In the still smoldering South, confusion abounded over precisely what “freedom” meant for blacks. The emancipation took effect in a laborious and uneven way in the different parts of the conquered Confederation. As Union armies marched in and out of various locations, many blacks found themselves emancipated and then enslaved. Blacks from one Texas county fleeing to the free soil of the liberated county next door were attacked by slave owners as they swam across the river that marked the county line. The next day the trees along the riverbank were bent by swinging corpses - a grisly warning to others who dreamed of freedom. Other planters opposed emancipation more legalistically, stubbornly protesting that slavery was legal until state legislatures or the Supreme Court declared otherwise. For many slaves, the chains of slavery were not broken with one blow, but had to be broken link by link. Driven by the bayonets of the Yankee armies, all masters were eventually forced to recognize the freedom of their slaves. Some blacks initially responded to the news of their newly granted freedom with suspicion and uncertainty. Loyalty to the plantation owner drove some slaves to resist the liberating Union armies, while the pent-up bitterness of other slaves exploded violently on liberation day. Many newly emancipated slaves, for example, joined Union troops in plundering their masters' possessions. Many took new names in place of those given by their masters and demanded that whites formally address them as "Mr." or "Mrs." Tens of thousands of emancipated blacks took to the streets, some to test their freedom, others to search for long-lost spouses, parents and children. Emancipation thus strengthened the black family, and many new... middle of paper... blood. The Black Codes imposed terrible burdens on unrestricted blacks, who struggled against mistreatment and poverty to make their way as free people. The worst features of the Black Codes would eventually be repealed, but their repeal could not alone lead freed blacks to economic independence. Lacking capital and with little to offer other than their own labor, thousands of impoverished former slaves slipped into sharecropper status, as did many landless whites. Once slaves to the masters, countless blacks and poorer whites effectively became slaves to the land and their creditors. The Black Codes made a bad impression in the North. If former slaves were enslaved, they asked each other, hadn't the Boys in Blue shed their blood in vain? Had the North really won the war? Works CitedAmerican Pageant