ORIGIN OF THE FREEDMEN’S SAVINGS BANK 21
In the same year military savings banks, intended
 primarily for the use of Negro soldiers,
were established by General B. F. Butler at
Norfolk, Virginia, and by General Rufus Saxton
at Beaufort, South Carolina. At these places
there were not only regiments of Negro troops,
but there were also large numbers of other
Negroes who, as a result of Federal military
Occupation, had been free from their owners
since 1861 or soon after, and who, for several
years, had been learning how to work for themselves.
 But the Negro soldiers were the best
depositors, They were now paid regularly each
month and many of them had received large
bounties upon enlisting; they were fed and
clothed by the government and needed to spend
but little of their pay. Accordingly they welcomed
 the establishment of the banks, and many
of them made deposits which remained until the
close of the war, The total of deposits is not
known, but when the war ended the Beaufort
Bank had on hand about $200,000, a large part
of which consisted of unclaimed deposits of soldiers
 who had disappeared. Some of them had
been mustered out of service or transferred to
other posts; others had been killed in action or
had died of disease, and their relatives could not
be found; and many of those who had placed
money in the bank were too ignorant to draw
February 11, 1864. Judge Rost of Louisiana was a diplomatic representative
 of the Confederacy in Europe, 1862-1865. His Destrehan plantation
In St. Charles parish was confiscated when the Union forces came in, and
On 1t was established a Negro refugee or “home” colony.
?See Pearson, Letters from Port Royal, and Holland Letters and Diary
of Laura Mf. Towne.