Special Orders No.
157.}
Lieut. Z. C. Bryan,
of the 27th Regt. Ohio Infty, Vols, will immediately break up the Contraband
Camp at Haine's Bluff, and move the old men, women and children to the most
valuable of the abandoned plantations within our lines, and put them to work
cultivating the Crops growing on said plantations. The able bodied negro men,
including both those who have enlisted in companies and those who have not
enlisted, will be reported to the Commanding officer of Haines Bluff—for work
on the defences of that place and when their services are no longer required
for that purpose, those not enlisted will be put out to labor on the
plantations, and those enlisted will be subject to such orders as their
Commanding Officers may receive from Dept. Headquarters. The Commanding
Officers of troops near any of the Plantations, that may be so occupied, will,
when necessary, furnish such guards as may be required to protect the occupants
of the same from the insults of stragglers and will afford every facility in
their power to enable Lieut. Bryan to carry out these instructions without
interference or molestation The Quartermasters Department will turn over to
Lieut. Bryan for use in tilling of said plantations such of the Captured mules
and horses it may have as are unfit for service in the army.
SOURCE: John Y. Simon, Editor, The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Volume 8, p. 318-9
