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War Department, 
Bureau of Military Justice, 
Washington, D.C., October 8, 1869. 

Major General O.O. Howard
Commissioner of Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, &c. 
Washington, D.C. 

General, The recent reference to me for report by the Secretary of War of the question of your power to purchase with the educational fund of your Bureau certain real estate in aid of an institution for the education of freedmen, has led me to surmise that my report to the Secretary, of Feb. 6th '69, repeated in a report of June 23d last, to the effect that the educational branch, with the rest of your Bureau, ceased, under existing laws, to exist on July 16th 1869, had not been approved. I have however received no information whatever on the subject. 

As it would appear that the inquiry presented in your communication to the Secretary