Other Photographic or Pictorial Materials

Besides the Brady collection there are other Signal Corps collections of photographic or pictorial materials relating to the Civil War. One of these consists of approximately 2,300 film negatives of photographs, paintings, sketches, and drawings, 1861-74, in a numerical arrangement. There are mounted photographic prints corresponding to these; and the collection includes approximately 30 collodion negatives of photographs showing U. S. and Confederate fortifications in Atlanta, 1864. There are also, in a separate series, about 150 film negatives made from photographs of Quartermaster Corps transports in 1864, with mounted prints of these. The comprehensive "Collection of Signal Corps Official Photographs," assembled between 1917 and 1938, contains approximately 110,000 glassplate negatives and film negatives illustrating events in American military history from 1750 to 1938; there are mounted photographic prints corresponding to these negatives. Parallel or related developments on the American frontier and with respect to the American Indian during the period of the Civil War are depicted in several series of photographs of American frontier forts, U. S. Army units during the Indian wars, American Indians and Indian life, and Indian fighters--all dating from 1860.

Also on deposit is a print of "Screen Magazine No. 552," on Mathew Brady--a motion picture film, with sound track (2 reels, 35 mm.), produced by the Army Signal Corps in 1957.

Several unpublished lists or card indexes, prepared in the National Archives, facilitate the use of these collections. They include lists of Civil War views from sources other than Brady, of photographs showing ships in the Civil War period, of photographs of gunboats and transports in the Quartermaster's Department during the Civil War and beyond to 1872, and of railroad

views in the Civil War period; and a card index of photographs of notables in the Civil War period. Finding aids prepared in the War Department include an Army War College list of Civil War views from sources other than Brady and the List of Photographs and Photographic Negatives Relating to the War for the Union, Now in the War Department Library. . . (Washington, 1897).

Records in Other Custody. --The Albert J. Myer papers in the U. S. Army Signal Corps Museum at Fort Monmouth, N. J., contain, among other records that may be official in character, two Civil War message books of original manuscript messages kept by Lt. A. W. Bartlett; papers relating to Myer's New York Harbor tests, which resulted in the decision of the U. S. Army Signal Board (of which Col. Robert E. Lee was chairman) to adopt Myer's system for the Army; and records pertaining to the organizing of the Signal Corps in 1863.

Signal Camp of Instruction

On orders of Aug. 29, 1861, from Maj. Albert J. Myer (then with General McClellan at the headquarters of the newly formed Army of the Potomac) to Lt. Samuel T. Cushing, to "put the signal party in Camp of Instruction at Red Hill, Georgetown, tomorrow," the establishment of the Signal Camp of Instruction was announced by its General Order 1 on Aug. 31. The camp continued operations until Mar. 1862, when the Army of the Potomac

took the field. It was discontinued on May 8, 1862, but was later reestablished as a school for officers and men and as a rendezvous for members of the Signal Corps when their duties required their presence in Washington. The headquarters of the Signal Corps was located for some time at the camp.

J. Willard Brown, The Signal Corps, U. S. A., in the War of the Rebellion (Boston, 1896); Lt. W. A. Glassford, "The Signal Corps,"

in Theo. F. Rodenbough and William L. Haskin, eds., The Army of the United States. (New York, 1896).

Record Group 111. --Copies of letters sent, Sept. 1863-Feb. 1865 (2 vols., nos. 100 and 57, the latter containing also copies of letters sent by the Chief Signal Officer, Department of Washington, Mar. -Aug. 1865); copies of indorsements sent, May 1864-Feb. 1865 (1 vol., no. 63--of special interest because it has indorsements sent by the Chief Signal Officer, Department of Washington, Mar. -Aug. 1865); orders and circulars received and issued, and letters received, Nov. 1862-Feb. 1865 (2 ft.); general and special orders issued, Mar. 1863-Feb. 1865 (1 vol., no. 64); daily and a few weekly morning reports, Apr. 1-May 5, 1862, and a few daily reports for Mar. 1862; a volume (no. 96) containing lists of enlisted men assigned to the camp, with personal data; and a fragmentary series of the proceedings of, and papers relating to, courts-martial at the camp.

National Archives, unpublished Preliminary Inventory of the Rec

ords of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, comp. by Mabel E. Deutrich.

OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL

The Office of the Inspector General, abolished by an act of Aug. 23, 1842 (5 Stat. 512), was revived by an act of Jan. 12, 1846 (9 Stat. 2). At the outbreak of the Civil War two inspectors general were serving in the Army. An act of Aug. 3, 1861 (12 Stat. 287), provided for five assistant inspectors general with the rank of major; and one of Aug. 6, 1861 (12 Stat. 318), provided for two more inspectors general with the rank of colonel. By sec. 10 of an act of July 17, 1862 (12 Stat. 599), one assistant inspector general was authorized for each Army corps.

The number of inspectors general (those with the rank of colonel) remained at four throughout the war. In 1863 the Adjutant General directed the inspector general on permanent station in Washington to receive monthly reports from all inspectors; and in 1864 the office thus established became responsible for receiving all inspection reports that previously had been submitted to the Commanding General or to the Adjutant General. When not assigned to the armies in the field the inspectors general were under the orders of the Secretary of War. The organization of inspectors within an army command depended largely on the system devised by the assigned inspector general; there were, for instance, about 75 inspectors in the Army of the Potomac responsible to Inspector General Edmund Schriver, whose plan "required every brigade, every division, and every army corps to have an inspector.'

The "ordinary duties of inspection," defined after the war (AGO G. O. 5, Jan. 22, 1866), were essentially to ascertain "the condition as to efficiency, discipline, supplies, etc., of bodies of troops, and the resources,

geographical features, lines of communications and supply, the military wants, etc., of any section of the country; the military status in any field of operations; the condition and supply of military materials of various classes; the condition of the administrative or disbursing departments of the service; the efficiency and conduct of military commanders and agents; the cause of failure or delay in movements or operations; of losses by accidents, disasters, etc., and in general, all matters pertaining to the military art or having interest in a military point of view. "

An act of Mar. 19, 1862 (12 Stat. 371), required that the inspectors general of the Army should institute a board of officers to prepare a list or schedule of articles that might be sold by sutlers to the officers and soldiers of the volunteer service; and AGO S. O. 172, July 26, 1862, formally appointed Cols. Randolph B. Marcy, Delos B. Sacket, and Henry Van Rensselaer as such a board. Another board on which an inspector general served was that appointed by AGO Special Order 275, Oct. 10, 1861, "to examine into the merits of Professor Horsford's patent selfraising bread preparation."

Col. Sylvester Churchill, who had been Senior Inspector General from June 25, 1841, retired Sept. 25, 1861, and on Aug. 9, 1861, Col. Randolph B. Marcy became Senior Inspector General.

Maj. J. P. Sanger, "The Inspector General's Department, " in Theo. F. Rodenbough and William L. Haskin, eds., The Army of

the United States (New York, 1896); Civil War annual reports of the Secretary of War, passim.

Record Group 159. --The records most significant for Civil War research are the inspection reports, which in accordance with the Army regulations of 1861 were required to show the discipline and training of the troops and the condition of their arms and clothing; the state of kitchens, messes, barracks, guardhouses, and other post buildings; the management of funds and care of records; the ability of line and staff officers; and the conduct of courts-martial. These reports are filed in the series of letters received from 1863 but are registered and extracted in separate volumes from 1864. Besides a general index to and registers of letters received, from 1863, there are 2 volumes of indexes to the 1864-65 extracts of inspection reports. The correspondence comprises also copies of letters sent, 1863-89 (5 vols. and a 1-vol. index), and an endorsement book, 1863-67. Among miscellaneous records are the proceedings and reports of the court of inquiry on the sale of cotton and other produce at St. Louis, Mo., 1863, with an index (see note on this court under Bureau of Military Justice); papers concerning an inspection of the Louisville, Ky., Quartermaster Depot in July 1865; memoranda of inspections by Gen. Edmund Schriver, 1864; notes on inspections of forts and troops around Washington, 1864; and papers concerning a controversy about Cowles & Co.

National Archives, Preliminary Checklist of the Records of the Office of the Inspector General, 1814

1939, comp. by Richard W. Giroux (Washington, 1946).

BUREAU OF REFUGEES, FREEDMEN, AND ABANDONED LANDS

An act of Mar. 3, 1865 (13 Stat. 507), established in the War Department "to continue during the present war of rebellion, and for one year thereafter" a Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands for the "supervision and management of all abandoned lands, and the control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen from rebel states, or from any district of country within the territory embraced in the operations of the army. The act provided that the President should appoint a Commissioner to head the Bureau and an Assistant Commissioner for each State declared to be in insurrection. The Commissioner was given "authority to set apart, for the use of loyal refugees and freedmen, such tracts of land within the insurrectionary states as shall have been abandoned, or to which the United States shall have acquired title by confiscation or sale, or otherwise." The new Bureau may be said to have been inaugurated on the morning of May 12, 1865, when, as Oliver Otis Howard wrote in his Autobiography, Secretary of War Stanton "sent for the papers." These, when the clerk in charge brought them--in a "large, oblong bushel basket heaped with letters and documents"--Stanton extended to Howard "with a smile and said 'Here, General, here's your Bureau. "'' A formal War Department order appointing Howard Commissioner was issued the next day.

Before the Bureau was established, the military commanders, special agents of the Treasury Department, and various benevolent societies had dealt with the matters with which it was to be concerned. They had attempted to regulate the sale, leasing, and cultivation of abandoned lands; to oversee the employment of Negroes; to distribute rations, medicines, and supplies to the needy; to transport freedmen, refugees, and teachers; to provide for freedmen's education; to promote justice; and to help freedmen in filing claims against the Government. The work had been hindered, however, by lack of systematic and centralized administration. No such hindrance was to impede the work of the new Bureau, which Paul S. Peirce's study (1904) found to be "in the broadest sense of the term. a political organization, unique and gigantic," eventually "a full-fledged government, exercising throughout the unreconstructed South, legislative, executive and judicial authority, and in all, supported by the military forces of the United States." Its first objective, according to Secretary Stanton, in his annual report for 1865, was "to supply the immediate necessities of those whose condition was changed by hostilities, . . . either escaping or escaped from slavery to obtain freedom, or . . driven from their homes by the pressure of war, or the despotism of the rebellion. Its aid was designed for the needy of both races, white and black, and to administer as well aid from the government and from charitable individuals and associations."

General Howard initially organized the Freedmen's Bureau (as it came to be known) in four divisions: "one of lands, embracing abandoned, confiscated, and those acquired by sale or otherwise; one of records, embracing official acts of the Commissioner, touching labor, schools, quartermaster and commissary supplies; another of financial affairs; and the fourth the medical department. Later, apparently growing out of the Records Division (actually the office of the Bureau's adjutant general), the Bureau had an Education Division, a Chief Quartermaster's Office, and an Archive Division. Eventually a Claim Division was established, responsible for certain functions of the Land Division, and there appears to have

been a separate office for the assistant inspector general. The details of the organization and responsibilities of these Divisions are given below.

The Bureau operated in all the former Confederate States and in Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Assistant Commissioners, in charge of defined geographical areas, exercised all of the functions of the Bureau under the direction of the Washington headquarters. Most of the Assistant Commissioners were officers detailed from the Army, and the jurisdiction of each usually corresponded with that of a military division or department and embraced a single State. By 1866, whenever practicable, military commanders in the States were being appointed Assistant Commissioners. Although the State organizations were supposed to include at least a medical officer, a finance officer, an inspector, two or more district superintendents, an officer in charge of schools, and enough local agents to provide adequate Bureau representation, actual practice varied from State to State. Unfortunately the use of soldiers and officers borrowed from the nearest military organizations confused administration and (at least in the public eye) identified the Bureau with the occupying armies.

The Freedmen's Bureau undertook many tasks in addition to its major functions of administering relief and supervising labor. Commissioner Howard felt that the most urgent need of the freedmen was education, and from the first he devoted more attention to this than to any other branch of his work. Other tasks included finding missing persons and officiating at the marriage of Negroes. (The Bureau's Circular 5 of May 30, 1865, provided for the designation of officers to keep a record of marriages in "places where the local statutes make no provisions for the marriages of persons of color." When no clergyman could "conveniently be reached," commissioned officers of the Freedmen's Bureau were authorized to perform the ceremony. "The registry books will be so arranged that marriages shall be recorded in alphabetical order of the surname of bridegrooms. This will make reference to the books easy. ")

The 1866 investigation by Gen. James B. Steedman and Gen. Joseph S. Fullerton of the Bureau's operations in Virginia and North Carolina resulted in widely publicized disclosures of maladministration that tended to shake public confidence (see H. Ex. Doc. 120, 39 Cong., 1 sess., Serial 1263). President Johnson had expressed his opposition to an extension of the Bureau's responsibilities on Feb. 19, 1866, when he vetoed a bill to amend the act establishing the Bureau. An act of July 16, 1866 (14 Stat. 173), nevertheless, continued the Bureau for 2 more years, and sec. 2 extended its supervision and care to "all loyal refugees and freedmen . . . to enable them as speedily as practicable to become self-supporting citizens of the United States, and to aid them in making the freedom conferred by proclamation of the commander-in-chief, by emancipation under the laws of States, and by constitutional amendment, available to them and beneficial to the republic." An act of July 6, 1868 (15 Stat. 83), extended the life of the Bureau for yet another year, but the Secretary of War was required to discontinue the Bureau's operation in any State "fully restored in its constitutional relations with the government of the United States," including representation in Congress, unless, in his opinion, further continuance of the Bureau in such a State was necessary. In no event, however, was the educational work of the Bureau to be affected until a State had made suitable provision for the education of the children of its freedmen.

An act of July 25, 1868 (15 Stat. 193), required the Commissioner to