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BOOK REVIEWS91 The Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina, 1865-1872. By Martin Abbott . (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1967. Pp. ix, 162. $5.00.) Since George Bentley wrote his history of the Freedmen's Bureau in 1955 few competent works on this early attempt at federal social planning have appeared. Publication of Martin Abbott's study of the Bureau's operations in South Carolina is a welcome addition to Reconstruction literatura The author has made extensive use of the Bureau's records at the National Archives as well as odier primary source material unavailable to Laura J. Webster who wrote a comprehensive study of the Bureau in South Carolina back in 1916. These include the papers of the Bureau commissioner , Gen. O. O. Howard, as well as those of Robert K. Scott, assistant commissioner for the Bureau in South Carolina and subsequently governor of the state. Most every avenue of approach seems to have been explored by the author. Taking a generally favorable view of the Bureau, Abbott disagrees in some important particulars with Bentley's findings. Especially is this true in the section dealing with the alleged political activity of the Bureau in South Carolina. Contrary to Bentley's general indictment of the Bureau as an agency whose positive achievements were nullified by political involvement , Abbott can find little evidence to support such an assertion. Rather he found that the great majority of Bureau officers and agents were honest in carrying out their official duties and were not involved in partisan political activity. One of the big surprises of this slim book is the virtually clean bill of healdi given General Scott, whose reputation as governor has not been the best. Indeed, Scott is praised for his fairness, integrity, and common sense. Abbott concludes tiiat in the areas of relief, for both races, and medical aid to freedmen, the Bureau did a commendable job. And he deplores the Bureau's inability to implement its program of land distribution, limited as that was in its potential for solving die economic problems of the freedmen. Of course the fault in this instance was not the Bureau's but rather with President Johnson who followed a policy of restoring the confiscated lands of pardoned ex-Confederates. Abbott presents a clear and balanced account of this complicated question. The Freedmen's Bureau's efforts in the area of education were not commensurate with die task at hand. Abbott, while noting that the major responsibility was not the Bureau's but the various freedmen's aid societies of the North, nonetheless has found that far more might have been done, and in a more sensible way, toward giving many more freedmen the kind of education they needed in that moment of transition from slavery to freedom. Only a small fraction of the freedmen of South Carolina received even a smattering of education during the life of die Bureau. Abbott might have given more attention than he did to the modest efforts of the Bureau and the freedmen's aid societies to establish institutions of higher learning in South Carolina. Avery Institute in Charleston mentioned by Abbott, and 92CIVIL WAR HISTORY Claflin University in Orangeburg were two such institutions which over the years helped to turn out potential leaders of the Negro race. Indeed, the establishment of such institutions was one of the lasting contributions of the Bureau toward the advancement of the freedmen. The author notes the peripheral activities of the Bureau in promoting the cause of temperance and regularizing the marriage ties of the freedmen . The Bureau also was indirectly involved in assisting the Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company, or the Freedmen's Bank, to encourage the former slaves to deposit their small savings in this private bank. The implication is that, since the bank later failed (following the Panic of 1873), somehow the Bureau was responsible. Such was not the case and long before the failure of the bank (which did not, incidentally, mean total loss to depositors) the Bureau had ceased functioning in South Carolina. It is to be hoped that Abbott's efforts will help to dispel the myths which still persist about the pernicious effects...

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