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0002

E 97 AGO C.T. 1864.

Many fanciful notions have been urged for our adoption, alike impracticable, injurious to the freedmen, and, disadvantageous to the Government. 

Every power has been exerted to the utmost, to attempt just what was possible, practical, common sense, and nothing more. 

As no man can predetermine in detail his own destiny, so, it has been felt, no one can mark out the exact steps in the progress of a race; nor has it been forgotten how many misstep might damage the general confidence in the policy of the Government, or delay the restoration of its legitimate authority over rebellious districts. 

There is no little gratification in reflecting that this supervision in the  year or more of perplexity and darkness that has passed, has never adopted a principle which has proved impractical or worked injury to the freedmen or the Government—— but has steadily held in view the general results, securing the interests of Government by bettering the condition of the freedmen, and throwing their weight alike as soldiers and laborers into the scale of loyalty: towards which, events with all their eddies and counter-currents have been moving. 

No personal ends have been sought; there has been no embarrassment from a Procrustian scheme; every principle adopted has been patiently tried by the test of facts. 

As this organization for the supervision and protection of freedmen and their industry, has advanced toward completion, and assumed the actual discharge of its duties, increasing evidence has been furnished of its adaptation to the necessities to be met. 

The General Office was removed from Memphis to Vicksburg, to be nearer the center of the greatest demand upon it; a District Office for West Tennessee was established at Memphis, for Arkansas, at Helena, for Natchez at that place, and local superintendents assigned wherever demanded.  A complete sub-division of labor is rapidly working itself out. The surgeon of the 9th naturally became Medical Director of freedmen, and has already taken a careful survey of their medical necessities, and for the time has accomplished much in supplying them. The Quartermaster, by being made Acting Assisting Q. M. of Freedmen, naturally looks after all the property required in their supervision; the Chaplain, after schools, education, etc.; each assisted as far as required by other officers; each, too, adopting a system of reports according to specified forms, which bring the whole field and all the people under view at the General Office, for correction of mistakes or abuses, or, for the constant improvements in general plan or details. 

To withdraw this organization, or to declare that it is not needed, would be to say that thirty thousand people require no governing or protection in the midst of the social upheavals of intestine war. We should pronounce the man mad, who would advocate such an idea as possible, in a time of profound peace. How much more now?

The organization is as is manifest, adapted by simple instrumentalities, to do for the freed people the simple things which the circumstances and the times render necessary, viz: To supervise the provision of their food, shelters and labor, as far as they must depend temporarily upon the Government; their supply of medicince and medical attendance; their educational necessities, to prompt their industry. to protect them from abuse, enforce the inviolability of all agreements with them. 

If this system [[strikethrough]] was [[/strikethrough]] were adopted in all the Military Departments where the gathering of these people renders supervision necessary, and a Head appointed to open a Burau in the War Office, under the immediate direction of the Secretary of War, I have no doubt its wisdom would be indicated to present and future generations. 

These people, like whites in and around the army, must be under martial law. The War Department, under these circumstances, alone can administer and execute justice. The Treasury can only provide regulations for the conduct of men with reference to money transactions; the War Department can govern them as far as required with reference to all the duties of citizens, or husband or child; that is, punish if these relations are violated, and enforce any regulations of pecuniary transactions provided by the Treasury. The bill providing an Emancipation Bureau in the War Office, seems to me, with what facts I have before me, to meet the necessity; I mean in general, I have not yet seen its details. 

Not only is the necessary governing power with the army, but it has a complete system of supply food, medicines, etc.; and holds these supplies safe at its great depots. These people can only be safe as renders so by the army, and consequently will need their supplies near the same depots. 

This organization, military in its character, is exactly adapted to the army methods of business of receiving and distributing supplies. Any organization other than military, would necessarily be at great expense to institute a new system of purchasing, transporting, storing, and disbursing and then, independent of the army, its officers at any temporary post, might wake up some morning and find themselves and their stores left by the troops, compelled, possibly, to secret movement, unprotected from the hovering guerrillas. 

The true system, it seems to me, is this one, in which the War Department provides for the protection and supervision of the freedmen, and the Treasury for the leasing of abandoned plantations, the collection of revenue, as tax or otherwise, the sale of goods and the disbursing of funds. 

JOHN EATON, Jr., Colonel and Gen'l Sup't. Freedmen. 
Department Tennessee and State of Arkansas. 

Transcription Notes:
I'm not sure where to write the signing on top of the text. Transcribed "medicince" instead of "medicine" (middle of the second-last line of the seventh paragraph).