Letters Sent
setName: label: See more items in
content: Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the District of Columbia, 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.M1055, Series 1
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: The letters sent by the Assistant Commissioner's Office include five volumes of fair copies and one volume of press copies. The fair copies of letters sent, June 16, 1865–December 31, 1868, are generally arranged and numbered in chronological order; however, the letters copied into Volume 1, and to some extent Volume 2, are in rough chronological order. There is a name index to each volume of fair copies, except Volume 5. The National Archives and Records Service (NARS) staff prepared a name index to Volume 5; it is filmed immediately before the volume. A subject index to Volume 4 is included with the name index.

In addition to outgoing letters, these volumes contain copies of telegrams and reports sent and circular letters issued by the Assistant Commissioner, the Acting Adjutant General, and the Assistant Inspector General. The letters, reports, and telegrams include instructions from the Assistant Commissioner to subordinate staff members concerning the status and condition of freedmen and reports to various northern benevolent societies about conditions in the District. Other correspondence relates to personal appointments, decisions involving orphan children, and arrangements for transporting freedmen to the North. Some letters and reports include statistical data on rations and subsistence stores requested, received, and issued; on rents paid; and on the freedmen population in the District and surrounding areas.

More specifically, the volumes contain several lengthy reports written by Capt. S. N. Clark, Acting Adjutant General, concerning the status of freedmen in St. Mary's and Calvert Counties, MD., and District annual reports, October 22, 1866, October 10, 1867, and October 10, 1868. The annual reports contain information about freedmen's marriages, apprenticeships, and legal liabilities and about Bureau–run or supposed relief establishments, tenements, farms, schools, and employment offices; they also contain statistical data on Bureau receipts and expenditures and congressional appropriations.

The volumes of letters sent contain many cross–references to related entries in this and other series of records of the Assistant Commissioner's Office that are reproduced in this microfilm publication. For example, "LS" and "LB" refer to the volumes of letters sent. "LR" to the registers of letters received, and "EB" to the endorsements sent or to endorsement and memorandum books. Numbers following the letter symbols refer either to the page or entry number of the related item. Citations to Volume G refer to a press copy book that has not been reproduced in this microfilm publication because the letters copied into that volume are duplicated among the fair copies.

Press copies were made by moistening a piece of thin paper and pressing it against the original letter through the use of a press copying machine that transferred some of the ink to the moistened paper. Some copies made by this process are difficult to read; others are virtually illegible. The one volume of press copies of letters sent by Bvt. Maj. David G. Swaim, January 7–October 9, 1869, is arranged chronologically and has a name index. Six other volumes of press copies, including Volume G, are also among the records of the Assistant Commissioner's Office, but they have not been included in this microfilm publication because their contents are duplicated in the five volumes of fair copies.