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No doubt many blacks simply wanted the comfort of numbers, the chance to live with large groups of their own race away from the constant scrutiny of the master or overseer. Outside of the largest plantations, the city afforded freedmen expanded opportunities to think and act as part of a black community; moreover, they felt free to exercise their newly won liberties in ways that would invite trouble in the countryside. To be in the city gave them readier access to the black churches and the black benevolent societies; they could partake more freely of the growing interest in political questions, and, most important of all, they were able to send their children to the newly established freedmen’s schools. In describing black life in postwar Macon, a northern reporter may have inadvertently hit upon precisely the combination of attractions that lured so many plantation freedmen to the city: four “prosperous” churches (one Methodist, one Presbyterian, and two Baptist); several benevolent societies (which contributed monthly support to the “parentless and indigent”); and five schools, four of which were taught by blacks. In addition, a Freedmen’s Bureau officer willingly listened to their grievances.40

Whether they had worked for “kind” or “mean” masters, significant numbers of freed slaves resolved to abandon plantation labor altogether. Heading for the urban centers, they hoped to secure positions that afforded more pay, personal independence, and a welcome relief from the plantation routines. Those who had labored on the plantations as blacksmiths, millers, mechanics, carpenters, and wheelwrights hoped to capitalize on the same skills in the cities, where they would join black artisans who had long dominated several of the skilled urban occupations. Former house servants, on the other hand, tended to seek similar positions in the cities or worked as waiters, hackmen, and seamstresses, while field hands might become stevedores, porters, laundresses, or menial laborers.41 In Richmond, blacks still comprised nearly half the work force of the Tredegar Iron Works, and the manager showed no inclination to reduce that proportion, despite the reluctance of newly imported white workers from Philadelphia to labor alongside blacks. “We dont want any men to come here who object to working with a colored man,” the manager insisted. “We Southern men regard Negroes as an inferior race, but we make no distinction of color in employing men and pay all the same wages as all have to live.”42

Although coming to the city hardly made any of the freedmen rich, and despite the many betrayed expectations, some nevertheless managed to achieve for themselves and their families a more meaningful and satisfying way of life than they would have enjoyed on the plantations. When Charles Crawley accompanied his family to Petersburg, two weeks after Lee’s surrender, he left behind a master and mistress who “wus good to me as well as all us slaves,” but the Crawleys were determined “to make a home fo’ ourselves.” After working “here an’ dar, wid dis here man an’ dat man,” they purchased a home and remained there for the rest of their lives. As slaves, Mary Jane Wilson’s parents were owned by different masters and hence lived separately; after the war, her father reunited the family in Portsmouth, Virginia, went to work in the Norfolk navy yard as a teamster, purchased a lot and built his own house. “He was one of the first Negro land owners in Portsmouth after emancipation,” she proudly recalled. After attending the local school, Mary Jane Wilson graduated from Hampton Institute and then returned to Portsmouth as one of the first black teachers in that town. “I opened a school in my home, and I had lots of students. After two years my class grew so fast and large that my father built a school for me in our back yard.… Those were my happiest days.”43

Frequently, success in the city consisted more of personal satisfaction than significant material gain. But the examples of blacks