In this article I will show that the Freedmen's Bureau was able to influence the positive transition of blacks after the Civil War despite the lack of support from the federal government. First I will give you a description of the Freedmen's Office. I will discuss the purpose for which the Freedmen's Bureau was created and the social environment in which it operated. Next I will talk about some of the programs run by the Freedmen's Bureau that have had a positive impact on the transition from slavery for many people of color. Finally, I will show how these programs helped Black people transition. The Civil War was a time of change in American history. After the war, Congress established a federal agency called the Freedmen's Bureau to facilitate the transition of freed people from slavery to freedom. Southern blacks faced the worst chaos, displacement, disease, poverty, and epidemics, which limited the office's successes during Reconstruction (Finley 2013, 82). During the war, lack of basic necessities and medicine hampered efforts to improve economic, social and political freedom. As a result, the Freedmen's Bureau was designed to help Southern blacks transition from slavery to freedom. The challenges faced during this transition were enormous, as the civil war had completely ruined the region. Farms were destroyed during the war and huge amounts of capital were depleted during the war. When the Civil War ended, the social order of the region was chaotic, and slaveholders, as well as their former slaves, were forced to interact socially differently than before (Finley 2012, 82). The Freedmen's Bureau was a unique effort by the federal government to improve the social welfare of the American nation. Major General Oliver Howard headed the free commissioners… at the heart of the charter… to apply jurisdiction in such cases (Weitzel 2011, 22). Labor relations were reevaluated to allow for the hiring of free men. The bureau assisted in drafting contracts on favorable terms to ensure that the planter and worker lived up to their end of the bargain. Finally, the office promulgated an education system that allowed blacks to study so they could take part in normal activities and protect themselves from the discrimination they had previously faced. The Freedmen's Bureau's efforts included providing relief foods, offering health services to the sick, allotting lands for settlement to former slaves, establishing a justice system, enacting an education system, and enforcing labor laws that allowed men freed to look for work. Although they were not able to help everyone, they still set precedents and had a huge impact on the reconstruction.