Stanton appointed Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, James McKaye, and Robert Dale Owen as commissioners, all three of whom served from the creation of the committee in 1863 through to their submission of its final report in May 1864.
The Commission used Federal money to establish schools and churches in the South in an attempt to employ and educate former slaves.
The following documents the looting:[2] In connection with the probabilities of our obtaining the above number of colored troops, it is the duty of the Commission to report the fact that, in too many cases, not injustice only but robbery and other crimes have been committed against fugitives on first entering our lines.
Valuable horses, too, and other property, were taken from them by the Quartermaster, without remuneration to the refugee who brought them in.The report fully described the poverty and difficult conditions of most former slaves in the South, as aspects of the society.
Robert Dale Owen later re-published the full final report as a book titled The Wrong of Slavery, the Right of Emancipation, and the Future of the African Race in the United States.