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Head Quarters Department of Virginia
GENERAL ORDERS, No. 26.} FORT MONROE, VA., February 22, 1865.

  I.....Lieut. Col. John Coughlin, 10th N. H. Vols., Provost Marshal General of the Department, will take charge of all funds, property, books, papers, and material pertaining to the District of the Peninsula, Bureau of Negro Affairs, and will relieve Captain C. B. Wilder, A. Q. M., as Asst. Superintendent of Negro Affairs in this District.
  II.....Capt. Wilder, on being relieved, will immediately report to Major Plato, Head Quarters Army of the James, for duty.
  III.....Lieut. Col. Coughlin will at once proceed to make or have made an inventory of the property on hand, also a roll, or a series of rolls, of all the able bodied negroes, male and female, in the District, specifying their names and sex, and the number of children, old or helpless persons depending upon each, and the districts occupied by them.  A police force of able bodied men will be organized into companies, to be mustered and paid as soldiers, and all other able bodied men will be required to employ themselves at some useful labor in their own, in public or in private service, or will be mustered into service as soldiers.
  IV.....The unoccupied men will be given one week after this notice to find employment or to decide whether they will enter the United States service, as soldiers, teamsters, or laborers; in each case a roll of such soldiers, teamsters or laborers, will be made and forwarded to Head Quarters of the Department.
  V.....Mechanics, skilled laborers, oystermen, or others who can and will employ themselves at their business, will be encouraged to do so, and protected therein.  All taxes upon such employed negroes will be hereafter remitted.
  VI.....The wives and families of colored soldiers will be protected and supported.  Where members of such families are able to labor for their own support, and have no parents or children to take care of, a list of such will be made out, and they will be required to find employment for themselves in some useful and moral manner.  In case they cannot find employment themselves, places will be provided for them as nurses, laundresses, or in private service.
  VII.....No special rates or prices of labor are to be fixed at present, except in the Government service.
  VIII.....When land can be found deserted by the owners or in possession of the Colored Bureau, and where farms are cultivated by colored persons on their own account or under direction of offi-

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