Everywhere they found missing many of the best of their former neighbors.

They found property destroyed, the labor system disorganized, and the inhabitants in many places suffering from want.

They found the white people demoralized and sometimes divided among themselves and the Negroes free, bewildered, and disorderly, for organized government had lapsed with the surrender of the Confederate armies.
Beneath a disorganized society lay a devastated land.

The destruction of property affected all classes of the population.

The accumulated capital of the South had disappeared in worthless Confederate stocks, bonds, and currency.