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0048

Opelika Ala 18th August 1866

Major General Wager Swayne Dear General

I see in to days papers It is reported on good authority that Major general Howard Commissioner of the freedmen's Bureau intends issuing an order within a few days suspending the distribution of Government ration to the destitute people of the South now he [[crossed out]] is [[/crossed out]] has never furnished the destitute families much rations yet it may of been and I have no Doubts but is was the intention of the authorities to do so and they have furnish enough to of helped the poor much both white & Black. But Sir who has been the main beneficiaries of this relief furnished by Government the poor only to very small extent especially the black hardly any, well what has been done with the provisions you know its first directed to the Judges of Probate by themselves taken and to the Justices of the Peace of each beat and by them kept and eat or sold or given to their hireling on their farm to make a crop and said Justices will go up to the Commissioners cort & make their report that they gave so much to such as one a white woman as so much to an other white woman and so on and will report perhaps from 20 to 40 white when in fact & in truth not one half ever lived in their beat and not one out of five ever got one morsel of anything its all ways just out and as for the black it makes no diference what their condition their children must be bound out to men that will treat them ten times worse than if they realy belong to them