Endorsements Sent
setName: label: See more items in
content: Selected Series of Records Issued by the Commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865–1872
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAAHC.FB.M742, Series 2
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: According to the recordkeeping practice of the day, the Commissioner kept a series of records known as endorsement books. Frequently, instead of writing a letter, the Commissioner or the 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 related incoming communication on which the statement had been written.

The six volumes of endorsements sent are dated from May 22 to September 28, 1865, and from August 25, 1866 to January 4, 1871. Between September 29, 1865 and August 24, 1866, the endorsements were copied into a series of registers of letters received, NMAAHC.FB.M752. After January 1871 the endorsements were copied into the volume of letters sent or letterbooks.

The endorsements sent are generally arranged in chronological order. In the left margin of the page in the endorsement books is the name of the person or title of the officer to whom the endorsement was sent.

There are name index books to all the endorsement books except volume 2, which has a name index bound at the front of the volume. The two subject indexes are a subject index book to volume 4 of the endorsement books, and a subject index bound at the front of volume 5.