Several partial censuses indicate that in 1865-66 the Negro population lost as many by disease as the whites had lost in war.
Ill-fed, crowded in cabins near the garrisons or entirely without shelter, and unaccustomed to caring for their own health, the blacks who were searching for freedom fell an easy prey to ordinary diseases and to epidemics.

Poor health conditions prevailed for several years longer.

In 1870, Robert Somers remarked that "the health of the whites has greatly improved since the war, while the health of the Negroes has declined till the mortality of the colored population, greater than the mortality of the whites was before the war, has now become so markedly greater, that nearly two colored die for every white person out of equal numbers of each." Morals and manners also suffered under the new dispensation.

In the crowded and disease-stricken towns and camps, the conditions under which the roving Negroes lived were no better for morals than for health, for here there were none of the restraints to which the blacks had been accustomed and which they now despised as being a part of their servitude.

But in spite of all the relief that could be given there was much want.