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Head Quarters Sub-Dist. of Alabama
Office Superintendent of Education
Montgomery, Ala; Oct. 24th 1866
[[Seal}} THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE UNITED STATES

Major General Wager Swayne
Assistant Commissioner
State of Alabama

General:
I have the honor to present herewith my annual Report of the Educational work among the freed people of the State, for the year closing with the 24th day of October 1866.
By a Special Order bearing date October 14th 1865, which came to hand on the 24th of the same month, I was assigned to duty as "Inspector of the Bureau and Superintendent of Schools for the State of Alabama."
Up to this time there had been no Office of Education acting under the direction of the Bureau in this State. No general system had been inaugurated for the establishment and support of Schools. All school matters were in nearly the same confused condition when the war closed. In casting an eye over the State to determine the magnitude of the work proposed, it was ascertained that there were within her boundries, four hundred and thirty five thousand and eighty freedmen. Among them was exhibited an inextinguishable desire for Education, growing out, in part, from the novelty of books, and in part, from some