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goes forward immediately.
From Col Woodhull also, we have a memorandum of forty cases of clothing and supplies sent by R.B. Minturn and other Gentlemen of New York City. I have addressed a note to Mr Minturn, and shall further acknowledge the receipt and distribution of the stores.
I have also from Col Woodhull, a Circular of the American Freedmen Aid Society calling for a variety of information, the circular endorsed with a statement of the hold which the Society has upon the Bureau. this fact is recognized and we shall furnish such information as we can. Before receiving your indorsement I felt a little hurt at the fact that not one teacher has arrived and reported since I cause him. I felt at liberty to treat the project as I in fact regard it as a ponderous and expensive diversion from the proper work of the Commission.
During the holiday season contracts have been made on every hand, and are still making. The general average of payment is, besides food quarters and medical attendance for the entire family, ten dollars a month for men and eight for women. I have not thought it best to interfere with the laws of supply and demand any further than simply to secure to the helpless ones the necessaries of life. So far as I can learn the demand for labor exceeds the supply in all portions of the State. We estimate that there are now probably as many as five thousand Northern men in the State, and the freedmen show them a remarkable performance. There is another gratifying feature. Those men who used

their freedmen badly last year find proportionate difficulty this year and some of them had to give it up.
We have also received and read with much interest your First Annual Report. I beg to thank you so much of it as refers kindly to myself. I hope and trust the work here may show that the foundations are well laid. The result of course must come from the Divine blessing.

I am, General,
Very Respectfully,
Your Obt Servt,

Bt Maj Gen & Asst Comr.

Office Asst Commissioner
Bureau R.F.& A.L.
Montgomery Ala. Jany 31st 1866.

Maj Gen O.O. Howard
Commissioner &c
Washington D.C.
General:
A number of matters of engrossing interest, coupled with physical disability have a occasioned an unpleasant interest in this series of reports. During this interval our force has been materially strengthened by the arrival of officers from the Vet Res Corps, whose respective assignments are shown by the roster transmitted today. These will relieve us in great measure from the evils of frequent changes, and when those arrive who be named in the additional detail we shall be enabled to make the Bureau more effective at a less expense for civil[[ian]]