The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands was established by the War Department on March 3, 1865, in an effort to provide relief to the 4,000,000 slaves emancipated at the end of the Civil War. From the beginning, the Bureau recognized the importance of establishing and running schools for the freedmen who had never received any type of education and who were mostly illiterate. The first Bureau school in the state of Texas was established in September 1865, and the first Bureau school in McLennan County, Texas, was started in April 1866. Over the next four years, the schools faced enormous challenges, including a lack of funds and hostility from the white population. Despite the defeats that the Freedmen’s Bureau schools in McLennan County faced, they were successful in providing an education to hundreds of freedmen across the area.