Our efforts to do anything for these people, as they herded together in masses, when founded on any expectation that they would help themselves, often failed; they had become so completely broken down in spirit, through suffering, that it was almost impossible to arouse them."[23] A few sympathetic officers and especially the chaplains undertook to relieve the urgent cases of distress.

They could do little, however, to handle all the problems of the unusual situation until they engaged the attention of the higher officers of the army and the federal functionaries in Washington.

After some delay this was finally done and special officers were detailed to take charge of the contrabands.

The Negroes were assembled in camps and employed according to instructions from the Secretary of War as teamsters, laborers and the like on forts and railroads.

Some were put to picking, ginning, baling and removing cotton on plantations abandoned by their masters.