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Another matter to which I would especially call attention is the wholesale disarming of negroes. Freedmen who have just purchased shot guns, and those who owned them before, have their weapons rudely taken from them. Their trunks and houses are freely, from reports to me, broken open for the purpose.

Among the leaders whose names have so far been given to me as active in this movement of disarming, are a Captain Clark, and a Mr Kit Hampton.

I have given orders in several instances that have come to my knowledge, for shot guns to be restored to their owners.

A paper was shown to me in one case of the authority for a citizen so to act, from the present Governor of this state, a copy of which document I sent you.

If the black people are free I see no right under the