The reorganized state and local governments sent food from the unravaged portions of the Black Belt to the nearest white counties, and the army commanders gave some aid.

As soon as the Freedmen's Bureau was organized, it fed to the limit of its supplies the needy whites as well as the blacks.
The extent of the relief afforded by the charity of the North and by the agencies of the United States Government is not now generally remembered, probably on account of the later objectionable activities of the Freedmen's Bureau, but it was at the time properly appreciated.
A Southern journalist, writing of what he saw in Georgia, remarked that "it must be a matter of gratitude as well as surprise for our people to see a Government which was lately fighting us with fire and sword and shell, now generously feeding our poor and distressed.

In the immense crowds which throng the distributing house, I notice the mothers and fathers, widows and orphans of our soldiers.

...

Again, the Confederate soldier, with one leg or one arm, the crippled, maimed, and broken, and the worn and destitute men, who fought bravely their enemies then, their benefactors now, have their sacks filled and are fed." Acute distress continued until 1867; after that year there was no further danger of starvation.