34 



AKMY, UNITED. STATES. 



and approved by a Bureau officer. In a single 

 State more than fifty thousand such contracts 

 were made. The labor of the freedmen has 

 produced nearly all the food consumed in the 

 South, besides large amounts of rice, sugar, 

 and tobacco for exportation, and about two 

 million bales of cotton per year, on which 

 were paid into the United States Treasury, 

 during the years 1866 and 1867, taxes amount- 

 ing to more than forty million dollars. 



Much disappointment and ill feeling were 

 caused by the failure of the original plan to 

 lease or sell the abandoned lands in small 

 tracts to refugees and freedmen. Information 

 has been published respecting lands under the 

 homestead act of June 21, 1866, and some aid 

 given to those who desired to enter them. 

 Attention is beginning to turn in that direc- 

 tion, and about four thousand families have 

 already made entries and obtained homes of 

 their own. In a few instances freedmen have 

 united in the purchase of farms under cultiva- 

 tion. They are anxious to become land- 

 owners. 



More attention has been given to their edu- 

 cation than to any subject respecting them. In 

 each State at least one normal school has been 

 organized. Several chartered colleges for freed 

 people are in operation ; also a university in 

 the District of Columbia. In the 2,118 schools 

 under the care of the Bureau, and officially re- 

 ported, the number of teachers employed is 

 2,455, and the number of pupils is 114,522. 

 Adding those estimated in private and Sab- 

 bath schools, the number under instruction of 

 some "kind during the last year was not less 

 than 250,000. The freed people have, during 

 the last year, paid for tuition and the construc- 

 tion of buildings about $200,000. 



The whole amount of bounties paid since 

 April 17, 1867, when the first treasury certifi- 

 cate was received, is $5,831,417.89. The bal- 

 ance on deposit now due to claimants is $1,- 

 220,066.52. Three thousand three hundred 

 and eleven applications for bounty are now 

 under examination in this office, and 18,000 

 such claims are now on file in. the Second 

 Auditor's office awaiting settlement, and it is 

 believed that about twenty-five thousand claims 

 of this kind remain to be presented. The work 

 of paying bounties to freedmen is, therefore, 

 not yet complete. 



The expenses of the Bureau were met the 

 first year with the proceeds of rents, sales of 

 crops, school taxes and tuition, and sale of 

 Confederate States property. The amount re- 

 ceived from all these miscellaneous sources 

 was $1,865,645.80, and from appropriations by 

 Congress since July, 1866, $11,084,750, making 

 a total of $12,950,395.80 received from all 

 sources. The expenditures, including the ac- 

 counts of the "Department of Negro Affairs," 

 from June 1, 1865, to August 31, 1869, have 

 been $11,194,028.10. 



In addition to this, subsistence, medical sup- 

 plies, and quartermasters' supplies, were ex- 



pended, amounting in cash to $2,330,788.72, 

 but whose real value when transferred to the 

 Bureau was probably less than one million dol- 

 dars. Adding their original cost to the cash 

 expended, the total expenses of the Bureau 

 have been $13,524,816.82. 



It seems* that the Board of Visitors to the 

 Military Academy thought that an entire re- 

 organization of that institution should be made, 

 as in its present condition it was inadequate 

 to meet the future demands of the country. 

 They recommended that the institution should 

 be enlarged, the number of cadets greatly in- 

 creased, the standard of admission be raised, 

 and the cadets be divided into two classes, one 

 pursuing an ordinary course of military in- 

 struction and its members returned to civil 

 life upon graduation, to spread a knowledge of 

 the military art throughout the land, and sup- 

 ply trained officers for the emergencies of war ; 

 the other, selected from the promising mem- 

 bers of the former class, and equal in number 

 only to the yearly wants of the Army, to pur- 

 sue their studies and practice to the very lim- 

 its of military science. 



These recommendations would doubtless be 

 much modified by those of practical officers. 



The actual expenditures of the Army for the 

 fiscal year were, including the Freedmen's 

 Bureau, $56,761,732. To this must be added, 

 for old war debts paid, $23,882,310, making the 

 total $80,644,042. Of this amount there was 

 expended for reconstruction purposes, $406,419. 



It is manifest that the military admin- 

 istration of the Army has been effective and its 

 discipline unimpaired. The duties devolving 

 upon the commanders of the three military dis- 

 tricts of Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas have 

 been performed under many embarrassments, 

 with fidelity and good judgment. 



Of the pensioned widows of soldiers in the 

 Revolutionary War there,survive : One of those 

 married prior to 1783, 54 of those married 

 between 1783 and 1794, 38 of those married 

 between 1794 and 1800, and 795 of those mar- 

 ried since 1800 887 in all, and only one less 

 than the preceding year. 



There are on the rolls the names of 1,293 

 widows and children of soldiers who served in 

 the wars subsequent to the Eevolution and prior 

 to that of 1861 a decrease of five since the last 

 annual report. The number of invalid pen- 

 sioners who served in said wars is 2,350. 



During the past year there were examined and 

 allowed 7,120 new applications for invalid pen- 

 sions of soldiers, at an aggregate annual rate of 

 $468,144, and 2,908 applications for increased 

 pension of invalid soldiers, at an annual aggre- 

 gate rate of $164,798. During the same period 

 15,695 original pensions to widows, orphans, 

 and dependent relatives of soldiers, were al- 

 lowed, at an aggregate annual rate of $1,577,- 

 281 ; and 11,998 applications by the same class 

 for increased pay were also admitted, at a 

 total annual rate of $784,549. On the 30th 

 June, 1869, there were on the rolls 81,579 in- 



