Viewing page 108 of 194
This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.
204 Office of the Assistant Commissioner Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands Montgomery, Ala Jany 25th 1866 C. C. Dickinson Esqr J. P. Beat No 7. Autauga Co Ala. Sir; You are hereby authorized to approve cintracts [[contracts]] in your beat and to receive the compensation authorized in Circular No 14 from this office. Very Respectfully Your Obt Servt A.A.G. Office Assistant Commissioner Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands Montgomery, Ala. Jany 27th 1866 Maj Gen O. O. Howard Commissioner &c Washington, D.C. General: Mr. J. A. Strother, of Bolivar County Mississippi makes a strenuous application for transportation from Alabama to Mississippi for certain negroes brought to the State during the war. I have declined on the simple ground that Government does not pay out money on sentimental or commercial considerations but only to relieve suffering which arises from lack of employment or helplessness, neither of which is shown to exist here. Mr. Strother in reply states that he has just come from Washington. This his is one of a class of cases understood by the Government, and that 205 it has been intimated that to relive his country from becoming a wilderness the levees would be rebuilt and transportation furnished to laborers when applied for. I have consented to refer his statemint [[statement]] to you for an official intimation of the facts. Very Respectfully, General, Your Obt. Servt Bt Maj Genl Office Assistant Commissioner Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands Montgomery Ala. Jany 27. 1866 Maj Gen O. O. Howard Commissioner &c Washington, D.C. General: Directly after the report recently sent you in reference to the Mobile Medical College building was written, I was invited to meet the Governor, the new Mayor of Mobile, and Mr. Gage of the State Senate, to confer upon an application made to me personally, of the same tenor as that referred through you. I stated to these gentlemen frankly the substance of what I had written you. To the Governor the facts were altogether new. To the Mayor they were practically so, as he has been very little in the City for several years, until his recent election. Mr Gage had a general recollection of the facts but was surprised at their connection and significance. The conference brought out three distinct assertions on the part of these gentlemen. 1. That there was a very marked change in
