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War Department, 
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 
Washington, May 15th 1867.

Circular Letter

I have information from Virginia and South Carolina that intemperance among the freedmen is on the increase. Already a movement is on foot in this city, having in view a thorough organization so as to make the colored people to exert all the power possible to prevent the evil in question. 
I find that the "Sons of Temperance" in their Grand Divisions, retain the old bigotry, and decline to extend their Order to save men of dark skin from drunkenness except it be done upon condition that there shall be complete and enforced separation. 
I therefore hope that the Officers and Agents of the Bureau and the agents of the different benevolent associations working for the elevation of the colored people will take immediate measures to organize associations of colored people, never excluding the white, under the name of "The Lincoln Temperance Society". There is great appropriateness in the name from the well known character of Mr Lincoln, and from the