It would be impossible to describe the condition of the people at this time. There was no civil law in operation, and the military government that had been established was not far-reaching enough to restrain violence of any sort. The negroes had been set free, and were supported by means of a "freedmen's bureau." They were free, and yet they wanted some practical evidence of it. To obtain this, they left the plantations on which they had been born, and went tramping about the country in the most restless and uneasy manner. [Illustration: The Negroes Freed 306] A great many of them believed that freedom meant idleness, such as they had seen white folks indulge in. The country negroes flocked to the towns and cities in great numbers, and the freedmen's bureau, active as its agents were, had a great deal more than it could attend to. Such peace and order as existed was not maintained by any authority, but grew naturally out of the awe that had come over both whites and blacks at finding their condition and their relations so changed. The whites could hardly believe that slavery no longer existed. The negroes had grave doubts as to whether they were really free. To make matters worse, a great many small politicians, under pretense of protecting the negroes, but really to secure their votes, began a crusade against the South in Congress, the like of which can hardly be found paralleled outside of our own history. The people of the South found out long ago that the politicians of the hour did not represent the intentions and desires of the people of the North; and there is much comfort and consolation to be got out of that fact, even at this late day. But at that time the bitterest dose of reconstruction was the belief that the best opinion of the North sustained the ruinous policy that had been put in operation. The leading men of the State were all disfranchised,--deprived of the privilege of voting, a privilege that was freely conferred on the negroes. A newspaper editor in Macon was imprisoned, and his paper suppressed, for declaring, in regard to taking the amnesty oath, that he had to "fortify himself for the occasion with a good deal of Dutch courage." The wife of General Toombs was ordered by an assistant commissioner of the freedmen's bureau to vacate her home with only two weeks' provisions, the grounds of the order being that the premises were "abandoned property," and, as such, were to be seized, and applied to the uses of the freedmen's bureau. The superior officer of this assistant commissioner, being a humane and kindly man, revoked the order.