O.O. HOWARD,
Major-General, Commissioner Freedmen's Affairs:
Respectfully returned to the Commissioner of Bureau Refugees, Freedmen, etc. The records of this office show that B.B. Leake was specially pardoned by the President on the 27th ultimo, and was thereby restored to all his rights of property except as to slaves. Notwithstanding this, it is understood that the possession of his property is withheld from him. I have therefore to direct that General Fisk, assistant commissioner at Nashville, Tenn., be instructed by the Chief Commissioner of Bureau of Freedmen, etc., to relinquish possession of the property of Mr. Leake held by him as assistant commissioner, etc., and that the same be immediately restored to the said Leake. The same action will be had in all similar cases.
ANDREW JOHNSON,
President United States.
[From McPherson's History of Reconstruction, p. 12.]
CIRCULAR No. 15.
WAR DEPARTMENT,
BUREAU REFUGEES, FREEDMEN, AND ABANDONED LANDS,
Washington, D.C., September 12, 1865.
I. Circular No. 13, of July 28, 1865, from this Bureau, and all portions of circulars from this Bureau conflicting with the provisions of this circular are hereby rescinded.
II. This Bureau has charge of such "tracts of land within the insurrectionary States as shall have been abandoned or to which the United States shall have acquired title by confiscation or sale or otherwise," and no such lands now in its possession shall be surrendered to any claimant except as hereinafter provided.
III. Abandoned lands are defined in section 2 of the act of Congress approved July 2, 1864, as lands "the lawful owner whereof shall be voluntarily absent therefrom and engaged, either in arms or otherwise, in aiding or encouraging the rebellion."
IV. Land will not be regarded as confiscated until it has been condemned and sold by decree of the United States court for the district in which the property may be found, and the title thereto thus vested in the United States.