after the surrender, theress authorized assistant commissioner of the bureau of refugees and -- getfreedmen's bureau to food and shelter from local commanders. in south carolina, the bureau distributed rations almost immediately. by midsummer, at least 9000 people had received at least 300,000 rations. by the end of the year, the number of rations more than doubled reaching an estimated 25,000 people. one year later, it would be nearly one million rations. 1867, the leanest and the meanest in the postwar years because of crop failures, private and public aid in south carolina would exceed $300,000. similar conditions existed across the south. there were tens of thousands without adequate food, clothing or shelter. in alabama, and mixture of private and public a discredited nearly 4 million rations. by the autumn of 1866, prompting it was notd -- nearly enough. according to the bureau's assistant commissioner, these figures did not keep pace with the evidence of suffering. in a report to the secretary of at all wrote considerable towns, we are seeing emaciated persons who have come a long way