United States, National Archives Records of Civil War Special Agents of the Treasury Department, and Related Collections



The following Record Groups include collections that will assist researchers using the records of the freedmen's bureau.

Civil War - Pre- Freedmen's Bureau Operations 1861 -1865
During the Civil War when Union forces moved South, many enslave African-Americans left their farms and plantations for the nearest Union Army camp. As more came within Union lines, army commanders appointed Superintendents of Freedmen, in Louisiana, Mississippi Valley, Virginia, etc.to manage the relief efforts. Contraband Camps were established and many worked in support Union forces, and after the Emancipation Proclamation, enlisted in the United States Colored Troops and after 1863 worked on abandoned plantations managed by treasury agents. Relief associations like the American Missionary Association and the Western Sanitary Commission assisted in these relief efforts.

The following is a selected list of collections from Record Group 366 Record of Civil War Special Agents of the Treasury Department and Record Group 217 Depart of the Treasury Records. The records predate the creation of the Freedmen's Bureau and may have information related to Freedmen's Bureau operations especially records relating to abandoned or confiscated lands.

At the conclusion of the Civil War management of abandoned lands was handled by the Freedmen's Bureau.

FamilySearch Historical Records


See also Contraband Camps Provost Marshall Contraband Lists
 * Contraband (American Civil War) Wikipedia
 * Interactive Map of Contraband Camps - University of Pennsylvania
 * CRGIS Contraband Slave Camp Mapping Project - National Park Service
 * The Forgotten: The Contraband of America and the Road to Freedom - National Trust for Historic Preservation
 * Contrabands of War - African American Fugitives to Union Lines - Library of Congress
 * Slaves Declared Contrabands of War - American Antiquarian Society
 * Refugee Crisis in Civil War American - PBS
 * Contraband Camps - Tennessee
 * Tennessee Civil War Trails - Contrband Camps
 * Contraband Camps - North Carolina History Project
 * Last Road to Freedom
 * African American Contraband Records The lists will be located in the Union Provost Marshall records published on FamilySearch

 Publications
 * Louis S. Gerteis. '' From Contraband to Freedmen. Federal Policy toward Southern Blacks, 1861-1865. (1973)
 * Henry Lee Swint, ed. Dear Ones at Home: Letters from Contraband Camps. (Nashville, 1966)
 * Amy Murrell Taylor. Embattled Freedom. Journeys through the Civil War Slave Refugee Camps. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018. FS Library 973 H6ta
 * Chandra Manning. ''Troubled Refuge. Struggling for Freedom in the Civil War. ALfred A. Knopf, 2017. FS Library 973 H6mc
 * Patricia Click. Time Full of Trial: The Roanoke Island Freemen's Colony, 1862-1867. (Chapel Hill, 2001) FS Library 975.6175 F2c
 * john Eaton, Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen, Reminiscences of the Civil War, with Special Reference to, The Workd for the Contrabands and Freedmen of the Mississippi Valley, New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1907.

Articles
 * Chandra Manning. Working for Citizenship in Civil War Contraband Camps. The Journal of the Civil War Era. 4 #2 (June 2014): 172-204.
 * Martha A. Bigelow.  Freedmen of the Mississippi Valley, 1861-1865. Civil War History 8 #1 (March 1862): 38-47.
 * Paul Finkleman, The Revolutionary Summer of 1862: How Congress Abolished Slavery and Created a Modern America Prologue: Journal of the National Archives Winter 2017–18, Vol. 49, no. 4

Government Reports  Publications  See Also
 * Rev Horace James. Annual Report of the Superintendent of Negro Affairs in North Carolina. 1864. with an Appendix. Containing the History and Management of the Freedmen in this Department up to June 1st, 1865. Boston: W.F. Brown & Co., Printers, 1865.
 * Thomas W. Conway. The Freedmen of Louisiana. Final Report of the Bureau of Free Labor, Department of the Gulf. Major General E.R.S. Canby, Commanding. Printed at the New Orleans, Times Book and Job Office, 1865.
 * L. Pierce. The Freedmen of Port Royal, South Carolina. Official Reports of Edward L. Pierce. New York: Rebellion Record, 1863.
 * John Eaton, United States Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. Dept. of the Tennessee and State of Arkansas Report of the General Superintendent of Freedmen, Department of the Tennessee and State of ... Memphis, Tenn.: 1865
 * James E. Yeatman. A Report on the Condition of the Freedmen of the Mississippi, presented to The Western Sanitary Commission, December 17, 1863. Saint Louis, 1864
 * James E. Yeatman.Suggestions of a Plan of Organization for free Labor, and the Leasing of Plantations along the Mississippi River, ... Saint Louis, 1864
 * James E. Yeatman. A Report on the Condition of the Freedmen of the Mississippi, presented to The Western Sanitary Commission, December 17, 1863. Saint Louis, 1864
 * James E. Yeatman.Suggestions of a Plan of Organization for free Labor, and the Leasing of Plantations along the Mississippi River, ... Saint Louis, 1864
 * S.G. Howe. The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West. Report of the Freedmen's Inquiry Commission. Boston: Wright & Potter, printers, 1864
 * John Eaton. Grant, Lincoln, and the Freedmen. New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1907 Work for the Contrabands and Freedmen of the Mississippi Valley. see also reprint edition. Michael J. Larsen and John David Smith. published by University of Tennessee Press/Knoxville in 2022
 * United States, National Archives, Department of the Treasury. Division of Captured Property, Claims and Lands
 * Dockets for Cotton Cases, 1868–1890 RG 205 Records of the Court of Claims