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Extract from Mr. Pratt's letter
[[strikethrough]] United States Sanitary Commission. [[/strikethrough]]

"At Stannardsville & at other places There are no schoolhouses; neither do I see how the colored people can, without the active cooperation of the Bureau, get the means to build their houses. These poor people are groping in the dark. They know not what to believe. They are told by the whites that, now the North has forced them, it is their duty to support them & educate them. "We sh'ld do it," say they, "if we had set you free. It is simply an act of justice. I wouldn't pay them to teach you; they only come here to cheat you out of your money." These statements, repeated with all the malevolence & persistence that are ever the characteristics of low