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Office Sub-asst. Com.,
District of Friar's Point,
Friar's Point, Miss.,
July 21, 1867.

Maj. A.W. Preston,
Act. Asst. Adjt. Genl.,
Bureau of Refugees, &c.,
Vicksburg, Miss.

Major:
I have the honor to report my arrival at Friar's Point this morning.

The place is all that it was represented to me, and more. For several weeks of the year the people passed from place to place, and even into their houses, in what they call "dug-outs". The whole town was submerged, and six inches of barren sand added to the soil. More than one tenth of the entire population, white and colored, have died with cholera, and new cases are daily occurring.

In the whole town there is not a vacant building of any kind, or a vacant room, except a jury room in the Court House, (only vacant while the courts are not in session,) hitherto used as a dead room for such as died of cholera. My stopping place, The St. John House, the only hotel, consisting of a