“2. All commanders of military departments, districts, and posts will, upon receipt of this order, surrender and turn over to the proper supervising special agent such houses, tenements, lands, and plantations, not required for military uses, as may be in their possession or under their control; and all officers of the army of the United States will at all times render to the agents appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury all such aid as may be necessary to enable them to obtain possession of such houses, tenements, lands, and plantations, and to maintain their authority over the same. “By order of the Secretary of War. “E. D. TOWNSEND, “_Assistant Adjutant-General_.” By this order, the Treasury Department is substituted for the War Department in jurisdiction over “houses, tenements, lands, and plantations deserted and abandoned by insurgents within the lines of military occupation.” This is broad, but it is positive. In pursuance of these Acts of Congress, and of this order of the War Department, the Secretary of the Treasury has proceeded to appoint special agents and to establish a code of regulations. I have in my hands a small volume, entitled “Commercial Intercourse with and in States declared in Insurrection, and the Collection of Abandoned and Captured Property,”[350] containing the statutes and also the departmental regulations on the subject. It appears that there is already an organization under the Secretary of the Treasury, and also a system, each of reasonable completeness, to carry out these purposes. * * * * * In determining where the Bureau of Freedmen should be placed, it becomes important to consider the interests it is proposed to guard; and this brings me to another aspect of the question. Looking at the freedmen whose welfare is in question, we find that their labor may be classified under two different heads: first, _military_; and, secondly, _predial_, or relating to farms. There are still other laborers, including especially mechanics; but these are chiefly in the towns. The large mass are included in the two classes I have named. It is, therefore, these two classes that are to be particularly considered. 1. The first class is already provided for. It appears that one hundred thousand freedmen are already engaged in the military service as soldiers or laborers. Others will continue to be engaged in this way. These are all naturally and logically under the charge of the War Department; nor do they need the superintendence of the proposed bureau. The Act of Congress equalizing their condition in the army of the United States is better for them than any bureau.