FREEDMEN AND REFUGEES. 



371 



IV. Whenever a negro has enlisted in the military 

 service of the United States, he may locate his family 

 in any one of the settlements at pleasure, and acquire 

 a homestead, and all other rights and privileges of a 

 settler, as though present in person. In like manner, 

 negroes may settle their families and engage on 

 board the gunboats, or in fishing, or in the naviga- 

 tion of the inland waters, without losing any claim 

 to land or other advantage derived from this system. 

 But no one, unless an actual settler as above defined, 

 or unless absent on Government service, will be en- 

 titled to claim any right to land or property in any 

 settlement by virtue of these orders. 



V. In order to carry out thin system of settlement, 

 a general officer will be detailed as Inspector of Set- 

 tlements and Plantations, whose duty it shall be to 

 visit the settlements, to regulate their police and 

 general management, and '.rho will furnish personally 

 to each head of a family, subject to the approval of 

 the President of the United >tate_s, a possessory title 

 in writing, giving as near as possible the description 

 of boundaries; and who shall adjust all claims or 

 conflicts that may arise under the same, subject to 

 the like approval, treating such titles altogether as 

 possessory. The same general officer will also be 

 charged with the enlistment and organization of the 

 negro recruits, and protecting their interests while 

 absent from their settlements ; and will be governed 

 by the rules and regulations prescribed by the War 

 Department for such purposes. 



VI. Brigadier-General R. Saxton is hereby appoint- 

 ed Inspector of Settlements and Plantations, and will 

 at once enter on the performance of his duties. No 

 change is intended or desired in the settlement now 

 on Beaufort Island, nor will any rights to property 

 heretofore acquired be affected thereby. 



By order of Major General W. T. 'SHERMAN. 

 L. M. DATTOX, Assistant Adj. -Gen. 



This order, which was .sanctioned by - the 

 Government, conveyed, as Gen. Sherman has 

 since explained, only a possessory title to these 

 islands to the freedmen, during the continu- 

 ance of the war, or until the Government should, 

 after the conclusion of the war, define its policy 

 in regard to the restoration of forfeited lands 

 to political offenders. At the time of issuing 

 it, neither Gen. Sherman nor the other parties 

 concerned looked for so speedy a termination 

 of the war as actually took place. From the 

 beginning of 1865, however, the course of events 

 tending to the speedy close of the war, and to 

 the practical establishment of the policy of 

 emancipation all over the South, hastened to 

 their final issue. The march of Sherman 

 through the Carolinas, the expeditions of Stone- 

 man through Southwestern Virginia and West- 

 ern North Carolina, and of Wilson through the 

 heart of Alabama and jGeorgia, Sheridan's raid 

 toward Lynchburg, the* fall of Mobile, and espe- 

 cially the defeat and surrender of Lee's army, 

 and the evacuation of Richmond and Peters- 

 burg, and the subsequent surrender of Johnston, 

 each set at liberty large numbers of the slaves, 

 and spread more widely among the negroes the 

 conviction that their day of deliverance had 

 come. Before the consummation of all -these 

 events, Congress had passed an act establishing 

 a Bureau of Freedmen, Refugees, and Aban- 

 doned Lands, and had ordered to be committed 

 to it the care of the freedmen which had hither- 

 to been in the hands first of the War and after- 

 wards of the Treasury Department. The new 



bureau was attached to the War Department. 

 The bill was crude in its provisions (see CON- 

 GEESS, U. S.), and no appropriation was made 

 for carrying out its purposes. The Secretary 

 of War, however, obviated the latter difficulty, 

 by authorizing the assignment of army officers, 

 so far as was possible, to the special duties re- 

 quired, and provided for its accommodation 

 buildings then in the possession of the Govern- 

 ment for military purposes, and furnished them 

 by requisitions on the Quartermaster's Depart- 

 ment. Early in May, almost immediately after 

 the surrender of Gen. Johnston's army, the 

 President appointed Maj.-Gen. Oliver 0. How- 

 ard, then in command of the Army of the Ten- 

 nessee, to be the commissioner or head of this 

 bureau. Gen. Howard possessed eminent quali- 

 fications for this difficult and responsible post; 

 he was a man of unimpeachable integrity, con- 

 scientious, and religious ; a man of rare execu- 

 tive ability and extensive military attainments ; 

 he had commanded large bodies of troops in 

 most of the slaveholding States, and previous 

 to the war had spent considerable time at the 

 South, under circumstances which enabled him 

 to comprehend very thoroughly the relation 

 which existed between the slaveholders and the 

 slaves; he had a strong sense of justice, and a 

 disposition to do right in all cases ; and while 

 not so radical as some in his views, he believed 

 in emancipation, and in the capacity of the 

 negro race for elevation and improvement. 



In entering upon his duties, Gen. Howard 

 first appointed the ten assistant commissioners 

 to whose aid he was entitled by the provisions 

 of the act. With one exception (the assistant 

 commissioner for Louisiana), they were all army 

 officers in actual service, and several of them 

 of the rank of brigadier-general. The com- 

 missioners appointed were : for the District of 

 Columbia, Brevet Brig.-Gen. John Eaton, jr. ; 

 for Virginia, Brevet Col. Orlando Brown, 

 A. Q. M. ; for North Carolina, Col. E. Whittle- 

 sey, formerly a Professor in Bowdoin College, 

 and assistant adjutant-general on Gen. How- 

 ard's staff; for South Carolina and Georgia, 

 Brig, and Brevet Major-Gen. Rufus Saxton; 

 for Florida, Brevet Col. T. W. Osborne, former- 

 ly chief of artillery of the Army of the Tennes- 

 see ; for Alabama, Brevet Maj.-Gen. Wager 

 Swayne; for Louisiana, Rev. T. W. Conway, 

 late major volunteers and general superintend- 

 ent of freedrnen's affairs, Department of the 

 Gulf, under the Treasury Department. Mr. 

 Conway was relieved in the summer of 1865, 

 and Brevet Maj.-Gen. Absalom Baird appoint- 

 ed his successor,. Brig.-Gen. J. S. Fullerton act- 

 ing until Gen. Baird could enter upon his duties ; 

 for Texas, Brevet Brig.-Gen. E. M. Gregory; 

 for Mississippi, Col. Samuel Thomas, 6-tth 

 U. S. 0. 1. ; for Kentucky and Tennessee, Brig.- 

 Gen. Clinton B. Fiske, with headquarters at 

 Nashville; for Missouri and Arkansas, Brig.- 

 Gen. J. W. Sprague. Gen. Howard soon found 

 that some of his commissioners had too large a 

 territory, and in some cases was compelled to 



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