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Many of these people were old an infirm; many sick; and great numbers children, too young to provide for themselves. Such was a good deal the condition in which I found things, upon taking taking charge of the Bureau in this district the 13th Sept. 1865 I made it my first duty to learn as definitely as possible, the number and condition of freedmen in the city to see what provision had been made for her wants comfort and, I need not say that the numbers were great and the condition deplorable; but I put forth such efforts as my means permitted, toward providing places for the old [strikethrough] children [/strikethrough], infirm for the sick and the children. The next step was to get at some kind of work for the great numbers of able bodied men and women among them, who were laying and lounging about the city, generating within themselves and around them a state of things productive only of trouble and misery. This I found the more difficult task, for the reason of the too imperfectly understood meaning of the word liberty, or freedom on their part; and also for the reason that the demand for labor was not at all equal to the supply of laborers in and about the city. This caused immediate effort, on my part, to become familiar with the condition of things in the country, to see to what extent the allegations of refugee negroes were true, as to the disposition of the masters in treating the slaves My district comprises an extent of seven counties all more or less productive and pretty well cultivated, in times past by a tolerably numerous population.