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[372] issued to refugees and freedmen prior to July 1, 1866, were furnished by the commissary, medical, and quartermaster's department, and accounted for in the current expenses of those departments; they were not charged to nor paid for by my officers. They amounted to two million three hundred and thirty thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight dollars and seventy-two cents ($2,330,788.72) in original cost; but a large portion of these stores being damaged and condemned as unfit for issue to troops, their real value to the Government was probably less than one million of dollars ($1,000,000). Adding their original cost to the amount expended from appropriations and other sources, the total expenses of our Government for refugees and freedmen to August 31, 1869, have been thirteen millions five hundred and seventy-nine thousand eight hundred and sixteen dollars and eighty-two cents ($13,579,816.82). And deducting fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) which Congress transferred to the Agricultural Department, and five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000) set apart as a special relief fund for all classes of destitute people in the Southern States, the real cost has been thirteen millions twenty-nine thousand eight hundred and sixteen dollars and eighty-two cents ($13,029,816.82). ...

It was obvious that the payment of bounties and other moneys due colored soldiers must be continued by some agency until all should have a reasonable time to present their claims. National honor forbade that the task should be left incomplete, and an Act of Congress was required to transfer this important work to some other department when our divisions should be entirely closed. I so recommended.

I added: the Educational Division should not only

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