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Headquarters, Assistant Commissioner,
Bureau Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, South Carolina.
Charleston, S.C., Feb. 5, 1866.
General Orders, No. 4.
I. The Assistant Commissioner of this Bureau, for the State of South Carolina, being authorized by the Commissioner to issue rations, in special cases, to freedmen on plantations through the owners thereof, as Agents of the Government for distribution and taking a lien upon the crops, for reimbursement to the Government, for cost of such rations, the following directions will be implicitly observed by all concerned.
II. Four principal depots will be established: One at Charleston, one at Hilton Head, one at Columbia, and one at Florence.
III. At each depot an Officer of the Army will be stationed, charged with the duties of Acting Sub-Assistant Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, and Acting Commissary of Subsistence. He will require of each planter, applying for rations, an affidavit, setting forth the necessity for such issue, the exact number of men, women, and children drawn for, and that they are employed upon terms approved by an officer of the Freedmen's Bureau. He will give the planter an invoice of the stores, in bulk, with the cost of the rations, taking corresponding receipts.
IV. Estimates will be made on the 15th of each month for the following month. The stores will be drawn monthly, on ration returns signed by the planter, countersigned by the Acting Commissary of Subsistence of this Bureau, and approved by the Acting Sub-Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands-the return to be accompanied by a list of names corresponding with the number on its face.
V. The Acting Sub-Assistant Commissioner and Acting Commissary of Subsistence will take a bond, duly executed by the planter applying for rations, to the Acting Commissary of Subsistence,