Charles....whew.....you always give me so much to think about. I know that Thomas Jefferson suggested that the slaves should be sent back to Africa as he did not think just making them free and leaving them living near their former masters would work. Even back then, it was difficult for the founding fathers to reconcile beginning a nation of free men - who owned slaves. Of course the result of allowing our new nation to form with slavery being a part of it, was the war in 1860-1865. It is terrible that so much blood had to spill before we could finally resolve the issue. But when you are talking about people's pocketbooks....and a great deal of wealth in parts of the south was based on cotton which meant slavery.....people are not going to do what is morally right but what will help them to keep their way of life. It was not that people in the north were so much better than people in the south, the north did not depend on slavery for their money. Just look at what happened after the war, while Blacks were given their freedom, they were not given much else. I do think there was something about 20 acres and a mule being given to former slaves, but most of them were out of a job with no education. That is why you will find so much movement of Black families in 1860s-1880s as they tried to find work. Many moved west, I read somewhere that there developed a very prosperous settlement of former slaves in Denver. Black cowboys, Buffalo soldiers, etc. I sure never read about any of them in my history books. Your mention of an Irish ancestor....many do not realize that 1850s railroads were being built thru the south - like Tennessee. Many new men to America got jobs building those railroads. So that is why when war broke out, you find Irish units on both sides, CSA and USA. Someplace there is a listing of railroad works. I know in trying to find one, I finally realized that to find him in census of 1860, he would be living in some type of boarding house. Which meant reading all the census records, not just ones for his name. Duh....sometimes it takes me a while. then someone told me of a listing apparently done by the railroad of boarding houses where these men lived. Railroads did not come to NW Arkansas till much later, think the devastation of the war slowed things down. But when it did, I guess a new immigrant group from Europe built it. Mary