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Sure; from pbs.org: “As the northern army pushed southward, thousands of fugitives fled across Union lines. Neither the federal authorities nor the army were prepared for the flood of people, and many of the refugees suffered as a result. Though the government attempted to provide them with confiscated land, there was not enough to go around. Many fugitives were put into crowded camps, where starvation and disease led to a high death rate.”

From The Guardian: “(Jim) Downs’s (of Connecticut College)book is full of terrible vignettes about the individual experiences of slave families who embraced their freedom from the brutal plantations on which they had been born or sold to. Many ended up in encampments called “contraband camps” that were often near union army bases. However, conditions were unsanitary and food supplies limited...Downs reconstructed the experiences of one freed slave, Joseph Miller, who had come with his wife and four children to a makeshift freed slave refugee camp within the union stronghold of Camp Nelson in Kentucky. In return for food and shelter for his family Miller joined the army. Yet union soldiers in 1864 still cleared the ex-slaves out of Camp Nelson, effectively abandoning them to scavenge in a war-ravaged and disease-ridden landscape. One of Miller’s young sons quickly sickened and died. Three weeks later, his wife and another son died. Ten days after that, his daughter perished too. Finally, his last surviving child also fell terminally ill. By early 1865 Miller himself was dead. For Downs such tales are heartbreaking. “So many of these people are dying of starvation and that is such a slow death,” he said.”

“Oh, Help the Contraband” (a song about the freed slaves following the armies) - Horace Waters. From The Harp of Freedom: A New and Superior Collection of Anti-Slavery, Patriotic, and “Contraband” Songs, Solos, Duets, and Choruses, 1862. “Contraband” refers to escaped slaves who were confiscated as Confederate property and allowed to remain with Union forces. This song was published by anti-slavery activists prior to the Emancipation Proclamation.

Generals Benjamin Butler, Sherman, Wadsworth all asked Lincoln for guidance on this question; some generals allowed them to be returned to their owners, some let them work in the army, and some tried to set up camps for them.