In 1865, the United States Congress anticipated that the end of the Civil War would be the beginning of a humanitarian crisis. Millions of people, those displaced by the war and those recently freed from slavery, would need material, educational, and spiritual support while they built new communities and new lives. To provide this support, on March 3, one day before President Lincoln gave his second inaugural address, Congress passed “An Act to Establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees.” Under the War Department, the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, commonly called the Freedmen’s Bureau, oversaw both abandoned lands and all matters related to refugees and emancipated people in areas occupied by the United States Army. Its responsibilities included providing clothing, fuel, and shelter to refugees and emancipated people as well as setting aside abandoned or confiscated land for their use.

Two months later, President Andrew Johnson appointed General Oliver O. Howard, “The Christian General,” as the Bureau’s first Commissioner. Howard organized the former slave states into ten districts, each headed by an assistant commissioner who was responsible for both carrying out the elements of the original Congressional mandate and also for introducing a system of compensated labor into states that formerly relied on enslavement. However, in his Circular No. 2, published on May 19, 1865, Howard made it clear that although Congress had enacted new legislation for the direct support of refugees and emancipated people, the government had neglected to fund it. Consequently, the initial goal of the Freedman’s Bureau was not to supercede the work of “benevolent organizations,” but rather to support it. While religious and other charitable organizations administered direct relief and ran schools, the Bureau’s focus was on facilitating and systematizing their work through its assistant commissioners and field agents.