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WAR DEPARTMENT.
BUREAU OF REFUGEES, FREEDMENT, AND ABANDONED LANDS.
Washington, Dec. 11, 1865.
CIRCULAR
No. 21.

  All officers and Agents of the Bureau, in addition to the Monthly and Quarterly Returns of Property and Stores, required to be made direct to the Chiefs of the different Bureaus of the War Department, will mail, or otherwise forward within ten (10) days after the expiration of each successive month, to the Assistant Commissioners, a complete Monthly Return of the "Stores pertaining to the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands," with Abstracts and Vouchers similar to Forms 23 to 45 and 52 inclusive, Regulations of the Quartermaster's Department. This return to embrace all Stores and Clothing belonging to the Bureau, i. c., purchased from the funds of the Bureau, or received from any source, other than the Quartermaster's, Subsistence, Ordnance, and Medical Departments.
  The Revised Army Regulations will govern the transfer, issue, expenditure, loss, &c, of all property and stores belonging to the Bureau.
  Issues of Clothing belonging to the Bureau, when made to dependent Refugees and Freedmen, will be [[receipted?]] for by them on a Receipt Roll similar to Form 52. Quartermaster's Department, witnessed by a third party. These rolls are to be entered on Voucher 42, (stores expended) Abstract I, of the Monthly Return, and filed therewith as a sub-voucher.
  All accounts and vouchers are to be made in duplicate, one copy to be forwarded as above required, the other to be retained by the officer for his own protection. Two [[??]], Form 23, will be forwarded, one with the Abstracts and Vouchers, one without them.
  The Assistant Commissioners, on receipt of the Monthly Returns of Stores, &c, after [[ensuring?]] them to be examined, will, if made out in proper form, accompanied with the requisite vouchers, promptly transmit them to the Commissioner at Washington, otherwise, return for correction.
  Clothing and Equipage received from the Quartermaster's Department for issue to dependent Refugees and Freedmen, is to be accounted for to the Quartermaster General in the same manner as that issued to soldiers, that is, on Form 51, with Vouchers as per Form 52.
  When the recipient [[??]] write his name, his mark must be witnessed by a disinterested party.
  All requisitions requiring the approval of the Commissioner are to be forwarded only on the first and fifteenth of each month, except in specials cases.

O.O. HOWARD,
Major General, Commissioner.

OFFICIAL:           Assistant Adjutant General

[[stamp]] The National Archives of the United States