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To Major Geo. H. Tracy, Commissioner &c.

Dear Sir:

Referring to my former statement in regard to the boys Tom and Ned and to the endorsement of Maj. Gen'l. Swayne thereon, I beg leave to submit the following additional statement to cover the points upon which additional evidence is required. And I also append hereto the statement under oath of my daughters Annie and Beulah who are not interested in the matter.

[[strikethrough]] He? [[/strikethrough]] General Swayne is correct in the inference that the three boys Tom, Ned and Wylie were bound to me under the code of Alabama, which was a law passed by white people and to be applied to white children and which became applicable to them when they became free and they were bound precisely like a white child would have been bound. The reason their mother was not consulted was because she went away strolling off over the county and I did not know where she was or that she would ever come back. [[strikethrough]] she [[/strikethrough]] She had no means of carrying away her children nor supporting them and was sickly and she abandoned them to me. It was under these circumstances that, finding them on my hands [[strikethrough]] that [[/strikethrough]], I had them bound to me as I was both unable and unwilling to be so burdened unless with the prospect of a return at some