[SLAVERY & ABOLITION]. -- HOWARD. Oliver Otis (1830-1909). Circular No. 8, for the War Department, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. Washington, D.C., 5 July 1866. Broadside (178 x 114 mm), few small tears to inner margin. MURDER AND CRIME AGAINST FREEDMEN. Major General Howard was a career Union officer and general in the Civil War. After serving, General Howard became commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau from 1865 to 1874. Howard played a strong role in the Reconstruction era by helping integrate former slaves into American society, helping them organize themselves politically, while also devising programs and guidelines such as social welfare reform. In this circular, Howard reports of “outrages committed upon Freedmen in some portions of Texas, of murder and crime against officers and freedmen in certain parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and other later slave states” and warns that all officers of the Bureau “exercise unusual vigilance, and exert what power they can under present instructions to preserve the peace and good order of the districts for which they are held responsible”.