ORIGIN OF THE FREEDMEN’S SAVINGS BANK 21 
In the same year military savings banks, in- 
tended 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 them- 
selves. 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 wel- 
comed 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 sol- 
diers 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 representa- 
tive 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.