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September 19th I announced three more assistant commissioners:
General Davis Tillson, Georgia, Headquarters, Augusta. General Wager Swayne, Alabama, Headquarters, Montgomery. General E. M. Gregory, Texas, Headquarters, Galveston.
Osborn was changed to Florida with headquarters at Jacksonville; Saxton was still the assistant commissioner for South Carolina and Georgia, General Tillson being regarded at first as an acting assistant commissioner, reporting to Saxton.
From these State centers were organized subdistricts, more or less in number according to the needs. There were a few civil employees, but generally the subagents (called by some officers assistant superintendents) for given districts, were put on duty directly by the Secretary of War, being taken and sent to the work from the nearest military organization, or from the Veteran Reserve Corps of the army. Soon the whole Bureau force operating amounted to upward of 2,000 officers, agents, and other employees. This force covered the States where the beneficiaries were to be found, very much as the Post Office Department now covers the country. I felt the pressure of responsibility rather heavy upon me, because most of my subassistants were necessarily unknown to me and beginning a new business. The head commissioner in each State, however, except Colonels Thomas and Brown, and Chaplain Conway, were personally known to me. They were men of tried courage, of high education, of well-known character, and pronounced friends of humanity. Whittlesey, a brave Christian gentleman for years on my staff in the field, had been before the war a college professor; Saxton
