That there are many cases of outrage that are never heard of is most true, but from all that I have learned, I do not believe that society in this respect is more demoralized at present in Louisiana than in some States further north. . . By telling only the bad acts that have been committed, and giving these as an index of society, any large community could be pictured as barbarous.

Report of General Grant

Senate Ex. Doc. no. 2, 39 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 117. General Grant's
letter to President Johnson, after a trip through the South.
[December 18, 1865]

I DID not give the operations of the Freedmen's Bureau that
attention I would have done if more time had been at my
disposal. Conversations on the subject, however, with officers
connected with the bureau lead me to think that in some of the
States its affairs have not been conducted with good judgment
or economy, and that the belief, widely spread among the
freedmen of the Southern States, that the lands of their former
owners will, at least in part, be divided among them, has come
from the agents of this bureau. This belief is seriously inter-
fering with the willingness of the freedmen to make contracts
for the coming year.
In some form the Freedmen's Bureaul

is an absolute necessity until civil law is established and en-
forced, securing to the freedmen their rights and full protec-
tion. At present, however, it is independent of the military
establishment of the country, and seems to be operated by the
different agents of the bureau according to their individual
notions. Everywhere General Howard, the able head of the
bureau, made friends by the just and fair instructions and ad-
vice he gave; but the complaint in South Carolina was, that
when he left things went on as before. Many, perhaps a
majority, of the agents of the Freedmen's Bureau advise the
freedmen that by their own industry they must expect to live.
To this end they endeavor to secure employment for them, and
to see that both contracting parties comply with their engage-
ments. In some instances, I am sorry to say, the freedman's
mind does not seem to be disabused of the idea that a freedman

has the right to live without care or provision for the future. The effect of the belief in division of lands is idleness and accumulation in camps, towns, and cities. In such cases I think it will be found that vice and disease will tend to the extermination, or great reduction of the colored race. It cannot be expected that the opinions held by men at the South for years can be changed in a day; and therefore the freedmen require for a few years not only laws to protect them, but the fostering care of those who will give them good counsel, and in whom they can rely.

The Freedmen's Bureau, being separated from the military establishment of the country, requires all the expense of a separate organization. One does not necessarily know what the other is doing, or what orders they are acting under. It seems to me this could be corrected by regarding every officer on duty with troops in the Southern States as agents of the Freedmen's Bureau, and then have all orders from the head of the bureau sent through department commanders. This would create a responsibility that would secure uniformity of action throughout all the South; would insure the orders and instructions from the head of the bureau being carried out; and would relieve from duty and pay a large number of employes of the Government.

Jealousy of the Army

Senate Ex. Doc. no. 27, 39 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 87. Report of Gen.
Davis Tillson, assistant commissioner for Georgia, to Gen. O. O.
Howard, commissioner.
[December 29, 1865]

I HAVE read General Grant's recent report very carefully, and
particularly that portion of it referring to the bureau; I also
notice in the papers an article stating that your orders and all
military matters are under the control of the department com-
manders, and that assistant commissioners are required to keep
department commanders informed of all they are doing, and
obtain their approval to the instructions and orders issued by
them. I take it for granted that this is to some degree a mis-
take; it is not only proper, but necessary, that the assistant
commissioners should keep the department commanders in-

formed of all they are or intend doing, that they furnish them with copies of all their orders, circulars, etc., and that they abstain from any interference whatever with military matters, which are of course solely under the control of the department commander; but if assistant commissioners must secure the approval by the department commander of all their instructions or orders, then you lose all the advantage which you have gained by selecting officers who have some fitness for the duties to which they are assigned, and leave assistant commissioners simply the power to record the will of the department commander, who may or may not be competent to deal with the intricate and delicate questions the bureau is expected to solve. You deprive officers of the bureau of all real authority, and with it the little respect heretofore shown their orders, and make it possible for the people to evade the requirements of the bureau by skillfully flattering military commanders, a majority of whom, experience justifies me in saying, regard the bureau and the negro with indifference and contempt. They may know how to make war, but they may not know how to make peace, and may have none of that good temper and delicate tact and skill required in dealing with the people in their present condition so as to produce the results desired by the gov

ernment.

If General Grant's suggestion is to be adopted, and all officers on duty in the south are to be indiscriminately regarded as officers of the bureau, then, as the past has shown, very many of them will be found simply able to play the part of the "bull in the china shop," and will be found utterly wanting in that proper knowledge and thoughtful discretion which is quite as necessary as the disposition to obey orders.

The Fate of the "Old Time Southerner"

House Ex. Doc. no. 70, 39 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 322. From a letter of
Gen. Davis Tillson, assistant commissioner for Georgia, to Gen.
O. O. Howard.
[January 23, 1866]

THE fact is becoming more and more evident that hereafter labor and not cotton is to be king. . . If the government will

only continue to stand by the freed people in their just rights simply, then, by the operations of laws infinitely more potential and certain in their execution than those of Congress, the negro is to be master of the situation, and those who in times. past practiced cruelty upon him, or who now hate, despise, and defame him, are to be a financially ruined people. To-day the men who have been cruel to their slaves cannot hire freed people to work for them at any price. Fortunes in the future are for those only whom the freed people can trust and for whom they will work - not for the proud and haughty owner of land merely. Land, good land, will be plenty, a drug in the market; labor will be the difficult thing to obtain, and the friends of the freed people, especially the northern man, can alone command it. Entre nous, I think I see the end, and I predict that Providence is not done dealing with this people. I believe their hate, cruelty, and malice are yet to bear more and very bitter fruit, and that by natural and irresistible laws the old-time southerner is to become entirely harmless in his impotent rage, or extinct.

Dislike of the Bureau in Kentucky

House Ex. Doc. no. 70, 39 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 230, 238. The Bureau
was intensely disliked in Kentucky where slavery was not abolished
until December, 1865, by the Thirteenth Amendment. The follow-
ing report is from Gen. Clinton B. Fisk, assistant commissioner for
Kentucky.
[January 6, 1866]

THERE are some of the meanest unsubjugated and unrecon-
structed rascally rebellious revolutionists in Kentucky that curse
the soil of the country. They claim now that although the
amendment to the Constitution forever abolishing and prohib-
iting slavery has been ratified, and proclamation thereof duly
made, yet Congress must legislate to carry the amendment into
effect, and therefore slavery is not dead in Kentucky. Others
cling to the old barbarism with tenacity, claiming that the gov-
ernment must pay Kentucky for her emancipated slaves. There
are a few public journals in the State which afford great com-
fort to the malcontents, but the majority of the people of Ken-
tucky hail the dawn of universal liberty, and welcome the

agency of the bureau in adjusting the new relations arising from the total abolition of slavery.

I have been denounced in the Kentucky legislature as a liar and slanderer. A committee has been appointed to investigate the matter. . . I have good reason for believing that the committee will simply make a report that General Fisk is a great liar, and should be removed from office, etc. It is well to remember that a more select number of vindictive, proslavery, rebellious legislators cannot be found than a majority of the Kentucky legislature. The President of the United States was denounced in the senate as a worse traitor than Jefferson Davis, and that, too, before the bureau tempest had reached them. The entire opposition is political, a warfare waged against loyalty, freedom, and justice.

Bureau Courts in Georgia

Senate Ex. Doc. no. 2, 39 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 54. Report of Gen. Davis Tillson. [November 1, 1866]

ON assuming command of the department, Major General Steadman found the bureau courts acting in a manner so illegal and oppressive, and creating so much well-founded opposition to the government, that he was constrained to abolish them and require all cases to be adjudicated before provost courts or military commissions. After the appointment of civil agents of the bureau, the department commander ordered that all cases involving the rights of the freedmen should go before them, except cases exceeding their jurisdiction, which should be tried before a military commission. This system was found to produce most satisfactory results. . .

Much of the harmony and co-operation which have since happily existed between the civil authorities and the officers and agents of the bureau, is attributable to the wise and conciliatory action of the convention [1865], and to the influence of the members upon their return to their homes. Through the Hon. H. V. Johnson, president of the convention, I requested the members upon their return home to advise with the leading planters and more intelligent freedmen of their