Registers of Letters Received and Endorsements Sent
setName: label: See more items in
content: Records of the Superintendent of Education for the State of Virginia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865–1870
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAAHC.FB.M1053, Series 2
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: According to 19th–century recordkeeping practices, incoming communications were entered in registers of letters received. In addition to a summary of the contents of incoming letters, the registers usually include such identifying information as the name and occasionally the office of the writer, the date of receipt, the date of the communication, the place from which it was written, and the entry number assigned. Replies to incoming letters were frequently written on the letters themselves or on specially prepared wrappers. The replies, called endorsements, were then copied into endorsement book or registers of letters received; endorsed letters were returned to the senders or forwarded to another office.

The entries in the three volumes of registers of letters received and endorsements sent, April 1869–August 1870, are arranged alphabetically by the initial letter of the correspondent's surname or office and thereunder chronologically by date of receipt. Each volume contains a name index. In each alphabetical section of a register, entries are numbered consecutively with one exception. Entries for April–December 1869, in the first and second registers, are numbered continuously in a single sequence for each letter, while the third volume, for January–August 1870, begins a new sequence in each section. Correspondence from Commissioner Howard and other officials in the Bureau's Washington headquarters is usually entered under "W" for War Department, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. Since the number of pages allotted to each alphabetical section in the registers sometimes proved insufficient, it became necessary to continue the entries elsewhere in the volumes. All entries for each letter designation in the registers have been filmed as one entity; therefore, some pages in this publication are not in their original numerical order.

Entries in the registers frequently contain cross–references to related letters sent and to other incoming communications. Letters sent are designated by the abbreviation "L.S." accompanied by letter and volume numbers keyed to pages in the volumes of press copies. Letters received are referred to by register number. In addition, notations indicate the disposition of the letters: filed, forwarded to other offices, or returned with endorsements to the sender. An asterisk (*) has been placed near the correspondent's name in the register for each letter that was retained among the Superintendent of Education's records.

Endorsements for April–December 1869 were entered in the first two registers of letters received opposite the related letter entry. Endorsements for January–June 1870 were recorded in a separate volume and arranged chronologically. This volume contains a name index. Every entry in the endorsement volume includes a cross–reference to the related entry in the register of letters received. In the register a comparable cross–reference for each letter having an endorsement is indicated by the abbreviation "E & M" (endorsement and memorandum) followed by the number of the page (noted as "Fol:" with a number) on which the entry appears in the endorsement book.