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War Department

Washington City Nov 11 1865

It having been officially reported to this Department that a large number of animals marked as the property of the United States, are, by exchange, abandonment, or otherwise, in possession of citizens of Alabama, and employed in raising necessary food, it is ordered:- that the Ass't Com'r of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, for that State, be charged with the control of such cases, and will take up such property only when the U.S has an equitable title, and the animals are not indispensibly employed in agricultural pursuits.
  
Animals which have been seized as above, and the proceeds of the sale of such as have been sold, will also be transferred under the above order. 

(Signed) Edwin M. Stanton
Secretary of War.

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