Arkansas Assistant Commissioner, Letters and Telegrams Sent, Vol. 2 (9), June–Nov. 1865

About the Project

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, often referred to as the Freedmen’s Bureau, was established on March 3, 1865. The duties of the Freedmen’s Bureau included supervision of all affairs relating to refugees, freedmen, and the custody of abandoned lands and property. These documents come from the Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Arkansas Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, 1865–1869, Series 1.1: Letters and Telegrams Sent.

PLEASE NOTE: Press copies were made by moistening a piece of thin paper and pressing it on the original letter through the use of a press copying machine, which transferred some of the ink to the moistened paper. Because of the relative crudeness of this method, many of the press copies are difficult to read and some are virtually illegible. Please mark any illegible text as [[illegible]].

Additional resources are available on the Freedmen's Bureau Instructions Page. Please help us transcribe these records to learn more about the lives of formerly enslaved men and women during the Reconstruction Era.

The six volumes of letters and telegrams sent, June 1865–May 1869, are arranged in two parallel subseries and thereunder generally chronologically. Each volume contains a name index. Volume 1 (14), which constitutes the first subseries, consists of fair copies of letters sent to Commissioner Howard or his staff officers in Washington for the period 1865–69. Also in this volume are letters and telegrams to military commanders, a few to the Adjutant General of the Army, various military department commanders, neighboring Governors, and some to assistant commissioners in other States. The remaining five volumes, comprising the second subseries, contain press copies of letters and telegrams sent to subordinate officers and civilians.

Some letters, generally relating to appointments and resignations, bear the notation "Filed" followed by a number to indicate sequence. This indicated that the original letter had been endorsed back to the Assistant Commissioner from Commissioner Howard's office and then registered and filed separately. These letters have been filmed on Roll 20.

In the left margin of the pages of the first volume are names of persons to whom the letters or telegrams were sent and fractional notations. In the latter, the numerator is the number of the page in the volume on which there is a preceding letter or telegram to the same person, and the denominator is the number of the page containing the next subsequent letter or telegram to the same person.

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7 pages not yet started

261 pages partially transcribed

14 pages needing review

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Difficulty

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About Project Difficulty

Level 1 - BEGINNER

Content: all typed
Language: English
Format: letters, diaries, flyers, pamphlets, and one-page documents
Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: none required

Level 2

Content: mostly typed, handwritten in print, or otherwise very clearly written/readable
Language: English
Format: memorabilia, advertisements, image captions, telegrams, diaries, letters, notes
Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: none required

Level 3 - INTERMEDIATE

Content: typed and handwritten materials in cursive or print
Language: English
Format: newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, letters/diaries/notes that may include annotations or margin notes
Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: experience reading cursive writing may be useful

Level 4

Content: handwritten materials, primarily in cursive or somewhat difficult to read (predominantly from the 19th and 20th centuries) , audio recordings that are relatively easy to hear/decipher, and scientific materials
Language: English and/or other languages that use Roman script but may require the use of diacritics (French, Spanish, German, Italian, etc.)
Format: audio recordings, letters, diaries, notes and other written materials, projects with templated fields and special instructions
Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: some knowledge of non-English Roman-character/script languages and diacritics may be useful, as well as experience reading cursive handwriting. A general knowledge or familiarity with scientific terminology.

Level 5 - ADVANCED

Content: handwritten materials in cursive (from the 19th century or earlier) or in a non-Roman script language, audio recordings that are difficult to hear or are not in English, specialty materials/projects such as numismatics projects and the Project Phaedra notebooks
Language: foreign languages that use non-Roman characters (Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Greek/Cyrillic, Native American and Indigenous languages, etc.) and English
Format: audio recordings, columned data/tables, manuscripts, letters, diaries, notes, currency sheets, coins
Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: knowledge of a specific language and access to a keyboard with the characters in that language may be required for certain projects. Experience reading cursive handwriting and familiarity with 19th century (or prior) handwriting and conventions/abbreviations may be useful, as well as knowledge of scientific terminology, astrophysics data, or linguistics.

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