United States, Freedmen's Bureau Hospital and Medical Records, 1865-1872

What is in This Collection?

This collection has the index of patients’ registers, registers of sick and wounded, prescription registers and other medical records from the field office records of Alabama (M1900), District of Columbia (M1902), Georgia (M1903), Louisiana (M1905), Mississippi (M1907), North Carolina (M1909), South Carolina (M1910), and Texas (M1912). The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (often called the Freedmen’s Bureau) was created in 1865 at the end of the American Civil War to assist freedmen and refugees. The records are part of Record Group 105 and are located at the National Archives.

To locate additional information on the indexed collections in this publication see both the digital folder number list and coverage table sections and related digital folder number list and coverage table links located in this article under the heading Collection Content. The links in the state column will direct you to the browse collection landing page.

Related National Archives Collections

Record Group 94 Records of the Adjutant General's Office

• Contracts for Nurses, 1861–1865, Surnames A-K
• Reports of Hospital Attendants with the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1868–1871
• Accounts of Physicians Serving with Freedmen and Refugees Who Had Been Paid from the Medical and Hospital Appropriation, 1862–1864
• Returns of Medical Officers with the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865–1869
• Contracts of Female Employees With the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865–1869
• Reports of Employees in North Carolina with the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1866–1868
• Contracts of Employees With the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1866–1870
• Contract to Employ James Ritchie as a Nigh sic, Night Watch, Freedmen's Hospital, New Orleans, Louisiana, March 19, 1869 Image
• Contract to Employ Albert S. Olin as a Clerk, Freedmen's Bureau Hospital, Vicksburg, Mississippi, July 21, 1868 Image

Related Publications

• Jim Downs. Ailing Hospitals: Correspondence Reveals History of the Freedmen's Bureau Medical Division. Prologue 38 # 2 (Summer, 2006). National Archives.

General Information about Freedmen's Bureau Records

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands was established in the War Department in March of 1865. It was commonly called the Freedman’s Bureau and was responsible for the management and supervision of matters relating to refuges, freedmen, and abandoned lands. The Bureau assisted disenfranchised Americans, primarily African Americans, with temporal, legal and financial matters, with the intent of helping people to become self-sufficient. Matters handled included the distributing of food and clothing; operating temporary medical facilities; acquiring back pay, bounty payments, and pensions; facilitating the creation of schools, including the founding of Howard University; reuniting family members; handling marriages; and providing banking services. Banking services were provided by the establishment of the Freedman’s Saving and Trust Company, or Freedman’s Bank.

The Bureau functioned as an agency of the War Department from approximately June 1865 until December 1868. In 1872, the functions of the Bureau were transferred to the Freedmen’s Branch of the Adjutant General’s Office. The Bureau assisted over one million African Americans, including many of the nearly four million emancipated slaves, which was over 25% of the population of former slaves in America. The records identify those who sought help from the Bureau at the end of the Civil War. Most supplicants were freed slaves, some of which were military veterans. In addition, a few veterans who were not African Americans also sought help from the Bureau. Freedmen’s Bureau records are usually reliable, because the records were supplied through first-person correspondence or the recording of a marriage.

National Museum of African American History & Culture

The museum is working with the Smithsonian Transcription Center and volunteers to transcribe the records of the Bureau.

• Freedmen's Bureau Transcription Project.
• About The Freedmen's Bureau Database Records
• FREEDMEN'S BUREAU ABBREVIATIONS, STAFF ROSTERS, AND STYLE SHEETS
• Freedmen's Bureau - Browse Projects

Additional records and/or images may be added to this collection in the future.

What Can These Records Tell Me?

Content of the records varies. The following information may be found in these records:

Collection Content

Sample Images

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  1867 Register of Patients

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  1864 Prescriptions for Sick and Wounded

Record Types
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (often called the Freedmen’s Bureau) created many different record types necessary to supervise relief efforts including education, health care, food and clothing, refugee camps, legalization of marriages, employment, labor contracts, and securing back pay, bounty payments and pensions. These records include letters and endorsements sent and received, account books, applications for rations, applications for relief, court records, labor contracts, registers of bounty claimants, registers of complaints, registers of contracts, registers of disbursements, registers of freedmen issued rations, registers of patients, reports, rosters of officers and employees, special and general orders and circulars received, special orders and circulars issued, records relating to claims, court trials, property restoration, and homesteads. For a description of the record types found in this and other Freedmen’s Bureau collections see Freedmen's Bureau Record Types.

Officer's Manual
The War Department published an Officer's Manual to assist bureau personnel in the records that were required to be keep in bureau offices.

• United States, National Archives, Freedmen's Bureau, Officer's Manual

The following Wiki articles are transcriptions of portions of the manual

• US, NARA, Freedmen's Bureau, Officer's Manual - I, Book Keeping and Official Correspondence
• US, NARA, Freedmen's Bureau, Officer's Manual - IV, Medical Department
• US, NARA, Freedmen's Bureau, Officer's Manual - V, Subsistence
• US, NARA, Freedmen's Bureau, Officer's Manual - VI, Miscellaneous Provisions - Includes Reports from Assistant Commissioners

Digital Folder Number List

This collection was published as a DGS browse collection. The list does not contain any description of the DGS folder's content. A table listing each DGS number and its contents can be found at United States, Freedmen's Bureau Hospital and Medical Records Digital Folder Number List.

Inventory

For a list of all the titles included in this Historical Records publication see United States, Freedmen's Bureau Hospital and Medical Records - Inventory.