Endorsements Sent
setName: label: See more items in
content: Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Mississippi, 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.M826, Series 2
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: According to the recordkeeping practices of the day, the Assistant Commissioner kept a series of records known as endorsements sent or endorsement books. Frequently, instead of writing a letter, the Assistant Commissioner or the Acting Assistant Adjutant General wrote the reply or forwarding statement on the incoming letter and either returned the communication to the sender or forwarded it to another officer. These replies or statements were copied into endorsement books with a summary of the contents of the incoming communication and also the previous endorsements that had been written on the communication.

The three volumes of endorsements sent, June 1865–May 1869, are generally arranged chronologically. In the left margin of the pages in the endorsement books are the names of the persons or titles of the officers to whom the endorsements were sent. There are frequently references in the style of a fraction in the left margin also. The numerator is the number of the page in the same volume on which a preceding endorsement to the same addressee appears, and the denominator is the number of the page on which there is a subsequent endorsement. Usually noted is the entry number of the incoming letter in the register of letters received or the page number of a previous endorsement written by the office of the Assistant Commissioner on the communication. There are name index books for each of the endorsement books and also a subject index book for the first volume. Since the name index books for the first and third endorsement books are incomplete, the National Archives has prepared additions to both indexes.