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preceding month.

This sudden reduction, though based upon the idea that the harvesting of the wheat crop in the Northern counties, and the coming in of green corn, potatoes, and other vegetables in South Alabama would enable the people to bear it, and the expectation that the State might be able to furnish some relief, must have been attended with serious consequences, but for the timely arrival of a shipment of corn purchased by Governor Patton on State account. 

This corn, not only aided greatly in meeting the deficiency in the issue of food by the General Government during the month of July, but also in August, when the supply of Government rations was further reduced to ten thousand daily. This same reduced estimate was continued for the month of September.

An Order issued by the Secretary of War, directed the discontinuance of the issue of rations by the Freedmans Bureau, after the 31st of September, except to patients in the Hospitals, and a few other particularly specified. As the Governor had been, and was still unable to make any arrangements to meet such an emergency, it was feared, that this order, would bring great suffering upon the large number of helpless women and children, the old, infirm, and crippled, who were almost, if not entirely dependent upon the is source of supply for their daily sustenance.