In the spring of 1865 about five million blacks lived in the United States, some 90 percent of them just set free by the force of Northern arms. Tens of thousands of them were destitute, without homes or any source of material support. Many were refugees from battle zones, transients living at the mercy of their fellows and Northern troops; others huddled in makeshift camps scattered throughout the Southern countryside and outside the larger towns. Wherever they gathered, hunger and disease attended them, and epidemics of smallpox, typhoid fever, and dysentery ran rampant, sweeping away thousands. Infant mortality rose to unprecedented heights. On the plantations, where the bulk of the black population remained, conditions were somewhat better but still menacing.