Former Confederates across the South were unwilling to allow formerly enslaved Black folks to transition smoothly and safely to freedom. They often turned to violence, believing they should have been, at the very least, compensated for their loss of property. A woman named Susan Merritt of Rusk County, Texas, reported that “lots of Negroes were killed after freedom…bushwhacked, shot down while they were trying to get away. You could see lots of Negroes hanging from trees in Sabine bottom right after freedom. They would catch them swimming across Sabine River and shoot them.”
