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states in had belonged to the late so called Confederate states, was then the property of the United States government; that they were hunting it up through to country and that they had been informed that Mr. Matthew Marshall had some stock of that description on the Croom place, that
as I was in charge there I had to bring
to them all the branded mules in the 
place, and that if I failed to do so they
would hold me responsible and arrest
me. Under these circumstances I carried to Capt. Carpenter the only branded mule on the Croom place. It was old, poor, of little value and branded "C.S." I did this in the latter part of August or early part of September 1865, and had no thought of [[strikethrough]] that [[/strikethrough]] doing wrong. I continued to live on the same place, without thinking any more of the circumstance, until towards the close of the year 1865. when I was offered better wages [[strikethrough]] than [[/strikethrough]] elsewhere than I was getting there, and told Mr. Marshall that it was my calculation to leave the Croom place at the end of that year, whereupon Mr Marshall told me that if I did he would have me prosecuted for stealing that government mule from him. Being innocent of any guilty purpose in what I had done