The Act provided that the Bureau should have supervision and management of all abandoned lands and control of all subjects relating to freedmen and refugees from the Rebel States, under such regulations as might be prescribed by the Commissioner at the head of the Bureau and by the President. The Secretary of War was authorized "to direct such issues of provisions, clothing and fuel as he may deem needful for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen and their wives and children, under such rules and regulations as he may approve." The Commissioner was authorized to lease, for a term of three years, to every male citizen, whether refugee or freedman, not more than forty acres of the lands which had been abandoned by their owners or confiscated to the United States, at a rental of six per cent on the last appraised value. At the end of three years the occupant was entitled to purchase and receive the land, with such title as the United States could convey, at a price proportioned to the rental value. Very little permanent advantage came to the negro from this provision; for the abandoned lands were legally reclaimed by their owners and the confiscations, few in number, would, by the Constitution, be only for the life of the owner. Temporary relief however was afforded; but much harm was done by creating in the minds of ignorant freedmen, just redeemed from slavery, the belief that the Government would give to each of them "forty acres of land and a mule." The Commissioner selected was Major-General Oliver O. Howard, who had gone through the war with marked honor. He was a lieutenant of ordnance when Sumter was fired upon and a brigadier-general in the regular army three years later. He had discharged his military duties with steadiness, intelligence, earnestness and courage. He was a man of pure character, of deep religious faith, and was somewhat an exception to West-Point graduates in being from the outset thoroughly anti-slavery in his intellectual and moral convictions. It was the possession of these characteristics which led Secretary Stanton to select General Howard for the important trust. For his ease and his peace of mind he should have declined the place, as he might well have done, since it was not a military duty to accept. During his administration of the office he was subjected to unreasonable fault-finding, often to censure and obloquy; but throughout the whole he bore himself with the honor of a soldier and the purity of a Christian,--triumphantly sustaining himself throughout a Congressional investigation set on foot by political malice, and confronting with equal credit a military inquiry which had its origin in the jealousy that is often the bane of army service.