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Office of Supt. Refugees, Freedmen & A L
Northern District of Alabama
Huntsville, June 7, 1866.

General,
I have the honor to make some representations of facts to you, relative to the state of feeling &c. in my district.

A growing dislike and bitterness is very apparent. Instances of wrong and violence seem to be more frequent in their occurrence. Too many planters and other employers of freedmen persist in exercising an arbitrary control over their colored employees, and they invariably set up a terrible tirade of abuse and crimination, if the black makes an application for redress.

A few days since an ex-rebel officer at Decatur, in one of his many drunken fits, shot and dangerously wounded a harmless negro, and brandished his weapons about, cursing and threatening the whole black race, and "Yankees," and defying any of them to meet him. The civil authorities refused to take any notice of him or his acts, except to quietly inform him to keep out of the way a day or two! I made