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War Department,
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands.
Washington, December 19th 1865.

Bvt. Maj. Genl. Wager Swayne
Montgomery Ala.

General:
Major Genl Howard directs me to acknowledge the receipt of your Monthly Report of date December 5th enclosing a copy of certain Resolutions passed at a meeting of the Agricultural Society of Monroe County, and your endorsement and orders thereon, and in reply he wished me to say that the form and designs of the Association resemble those organized in the Northern States, with the exception, that the Monroe Co. Association does not encourage the Freedpeople in securing homesteads of themselves, and the Northern Societies do. The General wishes me to inforce upon you, the security of reconciling the white citizens to the possession of Homesteads by the Freedpeople, as the surest and safest settlement of all the difficulties existing between the two classes and the interest made of doing away with casks distinctions, which must exist so long as one class is looked upon as

Transcription Notes:
edited: per SI ignore Archives stamp, removed,