Page:Annual report of the superintendent of Negro Affairs in North Carolina, 1864.djvu/59

Rh having brought hither the gallant Army of the Ohio, the headquarters of which were now established upon the Atlantic sea-board.

Soon after the entry of Gen. Schofield upon his new command, his attention was called to the fact, that families of southern soldiers, both white and colored, were supplied with rations by the government without regard to their particular needs. Whereupon he issued, very wisely, the following order:

All able bodied men, within the lines of the Army, who have no legitimate employment, are required to report without delay to the nearest Provost Marshal for enrollment, in order that they may be employed in the Quartermaster's Department. Provost Marshals will take measures to secure full compliance with this order within their respective jurisdictions. The names of all persons enrolled will be reported to Brig. Gen. L.C., Chief Quartermaster Military Division of the Mississippi, and upon his requisition such number as he may require will be ordered to report to him for labor in the Quartermaster's Department. They will while so employed, receive the usual compensation and subsistence.

Hereafter the Commissary Department will not issue rations to any person not in the Government service, except such as are unable from age or infirmity to work, and are actually dependent upon charity for their support. There is work enough for all, and none will be allowed to live in idleness while supported by the Government. The General commanding the District of Beaufort will cause this order to be strictly complied with.

J. A. CAMPBELL, Assist Adj't General. This order, so far as it respects the colored people, being in accordance with the views suggested at the close of my report for the last year, has worked well in practice, and compelled some to engage in remunerative labor who would otherwise have continued to eat the bread of idleness. If the pay of colored soldiers had been more promptly given them, they would have provided food for their families. Indeed it would have been a great saving to the government to have made more frequent settlements with its colored employésemployees [sic], for so long as they had no cash in hand, they had no means of living, and must be helped as a charity. After Gen. Sherman had arrived at Goldsboro', and opened the eastern gates of the Old North State, it was wonderful to see how the dark tide of population rolled into the sea-board towns. Ten thousand entered Wilmington, five thousand New Berne, and in large numbers they came down to other places on the coast. Some had followed that victorious army from the heart of South Carolina, some had come even from Savannah. But most had left their homes along the route of that grand march, and, glad to escape from their old servitude, had pressed forward until they could go no farther. Pitiable was the condition of many of them, when they entered our lines. Footsore and weary, ragged and dusty from travel, mostly without covering for either their feet or heads, some of them emaciated and already marked as victims of death, afflicted with hoarse hollow