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AfriGeneas’

Introduction to Correspondence of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and

Abandoned Lands

A Guide Through the Labyrinth

of Bureau Letters and Reports

© David E. PatersonAfriGeneas Slave Research Forum Manager

2008

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This guide is intended to help you get all you can out of the microfilmed

Freedmen’s Bureau letters and reports.

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ContentsIntroduction to Bureau CorrespondenceLink to 1861 Army Administration Guide

Correspondence Flow DiagramBureau Chain of Command

Research AssumptionsNARA Descriptive Pamphlets

Preparing to ResearchUnlisted Bureau Agencies

Find the Agents for Your CountyCitations and Copying

Common AbbreviationsObsolete Terms for Dates

Three Kinds of LettersUnregistered Letters Received

Letters SentRegistered Letters Received

EndorsementsEndorsements Example

Why Endorsements are ImportantLists of Destitute Persons & Other Miscellaneous

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The Bureau’s Correspondence

The first part of this guide will suggest where to start your search of correspondence by familiarizing you with nineteenth century Army correspondence practices and the National Archives’ published Descriptive Pamphlets for records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands.

The second part will explain how to track any piece of Bureau correspondence through the various steps from its original receipt by the Bureau to any reply and eventual filing.

(Not all Bureau records are correspondence. Examples of valuable records that are not correspondence include hospital registers of patients, labor contracts, and orders and circulars. Such records are usually well described in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) descriptive pamphlets for each microfilm series, and will not be discussed in this guide.)

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Freedmen’s Bureau Records are Military Records

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (Freedmen’s Bureau for short) left a massive legacy of written orders, reports, instructions, lists—and most of all, correspondence. Bureau records are thoroughly inventoried, most are microfilmed, but few are indexed.

The Freedmen’s Bureau, part of the War Department, was headed by a Commissioner, Major General Oliver Otis Howard. All the Bureau’s officials and agents above the local level were Army officers. The authoritarian culture, discipline, and strict chain of command of a military organization gave the Bureau peculiar advantages in its daunting task of rebuilding the foundations of Southern legal, economic and social practices. The military nature of the Bureau also shaped how it managed its paperwork.

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Understanding Army Correspondence

Understanding the basics of 1860s-style U.S. Army correspondence management will help you learn:

• How to identify records relevant to a particular place.• How to search for a particular person or people in the records.• How to search Bureau records for letters sent by a particular person.• How to find an original letter in Bureau files.• How to know if the Bureau sent a reply to a letter.• Where to look for a reply to a letter.• If an original letter cannot be found, where to find substitute information about the contents of the letter.• How to follow the trail of a letter when it was forwarded to some government entity outside the Bureau, including state governors and other U.S. Army commands.

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1861 Army Administration Guide

In 1861 U.S. Army Inspector-General, Col. H. L. Scott, published a military dictionary for army officers that describes in detail “rules for keeping books at the head-quarters of the army and in the adjutant-general’s office.” These rules could be adapted “with modifications” and “used with armies in the field, at the head-quarters of divisions, departments, regiments, &c.”

Researchers working in the Freedmen’s Bureau records will find Col. Scott’s guidance very helpful in understanding the way Bureau correspondence is arranged. At the link, below, you will find, in Microsoft Word format, an extract from Col. Scott’s book:

U.S. Army Correspondence Book-Keeping in the 1860s

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Correspondence Flow Diagram

Freedmen’s Bureau officials usually adapted some variation of standard U.S. Army practices to the way they administered correspondence.

The flow diagram on the next page shows the typical path of a letter from receipt through endorsement, reply, and filing. Orange book icons represent the books in which correspondence was organized and tracked. Manila file folder icons represent locations of original letters. Blue diamonds mark decision points in the flow of correspondence—with different paths for “yes” and “no” answers.

I recommend printing the flow diagram as a reference while you read the rest of this guide.

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Incoming Correspondence – Typical Process

Entered in“Register of

Letters Received”

?

No

Letter filed with “Unregistered Letters Received”

Letter filed with “Unregistered Letters Received”

Letter to Freedmen’s Bureau Officer

Yes“Register of Letters Received”

(Book)

Endorsed andForwarded

?

Reply Sent?

“Endorsements and Memoranda”

(Book)

Reply copied in

“Letters Sent”

(Book)

Letter filed with “Letters Received”

Letter filed with “Letters Received”

NoYes

No

Did the letter come back

?

Lookin records of

Endorsee

No

Yes

Letter endorsed and forwarded for action or information

Yes

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Each Office Kept its Own RecordsThe Freedmen’s Bureau operational (“line”) Chain of

Command was like a pyramid. The bottom layer was the many agents in each of the Southern states, reporting up through several layers of administration to a single man at the top: General Oliver Otis Howard. Each office in the chain of command was expected to keep its own set of records.

Besides the “line” officers, Bureau commanders were supported by “staff” officers who kept separate sets of records. Staff officers included Quartermasters, Disbursing Officers, Surgeons (in charge of hospitals), Superintendents of Education, and others.

When citizens wrote to the Bureau, and when Bureau officers corresponded with each other, the Army’s book-keeping and filing procedures ensured that letters and reports could be traced from their original receipt to final disposition.

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Commissioner(Major-General O. O. Howard)

Assistant Commissioners(in charge of each state)

Subassistant Commissioners(in charge of state regions)

Assistant Subassistant Commissioners(in charge of state sub-regions)

Agents(for each county or group of counties)

Typical Bureau Chain of Command

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Assumptions About Research Goals

This guide assumes that you are either a genealogist looking for particular ancestors in the records of a particular county (or parish), or a local historian seeking anything about a particular county. Either way, your point of entry into Freedmen’s Bureau correspondence records will be the same.

Because most Freedmen’s Bureau records are not indexed, you will be searching through all letters and reports related to the county where your ancestors (or persons of interest) lived. Besides seeking letters written by the ancestors themselves, you will be scanning the contents of all letters and reports for mention of the ancestors or your county.

Your first and most important reference tools are the National Archives Records Administration (NARA) Descriptive Pamphlets for RG105.

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Microfilm Publications

All the Freedmen’s Bureau records held by the National Archives Records Administration (NARA) are part of Record Group 105, usually abbreviated to RG105.

The NARA has published many parts of these records on microfilm. Microfilm publications are named and numbered with a number beginning with “M”. Examples:

M798, Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Georgia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1869.

M799, Records of the Superintendent of Education for the State of Georgia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1870.

M1903, Records of the Field Offices for the State of Georgia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872.

Each microfilm publication has a Descriptive Pamphlet.

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NARA Descriptive Pamphlets

National Archives and Records Administration descriptive pamphlets and inventories are your best guide to thousands of microfilm reels of Bureau records resource, and they are free. This is your tax dollars at work – they are FREE!

You can download them as Adobe Acrobat files from the webpage linked below, or you can order the printed pamphlets online or through the toll free number also listed at this webpage:

http://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/freedmens-bureau/

Download or order these three kinds of descriptive pamphlets for the state you are researching:• Records of the Assistant Commissioner• Field Office Records • Records of the Superintendent of Education

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Preparing to SearchRead all the introductory pages in the descriptive pamphlets

in Records of Assistant Commissioners, Field Office Records, and Records of the Superintendent of Education for the state you are researching. These introductions:

• Give a brief history of the Bureau in that state• Describe the organization of the Bureau (very important to understand how to trace correspondence and reports send between Bureau offices)• Describe the types of records and the information they contain• Describe particular records of each Bureau office by location

Most descriptive pamphlets for field office records include an appendix with a partial list of Bureau officers and agents.

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Bureau Agencies not Listed in the Descriptive Pamphlets

The locations (towns) listed in descriptive pamphlets for Field Office Records are the Bureau offices for which some or all local office files survive in RG105 at the national Archives.

The places listed in the descriptive pamphlets are not a complete list of Bureau offices or agencies. Remember that correspondence from unlisted Bureau offices and agents survive in the records of the listed offices. The offices for many civilian agents in individual counties do not appear in RG105, but those agents wrote letters and reports, and forwarded letters from local citizens, to their superior officers. Much of that correspondence is mixed in with the records of other offices in the chain of command.

You will see that most Bureau officials located their offices in towns. Do not assume that the records of those offices mainly concern townspeople. The jurisdiction of the agents at those offices covered entire counties, often several counties.

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Example of Bureau Records for an Unlisted Place

Neither Thomaston (the leading town in Upson County, Georgia), nor Upson County are listed in pamphlet M1903, Records of the Field Offices for the State of Georgia. None of the county’s agents are listed in the appendix of that pamphlet.

Nevertheless, after thorough research in the microfilmed records of the Georgia Field Offices, the Assistant Commissioner for Georgia, the Georgia Superintendent of Education and the Washington DC Bureau Headquarters, I found enough material to transcribe 120 typed pages. These letters and reports name close to 200 freedpeople who lived in Upson County (although, admittedly, 123 of these people were named in a single document—more about that later.)

Conclusion: You will find records for your county somewhere, even if the descriptive pamphlets list no town in your county.

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Find the Agents for Your CountyTo have the best chance of locating Bureau

correspondence and reports related to your county, you must know the names of all the agents who held jurisdiction over your county, the dates they held office, and the locations of their offices.

NOTE: The appendixes in descriptive pamphlets for state Field Office Records do NOT contain a complete list of Bureau offices or agents.

Look in the descriptive pamphlet for the Records of the Assistant Commissioner for your state. Look for records with names like “Station Books,” “Personnel Rosters,” “Registers of Agents.” Examples:

• For South Carolina see rolls 43 and 44, “Personnel Rosters.”• For Georgia see roll 35, “Registers of Civilian Agents,” and “Rosters of Officers and Civilian Agents.”

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List Your County’s AgentsUsing the information you find in the microfilm, make a list

of your county’s agents, arranged in chronological order. Note at least the following information for each agent:• Name• Jurisdiction (some agents had more than one county)• Date he began to serve as agent• Date he was relieved as agent• Location of his office (usually a town)

This gives you a list of names to look for—people who wrote letters and filed reports, who had a direct connection to the area of your research. The dates they held office allow you bracket your search when you are looking at records chronologically. The location of the office allows you to see if the records of that agent or officer may be listed among the records in the descriptive pamphlet for your state’s Field Office Records.

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List the Office Locations of Your County’s Assistant Subassistant Commissioners and

Subassistant Commissioners County Agents were supposed to report up the chain of

command through these intermediate offices. When agents’ office files are missing, you will be able to trace their correspondence through these other offices. How do you find which offices handled the affairs of your county?• Use the state’s “Station Books” or similar records the same way you found your county’s agents.• Or, use the Descriptive Pamphlets to select the offices geographically closest to your county. The closest is probably the right one.• Lastly, you can check the microfilm (name index to a register of letters received is a good place to start) to see which office your county agents regularly wrote to.

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List Your County’s Towns and Post Offices

You will identify many of the letters you want to see by the name of the places written in the dateline.

• Make a list of all the towns and post offices in your county. Consult an old map from around 1860-1870, or a good local history.• A list of post offices may be hard to find, and is not absolutely essential, but if you have access to either the 1870 or 1860 census on microfilm, the local post office names are written at the top of each page in Schedule 1 (Free Population).

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Citations and Copying

When extracting or copying Bureau documents from microfilm, always note:• The Microfilm Publication number (example: M1903)• The roll number• The description of the document you are copying from, as found in the Descriptive Pamphlet (example: Endorsements Sent and Received, Vol 1 (71), Aug. 4, 1867-July 3, 1868) (another example: Unregistered Letters Received, Oct. 1865 – Apr. 1866) • If the document is in a record book, cite page number (if pages are unnumbered, note that fact)• If it is a letter, cite who from, whom to, and date • The microfilm frame number, as shown in the margins of the film. While this information is not technically necessary in a citation, it makes life a lot easier for you or someone else to find the document again! Some of the older microfilm publications do not have frame numbers.

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Citations and CopyingDon’t forget to write this information on the back of, or in the margin of, any documents you photocopy. Do it as soon as you copy them, because if you wait until later, there is a good chance you won’t remember where it came from!

(I learned that lesson the hard way! )

If you are scanning or transcribing into your laptop, be sure to include this info as you make each transcription or scan.

If you are putting your sources into footnotes for a book, article, or college thesis, remember to cite the NARA Record Group 105. (All Bureau records are in RG 105, so you don’t have to write it in your field notes, unless you want to!)

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AAAG = Acting Assistant Adjutant General

AAG = Assistant Adjutant General

Ag’t = Agent

ASACom’r = Assistant Subassistant Commissioner

Ass’t Com’r = Assistant Commissioner

BRF&AL = Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands

Bt. = brevet (indicates that an officer holds an honorary rank higher than the rank he is being paid for)

Com’r = Commissioner

Gen’l = General

SACom’r = Subassistant Commissioner

Sub Ass’t Com’r = Subassistant Commissioner

&c = et cetera

Common Abbreviations

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Examples of terms referring to dates:

“Yours of the 25th instant” = your letter dated the 25th of this month (Instant is usually abbreviated “inst.”)

“Yours of the 25th ultimo” = your letter dated the 25th of last month (Ultimo is usually abbreviated “Ult.”)

Obsolete Terms for Datesused in19th Century Letters

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Three Kinds of Letters

Bureau letters are filed into three main groups that require three different research approaches:

• Letters Received• Unregistered* Letters Received• Letters Sent

We will first explore Unregistered Letters Received because they have the simplest filing system.

* A “register” was a book in which an Army clerk entered key information about many of the letters received by each Bureau office. Some letters were entered in this book (registered); others were not (unregistered).

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Unregistered Letters ReceivedIn theory all letters received by the Bureau should have been

entered into a book called a “register of letters received” so they could be tracked– “All official communications received will be entered in this book,” wrote the Army’s inspector-general in 1861. In practice this did not happen. Busy agents and Army clerks usually found time to register letters from other Army officers, but many letters from private citizens and civilian agents of the Bureau were not entered. This does not mean unregistered letters were ignored; there are answers to some of these letters in “Letters Sent.”

In accordance with standard practice, letters received were “folded in three equal folds” except for those written on “Cap paper” (short for “foolscap” roughly equivalent to modern legal size) that were folded in four. On the blank outside of the folded letter, the clerk usually wrote the place and date of the letter, the name of the writer, a brief summary of the contents, and date received. If a reply was sent, the date of the reply might be noted.

Unregistered letters are often filed in rough alphabetical order by the first letter of the writer’s last name. For example, you have to search through all the “G” letters to find any and all letters sent by James W. Greene.

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Unregistered Letters Received: Example of a Folded Letter

Written from:Upson County, GA, July 10, 1866

Written by:James W. Greene, Agent

Summary of contents:“In regard to certain freed children whom Mr Wm Caraway is unable to support any longer & states that Mr Caraway can only deliver them at his office, a distance of sixteen miles. asks instructions.”

Answered:July 17, 1866

Received:July 13, 1866

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Unregistered Letters Received: Same Letter UnfoldedWritten from:“Office of B of F & A LJuly 10th 1866”

Written to:Gen. Davis Tillson, Augusta Ga

Comment on contents:James W. Greene had the worst handwriting I ever encountered in the Freedmen’s Bureau papers, so don’t worry if you can’t read this. Almost any other letter will be more legible!

Signature and closing:“James W. Greene Agt ofB of R F & A L forUpson County”

Note common abbreviations:“Agt” for Agent“B of R F & A L” for Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands Contents

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Unregistered Letters Received

Researching Unregistered Letters Received for any particular headquarters or field office is relatively simple because there is only one place to look; they are either in the file or they are not. The most time-consuming process is scrolling through the file to see if you can find anything interesting.

– If you are researching only for letters written by a particular person, the alphabetical search may be enough.

– If you are looking for a particular place or topic, there is no alternative but to scroll through all the letters, scanning them for content.

Although The Virginia Freedmen Extraction and Indexing Project is working on the Virginia Freedmen’s Bureau records, there is no comprehensive index for all Bureau correspondence.

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Unregistered Letters Received

When conducting a local history or ancestor search within a county or group of counties, you will need your list of names of the local agents, and your list of names all towns and post offices in your county or counties.• Look at the datelines for each letter. Most letter writers wrote the name of their county, or name of the town, or name of the local post office, along with the date. Read (and preferably copy) each letter from your county, even if you do not think it is relevant to your topic or your ancestor. You may later find something that connects, and then you’ll wish you had copied the letter!• Look at the names of the writers of all letters to make sure you do not miss anyone you are interested in. Always read letters written by your county’s agents, no matter what place is named in the dateline (many agents had jurisdiction over several counties).• For all other letters, quickly scan the contents as you scroll through the microfilm, with an eye to catching any incidental mention of a familiar name or topic you are interested in.

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Unregistered Letters Received(conclusion)

The NARA microfilm includes images of each folded letter, marked with the filing information, and images of each page of the unfolded letters, as in the example previously shown.

Answers to unregistered letters received, if any answer was sent, are in Letters Sent. The unregistered letters received may be annotated with some abbreviation like “ans” and a date, to show when they were answered (see the previous example).

Researchers will want to look at Unregistered Letters Received in Records of Assistant Commissioner, Records of the Superintendent of Education and the relevant Field Office Records for that state. Civilians often wrote directly to the Assistant Commissioner, bypassing their local agents.

Next we will look at “Letters Sent.”

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Letters SentThe records of most Bureau offices include books

recording copies of Letters Sent. These books usually have page numbers and an index of persons to whom the letters were sent.

Letters sent were copied in two ways. One way was to copy the letters by hand into a normal record book. There is generally no problem reading these letters.

The other way was to make “press copies.” This early copying technology used a mechanical press to squeeze an original letter, written with a special ink, against a very thin paper page while the ink was still wet. Some of the wet ink transferred to the press copy, making a legible duplicate of the original. This eliminated having to copy the letter by hand.

Time has not been kind to many press copies. Some have faded so badly that they are impossible to read on the microfilm.

(For more information about the technology and processes for making press copies, see:http://www.officemuseum.com/copy_machines.htm andhttp://archiv.ub.uni-marburg.de/es/2007/0002/pdf/Titus-et-al-90-102.pdf )

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Researching Letters Sent

The usual clue to search in Letters Sent is an annotation on Letters Received that there was an answer sent. The annotation may cite the book and page number where the sent letter is transcribed.

Researchers who want to be absolutely sure they do not miss any relevant correspondence will want to scan through the microfilm rolls of Letters Sent, looking for letters addressed to persons in their county of interest.

Researchers will want to look at Letters Sent in both the Records of Assistant Commissioner and relevant Field Office Records for that state. Assistant Commissioners often replied to letters from citizens that came directly to them, bypassing the local agents and other layers in the chain of command.

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Next, We Look at Letters Received

When researching Unregistered Letters Received and Letters Sent you have no choice but to go straight to the letters, but researching registered Letters Received is different. You do best to begin looking at the registers, not the actual letters.

The reason is that many letters received by a Bureau office were forwarded to another office or person for information and action. Often those letters are filed elsewhere than in the records of the office that first received them. The Registers of Letters Received, and books of Endorsements and Memoranda, will tell you where those letters were sent.

If letters have been lost or cannot be located in Bureau files, registers preserve the names of writers, where they wrote from, dates of letters, and extracts of the contents of each letter. The extract of contents provides a substitute for the contents of lost letters.

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Registered Letters ReceivedRegistered Letters Received are the most challenging

Bureau correspondence to research because they often passed through several Bureau offices before being filed.

To fully exploit Registered Letters Received the researcher must understand:

• Registers of Letters Received (LR)• The function of the registers• What information was recorded in the registers• What the cross-reference abbreviations mean

• Endorsements and Memoranda (E&M)• The function of endorsements• What information was recorded in the E&M books• What the cross-reference abbreviations mean

This guide will show how to find the original letter, all its endorsements, and any reply sent.

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Following the Paper Trail of Registered Letters ReceivedThe best entry point for searching registered Letters

Received is at the registers because the registers and endorsement books provide the only practical way to track letters and reports that moved between offices. The registers and endorsement books contain cross-references to the path those letters took.

Refer to the diagram titled, “Incoming Correspondence – Typical Process.”

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When a Letter was Registered

When a letter arrived at a Bureau office, it was normally registered in a book. The clerk wrote the name of the writer, place where written from, date of the letter, date received, and a summary of the letter’s contents.

• In some registers, each letter was given a consecutive serial number.• In some registers all letters were recorded consecutively in chronological order by date received (or date processed).• Some registers were divided into sections for each letter of the alphabet and letters were entered by the initial letter of the writer’s last name.• Most registers have a name index for writer’s names, with page numbers where that writer’s letters are registered.

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Researching the Registers

The descriptive pamphlets will tell you what to expect for different registers, especially how they were arranged, and whether or not they are complete.

I recommend reading all the registers of letters received by:

• your county’s agents (unfortunately, many are not preserved)• the assistant sub-assistant commissioner that supervised your county• the sub-assistant commissioner with jurisdiction over your county• the state’s assistant commissioner.• the state’s superintendent of education

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Researching the RegistersWhenever you find a registry entry for a letter that interests

you, copy the entire entry. Be sure to copy the cross-reference information usually included in the first column of the registry under the writer’s name. These references, easily overlooked, are critical. They often appear as abbreviations like “E&M 550 vol 3,” “L.R. 14 No. 247,” or they include notes like, “refered to J. B. Davenport” or “Ret’d to Capt Hill S.A.C.”

The examples above translate as “Endorsement and Memorandum Book Volume 3, page 550,” “Letters Received, page 14, letter serial number 247 [points to another letter related to the same subject].” The J. B. Davenport to which one example was referred was a county agent. The last example translates as “returned to Captain Hill, subassistant commissioner.”

Descriptive pamphlets often explain abbreviations.

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Researching the Registers

If the particular office you are researching retained the original letter that is recorded in its register, you will find the letter in the microfilm of unbound “Letters Received,” arranged either alphabetically or chronologically.

If the office you are researching forwarded the letter elsewhere, you need to follow the trail of endorsements to find the letter. For another example, an entry reading “Fowd’d to Gen’l Howard E&M 237 vol 5” indicates that the letter was forwarded to the Bureau Commissioner in Washington, DC, with an endorsement recorded in Endorsements & Memoranda, Book 5, page 237. A researcher looking for this letter will need to look in M752, Registers and Letters Received by the Commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872.

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Researching the Registers

A note about Asterisks (*): Descriptive Pamphlets for

many of the microfilm publications filmed in the 1960s and 1970s describe symbols that were added to the registers by NARA staff. Typically, if the original letter recorded in the register is still in the files of Letters Received, the staff stamped an asterisk next to the entry.

What if there is no asterisk next to an entry? You may be tempted to assume that these letters are lost. In fact, most of these letters probably exist elsewhere among the records of the Bureau. We will see how to find them in the next pages.

The recent microfilm publications of Field Office Records do not use asterisks or any marks added to the original records.

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Substitutes for Lost Letters

If you cannot find the original letter, the summary of contents found in the register may be your best information about the letter’s contents. If there were endorsements made and a reply sent, they will add to your information about the missing letter.

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Endorsed Letters

Letters often needed to go to another officer for action or information. After being registered, these letters were “endorsed” and forwarded. The usual way to endorse a letter was to write on the outside of the tri-folded letter, with a forwarding address and a brief message or instructions. A letter could be endorsed many times, so additional sheets of paper were often attached to provide room to write all the endorsements.

When a letter was endorsed and forwarded, the text of the endorsement was copied into a book of “Endorsements and Memoranda,” or some similar title. This book will tell you where the letter was sent. It will also tell you if the letter ever came back with an answer, because any endorsements that were added to the letter will be recorded when (or if) it comes back. Of course, some letters did not come back, and are filed elsewhere.

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Researching Endorsements

Letters received by endorsement were normally entered in the register of letters received, but always read the Endorsement Books anyway. You may discover interesting letters and reports that passed through the office that you otherwise would not know about. You can follow the trail of endorsements to find the originals.

Copy any endorsements that apply to letters you are interested in. As with the registers of letters received, always be sure to copy the cross-references. The only time you might not bother to copy endorsements from the endorsement books is when you have already found and copied the entire original letter. When you photocopy the entire letter it should have all the original endorsements attached to it. The book entries are, after all, only transcripts of the original endorsements.

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Example of an Endorsed Letter

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Example of the Path Traveled by a Letter to the Bureau

Here is an example of a letter that passed through many offices, eventually prompting two other original letters and generating eleven forwarding endorsements and one memorandum.

Pieces of this correspondence and their endorsements traveled through the hands of one civilian Bureau agent, one assistant subassistant commissioner, two subassistant commissioners, the state assistant commissioner, and a county deputy sheriff.

The saga began when someone – probably the Bureau agent for Talbot County, Ga. – drafted a memorandum statement on behalf of Alfred Murchison (freedman), complaining that he had been hired by Isaac Edmondson (freedman) and that Edmondson had refused to pay Murchison the wages due to him.

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Alfred Murchison’s Memorandum

A note at the bottom of the memo (not shown) advises that “Alfred [lives] with John Walker, Talbotton, Georgia.”

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Isaac Edmondson’sPromissory Note

Although Alfred Murchison’s memo clearly states that he enclosed this promissory note, when all the papers in this case were finally filed, the promissory note ended up with a letter from Isaac Edmondson. The three principal letters in this case are split up and filed alphabetically by each writer’s name in M1903, roll 56, Columbus (Subassistant Commissioner), Letters Received. The Subassistant Commissioner at Columbus held jurisdiction over Talbot County, where Murchison’s complaint had originated.

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Endorsements on Murchison’s Letter

These are the first three pagesof a total of ten pages of endorsements

on Alfred Murchison’s letter.Contents

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Murchison’s Letter TravelsThe following pages transcribe all endorsements on

Murchison’s letter. Note how many offices handled his letter! The list of abbreviations in this guide will help translate:

Office Agent Bureau R F &cButler Ga, Jan’y 27 ’68Respectfully forwarded to Brevet Maj. John Leonard U.S.A. S.A.Comr Columbus Geo.[from] J M Davenport. Agent.

Mem Statement of Alfred Murchison FreedmanStates that he received the enclosed promissary note for $78.50, dated

Jany 3d ’68, from freedman Isaac Edmonson, for whom he worked last year; that the above amount is due for his labor, but that payment was yesterday refused tho’ he believes Isaac has the means to pay the debt. Isaac Edmonson is upon the plantation of John Edmonson near Hoodensville, Upson County Ga.[postscript]Butler Ga. Jany 27th 68Alfred with John Walker Talbotton Geo.

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Murchison’s Letter TravelsOffice S.A. Comr Bureau R.F.&ALColumbus Ga Jan 28th 1868Respectfully referred to Bt. Brig Genl C. C. Sibley asst. Comr. for his information and action.

Jno LeonardBt. Major USAS.A. Comr

Office A Com’r, Bureau R.F.&c.Atlanta Ga. Feby 1st 1868Respectfully referred to Lt Geo. Wagner Agent thro’ Capt. N. S. Hill, S.A.C. Macon, Ga. for investigation & report.

By order of Bt Brig Gen’l SibleyW. Frank GallagherLt & A.A.A.G.

Office S.A. Comr B.R.F&A.L.Macon Ga. Feb. 5th 68Respectfully forwarded to Lieut George Wagner Agent &c.

N. Sellers HillS.A. ComrB R F & A. L

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Isaac Edmondson Replies

Upson CountyMarch 7th 1868

Dr SirI have your note directing me to appear at your office in Griffin to shew couse why

I do not pay my note to Alfred Murchison (a freedman). I am a (freedman) 76 years of age have 15 cts in money, & no horse to ride to Griffin and unable and indisposed to walk that distance. When I sell my cotton I expect to pay the note of Alfreds. if he is not willing to wait, the courts of Upson County where I live are open to him and he has the same remedy that others have. I had supposed that freedmen were entitled to the same rights and labored under the same disadvantages that white people did. to ask more or to suffer less is wrong, and therefore I do not ask for greater priviledges

Yours &cIsaac Edmunsona Freedman

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Isaac Edmondson’s Letter

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The Endorsements ContinueOffice A.S. A. Com’r Bureau R.F. and A.L.Griffin Ga; March 13, 1868Respectfully returned to Bvt Brig Genl Sibley Asst Com’r state of Georgia, thro[ugh] Capt N. S. Hill S.A.C. with letter of Isaac Edmonson enclosed, to which attention is invited.

George WagnerA.S.A. Com’r[1]

Office S. A. Com’r B.R.F.&A.L.Macon Ga., Mch. 14th 68Respectfully returned to Bvt. Brig. Genl. C. C. Sibley U.S.A., Asst Comr Geo. attention respectfully invited to endorsement of Lieut Wagner.

N. Sellers HillSubasst Comr

[Office A Com’r B.R.F.&A.L.] Atlanta, Ga. M’ch 19th 1868Respectfully returned to Lt. Geo. Wagner, Agent, thro Capt. N. S. Hill S.A. C. Macon, Ga., who is directed to compel immediate payment of enclosed note, or seize sufficient cotton to satisfy claim. Freedmen must pay each other as well as White people, & no good reason is shown why there should be any procrastination in this case, as Edmondson acknowledges debt & has the means to pay.

By order of Bt. Brig. Genl. Sibley

Frank GallagherLt. & a.a.a.g.Contents

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The Endorsements ContinueOffice S.A. Comr B.R.F&ALMacon Mch 20th 68Respectfully returned to lieut George Wagner A.S.A. Comr Griffin attention respectfully invited to the endorsement of the Asst Comr

N. Sellers HillSub Asst ComB.R.F&AL

[Memorandum by George Wagner written in his Register of Letters Received]Rec’d back March 23, 68 with instructions to compel immediate payment of note or seize sufficient cotton to satisfy claim. Notified Isaac to meet me at Thomaston March 30, ’68.He did not appear. Notified Sheriff to seize and hold crop until further orders.

Griffin Ga; April 8, 1868Respectfully returned to Bvt Brig Gen’l Sibley A. Com’r State of Georgia thro Capt N. S. Hill S.A.C. with the information that I notified Isaac Edmonson to meet me at Thomaston. he neglected to do so and I then instructed the sheriff to seize sufficient of the cotton to cover the claim. he informs me the cotton had been sold in Macon and that Isaac is in a destitute condition. See report of sheriff enclosed.

George WagnerA.S.A. Com’r

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The Deputy Sheriff’s Report

Thomaston Ga4 April 1868.

George Wagner A S A Comr.

Dr SirYours of the 2 inst read & contents carefully noticed.

I immediately proceeded to carry out your orders, & find Isaac Edmonson at home & in almost a destitute condition. his Cotton sold 2 weeks past & did not pay him out with John Edmonson who had made advances for him. The man that holds the demands against him for services never done him justice would not work & idled the time away when he should have worked, & Therefore it is a bad Case Tho I learn these things from undoubted authority

Very RespectfullyJas H Hays Depty Shff

Upson Co Ga.

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[Note Hays’ phrase “Yours of the 2 inst” meaning “Your letter of 2 April.”]

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The Last Endorsements

Office S.A. Comr. B.R.F.&A.L.Macon Ga. Ap’l. 11th 1868Respectfully returned to Bvt Brig Gen’l C.C. Sibley U.S.A., Asst Comr of Ga. attention respectfully invited to Endorsement of Lieut George Wagner.

N. Sellers HillSub Asst ComrB.R.F.&A.L.

Bureau refugees, Freedmen, & Abandoned LandsOffice Assistant Commissioner, State of GeorgiaAtlanta, Ga., April 21, 1868Respectfully returned to Bt Maj Jno Leonard S.A.C. Columbus Ga. attention invited to endorsement from Lt Wagner dated 8th ins’t, & enclosed report of Sheriff of Upson Co.

By order ofBt. Brig. Gen’l. SibleyW. Frank GallagherLt & a.a.a.g.

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Where these Letters were Filed

Even though Alfred Murchison’s complaint originated in Talbot County, all but one of the original records in this case ended up with the Subassistant Commissioner at Columbus, Ga, M1903, roll 56, Letters Received. The exception was LT Wagner’s memorandum on his own actions in the case, which appears only in the records of the Assistant Subassistant Commissioner at Griffin, Ga, M1903, roll 64, Register of Letters Received, Vol. 2, page 141.

This case illustrates that, even though the Bureau agents’ records for both Talbot County and Upson County have not survived, letters from and about Talbot and Upson freedpeople survive elsewhere in Bureau offices.

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Endorsements Tell a StoryEndorsements can seem tedious and excessively

bureaucratic, but they are an integral part of the story of a letter because:

• They tell you where a letter went and who may have acted on it

• They help you locate correspondence by providing a paper trail

• They alert you to the existence of related pieces of correspondence or enclosures to a letter

(In the previous example, the letters from Murchison, Edmondson, and Hays were separated and filed alphabetically—the only way this researcher knew to search for all of them was from clues in the registers of letters received and endorsement books. This researcher had copied the registers and endorsements in 1994, but did not find the original letters until 2006, after the Field Office records were available on microfilm.)

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Bureau Records Outside the Bureau

Endorsement books indicate when and to whom letters were sent outside the Bureau chain of command.

People wrote to the Bureau about state laws, state elections, or matters having to do with state government. The Bureau often endorsed and forwarded these letters to the state governor’s office. Many of these letters can now be found in state archives.

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Bureau Records Outside the BureauEndorsement books indicate when and from whom letters

were received from outside the Bureau chain of command.

During the turbulent years of Reconstruction, Congress placed some southern states under military rule. Understaffed military district commanders and department commanders often tasked Freedmen’s Bureau officers to investigate local complaints.

Army district bureaus for civil affairs oversaw elections in some southern states. The civil affairs bureau chiefs habitually used Bureau officers to investigate complaints about elections.

As a result of these Army command interactions, there is an abundance of Bureau correspondence in Record Group 393, Records of United States Army Continental Commands, 1821-1920. Unfortunately, none of this RG393 material is microfilmed.

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Miscellaneous Considerations

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Lists of Destitute PersonsThe following three pages discuss an example of

important local information found in the Bureau Headquarters records. This information may not be available in state Assistant Commissioners and Field Office records.

In May 1866, in response to a Congressional resolution, General Howard instructed his assistant commissioners to submit a list of the destitute persons in their states who required government assistance. The following pages show a sample of the input sent from one state, Georgia.

General Howard’s headquarters filed reports from state assistant commissioners by the name of the state, not the name of the commissioner. Thus, General Davis Tillson’s reports from Georgia are filed under “G” for Georgia, not “T” for Tillson. (In contrast, letters from staff officers and private citizens were filed alphabetically under the writers’ names.)

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Where to Find the 1866 Listsof Destitute Persons

Because these lists of destitute persons are may name more freedpeople by county than any other set of Bureau documents, they are certainly worth a look by researchers.

Any of these lists received by Commissioner Howard will be in M752, Registers and Letters Received by the Commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872, microfilm rolls 31 through 36. Which roll will depend on the name of the state.

These lists were sent as enclosures to letters from the state assistant commissioners. Because some county agents could not get the information by the May deadline, late reports trickled in for many weeks. Assistant commissioners may have forwarded more than one set of reports. For example, Gen. Davis Tillson of Georgia submitted lists on May 29, 1866 and on July 14, 1866.

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Format for Georgia’s Lists of Destitute Persons, May 1866

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Part of Upson County, Ga., List of Destitute Persons, May 1866

Upson County’s agent,James W. Greene,reported 123 destitutefreedpeople, representing2.8 % of the county’sfreed population in 1866.

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After You Have Exhausted the Correspondence Files

(or after they have exhausted you!)

If you have the time to spare, always browse through any reels for your state or sub-region that are described as “Miscellaneous records.” There may be exciting surprises awaiting discovery.

For example, nothing in the descriptive pamphlet for M799 (Records of the Superintendent of Education for the State of Georgia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1869) told me that Roll 28 (Miscellaneous Lists and Memoranda) included a memorandum book of the Georgia Superintendent of Education in which he had written a list of “Names and Post offices of Colored Men”—his points of contact in each county and major town—and a list of “Delegates to the Georgia Educational Convention held in Macon, May 1-2, 1867.” Contents

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Bureau Headquarters Unmicrofilmed Records

Not all of the Freedmen’s Bureau records of the Washington, DC, Headquarters are microfilmed. For example, there is an unfilmed box of “Unregistered Letters Received Requesting Transportation for Refugees and Freedmen.” This box contains hundreds of letters naming freedpeople (most of these letters name only one person each, but a few requests list large groups of families moving to plantations in the Mississippi Valley).

Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands Washington Headquarters (PI 174 / RG 105) describes all Bureau Headquarters records, including those unmicrofilmed. This booklet is only available in printed form by mail order, or in person, from NARA. Like other NARA descriptive aids, it is free.

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