The American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission was charged by U.S. Secretary of War Edwin McMasters Stanton in March 1863 with investigating the status of the slaves and former slaves who were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. Stanton appointed 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. These committees traveled south and interviewed former slaves and Union field commanders to get a better grasp of what the situation in the South was. The Commission helped with the transition of African Americans from a life of slavery to a free life. The Commission used Federal money to establish schools and churches in the South in an attempt to