A Daunting Mission: the Freedman’s Bureau in Montgomery County
by Ralph Buglass
The Freedmen’s Bureau, the first federal agency to have direct contact with citizens, was established after the Civil War to help the formerly enslaved transition to a life of freedom and self-sufficiency—and ultimately to ensure their enjoyment of rights as citizens. And it had a presence—and an important one at that—in Montgomery County, carrying out two primary functions: to establish schools for Black residents and to intervene in injustices committed against the formerly enslaved by white residents. In Montgomery County, these tasks fell to Lt. R.G. Rutherford, an Army lieutenant who held the position of superintendent of a countywide Freedmen’s Bureau office in Rockville, in operation only from May 1866 to October 1867. Often in the face of hostility, Rutherford helped to lay the groundwork for ten Black schools that later become part of the public school system and handled myraid claims of mistreatment brought to him by Black county residents.