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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
“ [280] whites and blacks; impose the same taxes, the same duties, the same penalties for crime, and then execute the laws with simple justice; and the result will be peace, safety, and prosperity. . . . But the white people in this State are not yet ready to treat black men justly. Therefore, the Federal Government ought to retain control. Our military force ought to be increased and not reduced.” Early in this, the last session of the thirty-ninth Congress, Senator Trumbull of Illinois, instead of simply sending for me as would have been customary, kindly came to my office and studied the operations of the Bureau. I was then striving to carry out the existing law, and realized how essential to the interests of the freedmen it was to extend the time of its operation. It was indeed important for the sake of humanity that that continued operation should obtain, not only in the cotton, but in the border States. I further believed and desired that the recent slaves should attain to all the rights of freemen before the existing protection of the general Government should be withdrawn from them. I had been much hampered by the instructions of the President himself, who had now gradually drifted into positive opposition to the Bureau law — a law that he was bound by his oath of office to execute, but one that his process of reconstruction had caused to be violated in the spirit, if not in the letter, so as to render it nugatory. This worthy senator, always of a conservative turn, warmly took the freedmen's part. I well remember those nights at my headquarters, for Mr. Trumbull's thoughts deeply impressedtme. In a subsequent speech he declared the freedmen's condition to be “abject, forlorn, helpless, and hopeless.”
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