Page "Oliver O. Howard" Paragraph 12

From May 1865 to July 1874, General Howard was commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau ( the Army's Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands ), where he played a major role in the Reconstruction era, and had charge of integrating freedman ( freed slaves ) into American society.

Howard devised far-reaching programs and guidelines including social welfare in the form of rations, schooling, courts, and medical care.

Howard often clashed with President Andrew Johnson, who strongly disliked the welfare aspects of the Freedman's Bureau, and especially tried to return political power to Southern whites.

However, Howard had the support of the Radical Republicans in Congress.

When the Radical Republicans gained power in 1867, they gave blacks the right to vote in the South and set up new elections, which the Republican coalition of freedmen, carpetbaggers, and scalawags won ( except in Virginia ).

The Bureau was very active in helping blacks organize themselves politically, and therefore it became a target of partisan hostility.