The Federal Government provided blank printed forms to the U.S. Marshals.  There may be annotations such as certificates of oaths taken, population totals, and handwritten and mechanically-stamped page numbers.

On March 3, 1849, Congress delegated decisions about the questions to be asked on the census to the "Census Board" whose members were the Secretary of State, Attorney General, and Postmaster General. Their decisions resulted in the forms shown below.

Approximately 4,400 U.S. Marshals and their assistants conducted the 1860 census according to provisions of the 1850 Census Act. That act had stipulated that, according to the recommendation of the secretary of the interior, its provisions were to be adhered to for all future decennial censuses if no new authorizing legislation was passed by January 1 of the year in which the census was required.

This schedule collected data—including name, age, sex, color, and place of birth—on persons having died during the year ending June 1, 1860. Additional data were collected on constitutional and marital status; profession, occupation, or trade; disease or cause of death; number of days ill; and any suitable remarks.

This schedule collected data on agricultural production for the year ending June 1, 1860.

This schedule collected data on the products of industry for the year ending June 1, 1860, and applied to all forms of productive industry, including manufactures (except household manufactures), mining, fisheries, and all kinds of mercantile, commercial, and trading businesses.

This schedule collected aggregate statistics for each subdivision enumerated on the following topics: valuation of real estate; annual taxes; colleges, academies, and schools; seasons and crops; libraries; newspapers and periodicals; religion; pauperism; crime; and wages.

The law required "all the inhabitants" of each Federal judicial district or territory be enumerated.  The Instructions to Marshals and Assistants explained that the the term "usual place of abode" used in column 3 of Schedule 1, Free Inhabitants, meant the "the house or usual lodging place of a person" and that a person "temporarily absent on a journey, or for other purposes, without taking up his place of residence elsewhere, and with the intention of returning again, is to be considered a member of the family...."

Secretary of the Interior Jacob Thompson (1857-61), Caleb B. Smith (1861-62), and John P. Usher (1862-65) had general supervision of census operations, tabulation, and reporting the results to the President and Congress.

Superintendent of the Census Joseph C. G. Kennedy submitted The Preliminary Report on the Eighth Census, 1860  to Secretary Smith, and the final statistical population report, Population of the United States in 1860; Compiled from the Original Returns of the Eighth Census, to Secretary Usher. 

The U.S. Marshal for each Federal judicial district was responsible for taking the census in his district with the help of assistant marshals whom he appointed. Each took an oath or affirmation that "I will to the best of my ability enumerate, or cause to be enumerated, all the inhabitants of said district ... and will faithfully perform all the duties enjoined on me...."  Each assistant marshal took an oath or affirmation that "I will make a true and exact enumeration of all the inhabitants within the district assigned to me, ... and will make due and correct returns thereof..."  The act also specified "That each assistant ... shall perform the service required of him, by a personal visit to each dwelling-house, and to each family...."  After the information was entered on the forms, "such memoranda shall be immediately read to the person or persons furnishing the facts, to correct errors and supply omissions, if any shall exist."

Every person over age 20 was required to cooperate: "That each and every free person more than twenty years of age, belonging to any family ..., and in case of the absence of the heads and other members of any such family, then any agent of such family shall be and each of them hereby is, required, if thereto requested by the marshal or his assistant, to render a true account, to the best of his or her knowledge, of every person belonging to such family ... on pain of forfeiting thirty dollars...."

The census began on Friday, June 1, 1860, and was finished within 5 months.

U.S. marshals and their assistants conducted the 1860 census under the rules and directions established in an Act of Congress approved ten years earlier on May 23, 1850.

Additional questionnaires were used to collect data on slave inhabitants, mortality, agriculture, products of industry, and social statistics. These questionnaires collected the same information as those in 1850, with a few exceptions.

The instructions to marshals and assistant marshals were virtually identical to those for the 1850 census, with the exception of guidelines for collecting information on a few additional/modified inquiries. There were slight changes in the instructions’ wording; however, these served only to clarify the 1850 instructions.

Listed by column, the free inhabitant questionnaire collected the following information:

1. Dwelling-house numbered in the order of visitation
2. Families numbered in the order of visitation
3. Name of every person whose usual place of abode on the first day of June, 1860, was in this family
4. Age
5. Sex
6. Color (white, black, or mulatto)
7. Profession, occupation, or trade of each male person over 15 years of age
8. Value of real estate
   
9. Value of personal estate
10. Place of birth, naming the State, Territory, or Country
11. Married within the year
12. Attended school within the year
13. Persons over 20 years of age who cannot read and write
14. Whether deaf and dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper, or convict

Listed by column, the slave inhabitant questionnaire collected the following information:

1. Name of slave owners
2. Number of slaves
3. Age
4. Sex
5. Color
6. Fugitives from the state
7. Number manumitted
8. Deaf and dumb, blind, insane, or idiotic
9. Number of slave houses

For details on the other census schedules see the 1860 Census Instructions to Marshals and Assistant Marshals.