William Schouler, A history of Massachusetts in the Civil War: Volume 1

[643] visible success, I accepted the presidency of an institution called the ——Company and Agency, having its headquarters in New York, and a branch at Boston, and agents in the South; and if large or smaller capitalists in Europe shall desire to invest either in cotton lands or in loans thoroughly secured, or in a company for the purchase of lands in large lots, or to be cut up into small freeholds and resold to the freedmen, poor whites, emigrants, &c., our company could act for them, I think, with efficiency and success.

I would recommend that you should consult commercial bodies and mercantile men and manufacturers and men of affairs here before leaving home, with a view to verifying these suggestions, and also of procuring such expressions of opinion as they may choose to give, for use and comparison abroad.

I hope that every exertion will be made now and without delay to introduce reasonable amounts of capital, and also numbers of capable, ambitious, and right-minded men into the South. These, more than all things else, will tend to restore society and business, and to confirm peace for us all, and practical freedom and happiness to the colored race.

Your long experience and official connection with the freedmen and the industry of the South during the continuance of the late war fits you to impart such information, and render such service, as will conduce to a speedy accomplishment of these results.

On the 28th of December, the Governor wrote to Major-General W. T. Sherman, who had led an army of the United States from the interior of America to the shores of the Atlantic,—