Page:Annual report of the superintendent of Negro Affairs in North Carolina, 1864.djvu/16

14 Some of these were sent to other towns and posts in this District, many were used in supplying the sufferers from small pox, many went to hospitals, and many were given to men, women and children, who timidly approached our picket lines, faint, weary, tattered, their rags pinned together with thorns, their feet and heads bare, or half concealed by some grotesque apology for shoe or hat. These would seem to be the proper subjects for charity.

A portion of the gratuitous distribution, and an increasing one of late, has been done by the teachers of colored schools, to whom their friends have sent out boxes of clothing, new or old, with which they have aided especially the pupils of their schools. Garments for females and children are principally in demand.

Supplies, both for gratuities and sales, have been liberally sent to this District by the Freedmen's Associations at Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The National Freedmen's Relief Association has mainly supplied the miscellaneous goods for sale to these people. To their generous kindness we are largely indebted for clothing, new and second hand, and for mechanical tools, garden seeds, school books and school furniture of various kinds, nails, glass, sashes, stoves, hardware, earthen ware, groceries and dry goods.

The sales during the year did not fall short of $25,000,00. If transportation for the goods had been more readily procurable at New York, they would have been largely in advance of this figure. The funds derived from this source, beyond what were necessary to pay the wages of the three persons managing the business, were returned to the Freedmen's Societies for reinvestment, or put into a fund which is devoted scrupulously to the use and advantage of the colored people. In pursuing the policy indicated above, we have often given away articles which were furnished us for sale, and sometimes have sold goods which were sent for gratuitous distribution. We have been guided bythis one rule: "What will promote the highest welfare of these people?" and in its application have used the best judgment we could summon on the spot.

The military authorities and Treasury Agents have permitted these supplies to come to the District, in government transports, without the usual charge of three per cent. for internal