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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
[318] discover and adopt measures for the intellectual and religious improvement of the colored race. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, Judge Hugh L. Bond, of Baltimore, and Senator Evans, of Colorado, and myself, as commissioner of freedmen, were present. Judge Bond, Senator Evans, and I were to make the addresses. The chief justice, it was hoped, would add at the end a word of encouragement. Rev. J. A. McCauley gave out a hymn and led in prayer. Judge Bond followed in his effective style, half humorous and half earnest. The judge hoped that it would be the result of that meeting that suppression of certain subjects in church conferences would cease; that it would not be unlawful hereafter to say negro as well as African — that is, refer to this race in America as well as in Africa-and that the Methodists would now see and meet their duty to the colored race. Judge Bond was one of those Southern heroes deeply attached to the Union who underwent persecution and ostracism for consciencea sake. I spoke of my early career and experiences in the army when stationed in Florida, how Christians there believed that negroes had souls, that we were all children of a common Heavenly Father, that our Lord made sacrifices for all, that He taught the doctrine of universal brotherhood, and that we could not escape the injunction to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Then I made a plea for education in the South for blacks and needy whites. That pleading has always held my mind and heart. After that I urged a more practical extension of marriage rites. I stated that it was ridiculous to demand for church offices only proper marriages among the negroes. As to the constant statement that negroes
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