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Crawford, Russell co, May 7th, 1867

Maj Genl Wager Swayne.

General.
[[stamp]] The National Archives of the United States]]
In compliance with your request often 23d ult, I examined yesterday the case of Emanuel & others against I.A Shingleur, and report to you accordingly. 
The testimony is briefly this: Emanuel and twenty two other freedmen contracted last year with Shingleur to work a plantation for him, they to be fed and clothed and to receive 1/4 the  proceeds of the cotton crop. They were fed and clothed, stock to furnished them, and they made thirty seven Bales of cotton. Shingleur produced his Books and accounts - the Freedmen their own statements. Kept by notches upon sticks, of lost time. They admitted all of the items in Shingleurs Bill of charges to be correct except the lost time, which in the aggregate amounts to considerable. I then examined competent testimony as to the capacity of the place cultivated, and it appears from all the statements, that, in the most ordinary cotton years, with proper cultivation, it has produced more than a Bale of cotton to every three acres - Shingleur had in cultivation three hundred and fifty acres, which at that rate, should