At one time he was seriously disturbed in his duties by the buzzing of the presidential bee in his bonnet.

The members of his staff were not of his moral stature, and several of them were connected with commercial and political enterprises which left their motives open to criticism.
The assistant commissioners were, as a rule, general officers of the army, though a few were colonels and chaplains.* Nearly half of them had during the war been associated with the various attempts to handle the Negro problem, and it was these men who shaped the organization of the Bureau.

While few of them were immediately acceptable to the Southern whites, only ten of them proved seriously objectionable on account of personality, character, or politics.

Among the most able should be mentioned Generals Schofield, Swayne, Fullerton, Steedman, and Fessenden, and Colonel John Eaton.

The President had little or no control over the appointment or discipline of the officials and agents of the Bureau, except possibly by calling some of the higher army officers back to military service.
* They numbered eleven at first and fourteen after July 1866, and were changed so often that fifty, in all, served in this rank before January 1, 1869, when the Bureau was practically discontinued.
As a result of General Grant's severe criticism of the arrangement which removed the Bureau from control by the military establishment, the military commander was in a few instances also appointed assistant commissioner.