Even before the end of the war the League was extending its organization into the parts of the Confederacy held by the Federal forces, admitting to membership the army officers and the leading Unionists, though maintaining for the sake of the latter "a discreet secrecy." With the close of the war and the establishment of army posts over the South the League grew rapidly. The civilians who followed the army, the Bureau agents, the missionaries, and the Northern teachers formed one class of membership; and the loyalists of the hill and mountain country, who had become disaffected toward the Confederate administration and had formed such orders as the Heroes of America, the Red String Band, and the Peace Society, formed another class. Soon there were added to these the deserters, a few old line Whigs who intensely disliked the Democrats, and others who decided to cast their lot with the victors. The disaffected politicians of the up-country, who wanted to be cared for in the reconstruction, saw in the organization a means of dislodging from power the political leaders of the low country. It has been estimated that thirty per cent of the white men of the hill and mountain counties of the South joined the Union League in 1865-66. They cared little about the original objects of the order but hoped to make it the nucleus of an anti-Democratic political organization. But on the admission of negroes into the lodges or councils controlled by Northern men the native white members began to withdraw. From the beginning the Bureau agents, the teachers, and the preachers had been holding meetings of negroes, to whom they gave advice about the problems of freedom. Very early these advisers of the blacks grasped the possibilities inherent in their control of the schools, the rationing system, and the churches. By the spring of 1866 the negroes were widely organized under this leadership, and it needed but slight change to convert the negro meetings into local councils of the Union League. ¹ As soon as it seemed likely that Congress would win in its struggle with the President the guardians of the negro planned their campaign for the control of the race. Negro leaders were organized into councils of the League or into Union Republican Clubs. Over the South went the organizers, until by 1868 the last negroes were gathered into the fold. ¹ Of these teachers of the local blacks, E. L. Godkin, editor of the New York Nation, who had supported the reconstruction acts, said: "Worse instructors for men emerging from slavery and coming for the first time face to face with the problems of free life than the radical agitators who have undertaken the political guidance of the blacks it would be hard to meet with."