Issuances
setName: label: See more items in
content: Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Louisiana, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865–1869
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAAHC.FB.M1027, Series 5
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Records of the Assistant Commissioner also include a volume of orders, circulars, and other directives issued and received; a small number of unbound orders and circulars issued and received; and a volume of fair copies of orders and circulars issued. 

General orders, circulars, and circular letters (called issuances) were often used interchangeably to convey information to staff and subordinate officers. These issuances relate to matters of general interest, including the implementation of Bureau policies throughout Louisiana, duties of subordinate personnel, administrative procedures, acts of the Congress, and issuances from Bureau headquarters in Washington. Special orders, normally used to communicate information of less general interest, include such specific items as duty assignments of individual field officers, appointments of various boards of investigation, and the restoration of abandoned lands and property to former owners. Although the Assistant Commissioner used the term "Order" to refer to the type of issuance usually known as a general order, in these introductory remarks the term "General Order" is used to distinguish it from a special order, and the plural, "Orders," is used only to describe a combination of both special and general orders.

The Assistant Commissioner directed issuances primarily to his staff and field officers. Issuances received by the Assistant Commissioner's office came primarily from the Washington headquarters, the AGO, the Superintendent of Education for Louisiana, and various military commands.