Gen. William T. Sherman issued his Field Order No. 15 setting aside "the islands from Charleston, south, the abandoned rice fields along the river for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the St. John's River, Florida," for exclusive settlement by Blacks. The order provided that "each family should have a plot of not more than forty (40) acres of tillable ground...in the possession of which land the military authorities will afford them protection until such time as they can protect themselves...."Gen. Rufus Saxton, South Carolina Freedmen's Bureau director, later settled some 40,000 Blacks on forty-acre tracts in the area. In South Carolina and other states Black settlers were given possessory titles pending final action on the confiscated and abandoned lands of Confederate rebels.