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Table of Contents:
Chapter
47
: freedmen's aid societies and an act of congress creating a Bureau of refugees, freedmen and abandoned lands
Chapter
55
:
first
appropriation by congress for the bureau; the reconstruction Act,
March
2
,
1867
; increase of educational work
Chapter
60
: opposition to Bureau and reconstruction work became personal; the
Congregational Church of
Washington
Chapter
62
: life in
Washington, D. C.
,
1866
to
1874
; assigned to duty in regular army as commander,
Department of the Columbia
Chapter
63
: in the
Northwest
, among the
Indians
; trip to
Alaska
; life in
Portland, Ore.
;
1874
to
1881
Chapter
64
: superintendent of the
United States military Academy
; commanding
Department of the Platte
,
Omaha, Neb.
Chapter
68
:
French
army maneuvers,
1884
; promotion to
Major General
,
United States army
,
San Francisco
1886
-
88
[176] member of the Christian Commission, Vincent Colyer, Esq., of New York was set at work to care for these fugitives. He was designated in orders as Superintendent of t1he Poor. In the ensuing March after New Berne had been captured, Colyer exercised the same functions there. The following was his method: He took a house for himself and his helpers and made it the center and store of active benevolence for his beneficiaries. For the able-bodied lie secured employment as carpenters, blacksmiths, longshoremen, and laborers on military works. Officers in command also received some negroes from him and used them as scouts, a few chosen fugitives being dispatched to go beyond the lines and return with information. Evening schools were here opened for the freedmen. At New Berne alone nearly a thousand joyfully accepted the privilege of attending, while willing soldiers in most cases became their instructors. The eagerness of the negro men, women, and children for knowledge of books was a remarkable fact, here emphasized. Later Chaplain Horace James of the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts Volunteers became Superintendent of Negro Affairs for North Carolina, and other officers were detailed to assist him. These covered the territory gradually opened by the advance of our armies in both Virginia and North Carolina. Becoming a quartermaster with the rank of captain in 1864, he, for upward of two years, superintended the poor, both white and black in that region. He grouped the fugitives in small villages, and diligently attended to their industries and to their schools. Enlisted men were his first teachers; then followed the best of lady
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