e South, or vast
appropriations. Now Congress had not appropriated a cent, and no
sooner did the proclamations of general amnesty appear than the eight
hundred thousand acres of abandoned lands in the hands of the
Freedmen's Bureau melted quickly away. The second difficulty lay in
perfecting the local organization of the Bureau throughout the wide
field of work. Making a new machine and sending out officials of duly
ascertained fitness for a great work of social reform is no child's
task; but this task was even harder, for a new central organization had
to be fitted on a heterogeneous and confused but already existing
system of relief and control of ex-slaves; and the agents available for
this work must be sought for in an army still busy with war
operations,--men in the very nature of the case ill fitted for delicate
social work,--or among the questionable camp followers of an invading
host. Thus, after a year's work, vigorously as it was pushed, the
problem looked even more difficult to grasp and solve than at the
beginning. Nevertheless, three things that year's work did, well worth
the doing: it relieved a vast amount of physical suffering; it
transported seven thousand fugitives from congested centres back to the
farm; and, best of all, it inaugurated the crusade of the New England
schoolma'am.

The annals of this Ninth Crusade are yet to be written,--the tale of a
mission that seemed to our age far more quixotic than the quest of St.
Louis seemed to his. Behind the mists of ruin and rapine waved the
calico dresses of women who dared, and after the hoarse mouthings of
the field guns rang the rhythm of the alphabet. Rich and poor they
were, serious and curious. Bereaved now of a father, now of a brother,
now of more than these, they came seeking a life work in planting New
England schoolhouses among the white and black of the South. They did
their work well. In that first year they taught one hundred thousand
souls, and more.

Evidently, Congress must soon legislate again on the hastily organized
Bureau, which had so quickly grown into wide significance and vast
possibilities. An institution such as that was well-nigh as difficult
to end as to begin. Early in 1866 Congress took up the matter, when
Senator Trumbull, of Illinois, introduced a bill to extend the Bureau
and enlarge its powers. This measure received, at the hands of
Congress, far more thorough discussion and attention than its
predecessor