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Ingleside July 17th 1865

Col Thomas
Vicksburg

Dear Sir

While I was in Vicksburg in June I saw two negro men that was captured from me on the Mississippi River in 1863. Ephraim Jackson and Austin Brown I made a contract with them for them to return home and work, and I would pay them whatever the law would allow them. they come according to contract. the boy Austin had a wife and child at my house and Ephriam had one child a small boy. instead of their coming to work they brought an order for the wife and children and took them off. And told the negroes still at work on the farm that they were getting sixty dollars per month for their work and advised them all to leave home that they could get the same. Such representation has caused much dissatisfaction among those at home, and one boy named Handy about eighteen