Yankee Stepfather: General O. O. Howard and the Freedmen

The story of a Civil War promise made to slaves—and broken. At the close of the Civil War, Congress established the Freedmen's Bureau—formally, the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands—to deal with the question of the place in society of its new black citizens. General Oliver Otis Howard, known both admiringly and derisively as the "Christian General," was given the responsibility of defining the nation's commitment to four million former slaves. Instructed by Congress to divid...