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were clear cases of perjury

the feeling against the colored witnesses for the prosecutions was manifest in look and language and I have been constrained to keep them guarded for protection until I can send them out of the country  my officers have all been attentive listeners to these trials and after a mature and I believe a candid reflection we have come to this honest conviction that under no circumstance will a Freedmens testimony obtain belief and a white man may commit a murder on a negro with impunity  no colored testimony no matter how conclusive can convict a white man of the most Horrid case of murder if the victim is a Freedman, and we do conscienciously believe that the unfeeling prejudice against the Freedmen is so strong in this county that without some authority to enforce the equity of civil law the Freedman must be a sufferer at the mercy of unprincipled and designing men

Very Respectfully your obt Servt
Wm A Poillon
Capt and Asst Supt F.B.
Claiborne Alabama