History of Emancipation: Special Field Orders No. 15

On January 12, 1865, U.S. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and General Wm. T. Sherman met here at the home of Charles Green with 20 leaders from Savannah's African-American churches, including Garrison Frazier, Ulysses L. Houston, and William Campbell. The meeting resulted in Sherman's issue of Special Field Orders No.15, which encouraged the enlistment of freedmen and also reserved coastal land from Charleston south to Florida's St. Johns River for settlement by freed families in 40-acre tracts. The Freedmen's Bureau Act of March 1865 formalized government aid to freed slaves but made no provision for land. After President Lincoln's death, President Andrew Johnson revoked Special Field Orders No.15, hampering efforts by African Americans to gain economic independence after Emancipation.