Black Land Acquisition Blocked: Sherman's Titles Revoked

General Sherman's Special Field Orders No. 15 (January 1865) had set aside 400,000 acres of coastal South Carolina and Georgia for Black settlement in 40-acre lots. By fall 1865 approximately 40,000 freedpeople were farming that land. President Johnson ordered the Bureau to restore the land to pardoned ex-Confederates. Bureau Commissioner O.O. Howard delivered the devastating news at a Edisto Island meeting in October 1865; freedpeople formally petitioned Johnson and were ignored.