Existing comment:
"Contraband" Camps:
The government tried to place the influx of "contrabands" in a number of locations where they supposedly could receive assistance and at the same time be controlled, or "corralled." Unfortunately, some efforts subjected the refugee population to much suffering.
Refugees often lived in squalor, and disease frequently ravaged the camps and temporary housing. When smallpox broke out in Duff Green's Row, many feared it would spread throughout the city. As a precaution refugees were moved to Camp Barker. There smallpox remained rampant, and mortality was extremely high. From June 1862 to April 1864 about one in seven residents died. According to Camp Barker's last superintendent, James J. Ferree, the residents included "many... chronic invalids... a mass of old folks -- men, women and children." Healthy refugees left the camp to find work in the city. In 1864, the authorities moved the camp's remaining inhabitants to a site in Virginia. |