BUREAU OF FREE LABOR, DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF,

New Orleans, March 29, 1865.

Lieutenant Colonel GEORGE B. DRAKE,

Assistant Adjutant-General:

SIR: I beg leave respectfully to inform you that under General Orders, No. 23, the plantations are being worked and the freedmen employed. Previous to the issue of the order thousands of unemployed negroes were reported, and there was the greatest danger that the number maintained in the department by the Government would be increased ten-told. As soon as the order reached the agricultural districts the owners and lessees of plantations began to work, and merchants who under the Treasury system had positively refused to advance money, seeing some prospect of making corps, offered to loan the necessary funds. Prospects that had been blighted began to revive, and now I cannot find a single laborer whose services I can secure for any purpose. I have thousands of applications for laborers, but am unable to supply any. There is now the most satisfactory state of things in this branch of the public service. The freedmen's schools were never so largely attended, and the wages of labor are increased about $2 per month beyond those of last year. This fact, taken in connection with the fall in the prices of provisions and supplies, shows improvement, and the laborers themselves are better satisfied. The main question is that of employment on the one hand and idleness and vagrancy on the other. This is settled. There is plenty of employment for all the laborers in the department, and I could give work to 5,000 more. The freedmen suffer in the midst of two extremes. On the one hand are the old slave-holders and rebels whose prejudices against the black man lead them to consider it not unmanly or inhuman to treat them harshly or brutally; and on the other are the old free colored men, who are constantly exciting the ignorant freedmen, giving them an idea that they are appressed and wronged by the Government. This renders them discontented, whereas in the simple and natural promptings of their minds they love the Government and are grateful for its benefits. Nearly all the plantation pay-rolls for last year are filled in this office. This plan, added to the registration ordered by the commanding general, gives success to the arrangement. Contracts are enforced without cost to the freedmen, which in the civil courts would involve heavy cost and endless persecution. The plan of securing payment has all the force of the plan for paying troops by the Pay Department. Provost-marshals have been instructed, and it has been the invariable rule to pay over to relatives the wages due to laborers who have died. I believe that with an ordinary crop this year the present arrangement will prove the best that could be devised. At present there are good grounds for encouragement.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

THOMAS W. CONWAY,

General Superintendent of Freedmen.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. SOUTHERN DIV. OF LOUISIANA, No. 113. New Orleans, March 29, 1865.

1. Paragraph 2 of Special Orders, No. 110, current series, from these headquarters, is hereby revoked and the following substituted therefor: The country between Bayou Manchac and Kennerville, to be termed the District of Bonnet Carre, will be commanded by the senior line