The Northern Negroes did not furnish the expected leadership for the race, and the more capable men in the South showed a tendency to go North.

The unsettled state of the Negroes and their expectation of receiving a part of the property of the whites kept the latter uneasy and furnished the occasion of frequent conflicts.
Not the least of the unsettling influences at work upon the Negro population were the colored troops and the agitators furnished by the Freedmen's Bureau, the missions, and the Bureau schools.

But at the beginning of the year 1866, the situation appeared to be clearing, and the social and economic revolution seemed on the way to a quieter ending than might have been expected..