Viewing page 197 of 241

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

4

III. The Officers and Agents of the Bureau will, by all means in their power, assist the State Authorities in preventing the lewdness and adultery, made penal offences in the 4th Section of the second Act above quoted, and will impress upon colored persons the consequences as well as the crime of its violation. They will further instruct the freed people that the Act only sanctions unions existing at the date of its passage, and for all those subsequent or proposed in future, licenses must be obtained and solemnization made, without which they will be criminal offences. 

IV. In order to carry out more efficiently the above laws and instructions, the freed people will also be required to assume a surname where none is now borne by them, and informed that, except in the case of female upon her marriage, the name now used, or thus adopted, can only be changed by the Circuit Courts of the State. 

O. BROWN. 
Colonel and Assistent Commissioner.

OFFICIAL: 

Acting Assistant Adjutant General.

RICHMOND, VA., March 19th, 1866. 
I approve of the above instructions and recommendation, and hope all Civil Officers of the State who can assist in the performance of duties herein named will do so. 
F. H. PIERPOINT, 
Governor. 

[[stamp]] BUREAU R. F. & A. L. * WASHINGTON * REC'D MAY 1 1866 [[/stamp]]