engaged
in the medical department of the bureau might be continued, inasmuch
as it was expected that the medical force of the regular army would be
speedily reduced to the minimum, and in that case all the regular
officers would be wanted in the service. It was therefore thought
right that there should be some force connected with the Bureau of
Refugees and Freedmen. The Senate enlarged the provisions of the House
bill by providing that officers of the volunteer service now on duty
might be continued as assistant commissioners and other officers, and
that the Secretary of War might fill vacancies until other officers
could be detailed from the regular army. That is the substance of the
first material amendment.

"The next amendment strikes out a portion of one of the sections of
the House bill, which related to the officers who serve as medical
officers of the bureau, because it was provided for in the amendment
to which I have just referred.

"The next amendment strikes out from the House bill the section which
set apart, reserved from sale, a million acres of land in the Gulf
States. It may perhaps be recollected that when the bill was reported
from the committee, I stated that, in case the bill which the House
had then passed, and which was known as the Homestead Bill, and which
was then before the Senate, should become a law, this section of the
bill would not be wanted. The bill referred to has become a law, and
this section five, providing for that reservation, has, therefore,
been stricken from the bill.

"The next amendment made by the Senate was to strike out a section of
the House bill which simply provided that upon application for
restoration by the former owners of the land assigned under General
Sherman's field order, the application should not be complied with.
That section is stricken out and another substituted for it, which
provides that certain lands which are now owned by the United States,
having been purchased by the United States under tax commissioners'
sales, shall be assigned in lots of twenty acres to freedmen who have
had allotments under General Sherman's field order, at the price for
which the lands were purchased by the United States; and not only that
those freedmen should have such allotments, but that other freedmen
who had had lots assigned to them under General Sherman's field order,
and who may have become dispossessed of their land, should have
assignments made to them of these