The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (Record Group 105), also known as the Freedmen’s Bureau, was established in the War Department by an act of Congress on March 3, 1865. The Bureau was responsible for the supervision and management of all matters relating to the refugees and freedmen and lands abandoned or seized during the Civil War, duties previously shared by military commanders and US Treasury Department officials. In May 1865, President Andrew Johnson appointed Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard as Commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Howard’s headquarters were in Washington, DC, but assistant commissioners, sub-assistant commissioners, and agents conducted the Bureau’s daily operations in the former Confederate states, the border states, and the District of Columbia.