the Mississippi, two miles south of the city,
where some seven hundred evacuees from Holly Springs were already
encamped, became the new home for the fifteen hundred Corinth
contrabands. [94] Once again they had to live in tents, with no
stoves or chimneys. To keep warm they had to build a fire in the
middle of the floor. "Such was our condition," explained the Reverend
Mr. Olds, "when the unprecedentedly cold weather ... came upon us."
On New Year's morning the thermometer stood at 11 degrees below
zero! A degree of cold before unknown in Memphis.
It seemed a wonder to me that many of our people did not freeze
to death. Some did die of cold:- but I believe all were those that
were sick at the time. Yet for nearly all of the 5000 freed-men
here [in and around Memphis] those were terrible days of suffering.
[95]
Naturally the move and the harsh weather disrupted the schools,
the churches, the hospitals, and the work of the contrabands. ". . .
just now we have no schools," Olds informed George Whipple on January
9. Not only did the camp site lack adequate facilities, but meeting
the immediate physical needs of the freedmen absorbed most of the
teachers' time. "And there is work enough for them to do for the next
month," Olds estimated. Olds, who at the first of the month received
orders to take "exclusive charge" of the new camp, hoped to reopen the
regular schools and establish an industrial school for the women as
soon as practicable. [96] But on February 20 he had to admit to
Whipple that he had made little progress. [97] The Reverend S. W.
Magill, a traveling inspector for the American Missionary Association,
discovered that the evacuation of Corinth and the other outlying
camps, the lateness of the season, and the emergence of a bitter
jurisdictional dispute between the War and the Treasury Departments
over the control of freedmen's affairs had brought everything to a
standstill. "... people are at a loss what to do," he wrote in
mid-February. "In such a state of things it is difficult to obtain
facilities for teachers & to get the minds of the people set in any
given direction." [98]
