Issuances and Rosters of Bureau Personnel
setName: label: See more items in
content: Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Texas 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.M821, Series 5
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: The single volume of issuances and rosters is arranged by type of record and thereunder chronologically. The name index in front of the volume covers all the series within, and the table of contents that follows gives page numbers for each part. The issuances consist of general orders, special orders, and circulars, but they do not appear in that sequence in the volume. A small series of unbound special orders received by the Assistant Commissioner is arranged chronologically and has been filmed directly following the bound issuances.

The general orders issued, January 1, 1867–April 15, 1869, are numbered in sequence for each year. The special orders issued, October 6, 1865–March 17, 1869, and circulars and circular letters issued, October 12, 1865–December 8, 1868, are similarly numbered, except for the years 1865–1866 when a single numbering system was used. The unnumbered circular letters are interfiled with the numbered circulars according to date. The last circular is dated September 3, 1867, and the remaining three issuances are circular letters. Because they are similar in nature to the general orders, circulars and circular letters may have been used in lieu of the former during 1865–1866.

The monthly rosters of Bureau personnel, April 1866–December 1868, are arranged chronologically and are indicative of the administrative structure of the Bureau in Texas. Prior to April 1867, the rosters list the staff and subordinate officers, specifying the headquarters for each of the latter and the counties for which they were responsible. Beginning in April 1867, the subdistricts are listed in numerical order followed generally by the name of the subassistant commissioner in charge, the location of the headquarters station, the number of troops stationed there, and the counties comprising the subdistrict. The assistant subassistant commissioners are listed as a group at the end of each roster. Similar but printed rosters, some not available in this series, are reproduced in Series 7.2 of this publication.