A brave new world.

Under Alexander’s leadership, the camp almost immediately transformed itself into what would soon be recognized as a “well-organized village.” The tents disappeared, replaced by cabins built with logs hewn from the nearby forests; streets were laid out, wards organized, public buildings were constructed, including a school, a commissary, a hospital, and a church hung with live moss. Skilled laborers from blacksmiths to carpenters to shoemakers to seamstresses began to ply their trades so that the camp was soon completely self-sufficient. Even garbage collection was seen to.

What’s more, by cultivating 400 acres of abandoned and confiscated lands, 300 acres of which were planted in a lucrative cotton crop, the “contrabands,” as the former slaves were now called, were contributing a monthly profit of approximately $4,000 to the U.S. Treasury.

The contrabands (or community members, as they surely must have considered themselves) applied themselves to their own education and to their religion as diligently as they worked in the fields. As one missionary noted, “You will find them at every hour of the daylight at their books.” Church attendance was nearly universal, with four black ministers taking up the call.

Community members also took up the call to arms once it was finally issued. Months before it was officially allowed, Alexander organized a Camp guard company, and when the Union Army began to recruit blacks, Alexander resigned from his post to lead a black regiment. White Camp officials worried that a collapse might occur without the male workers, who had to a man volunteered for Army service. Instead the women and children took up the burden; productivity never lagged. In the regiment, the same drive for self-improvement was undimmed: soldiers each paid a monthly tax to employ regimental teachers and purchase more books.

Unfortunately, even as the war was being won, this brave social experiment was fighting a losing battle. In 1864, when Sherman set out to capture Meridian, he ordered all garrisons back to Memphis. The Contraband Camp was abandoned, its people shipped north and eventually scattered. As quickly as this utopia had materialized, it disappeared.

Still, with the War was drawing to a close, African Americans were about to enter new era. There was opportunity and freedom ahead as well as danger and despair. In the Mississippi Hills, leaders and communities would arise to face those challenges.