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The Hendersonville Camp I think was the only one in the Dept. on the decrease at the time of your arrival here. I don't wish to be understood as reflecting upon any of my superior officers, but I have had my own opinions about these matters; though never troubling myself to advertise them, yet always expressed them freely when asked. I always made it a point to act to the best of my judgement so far as existing orders would permit. So in regard to these camps I thought it a bad system; expensive to the Government and demoralizing in the extreme to the negro. Certainly any one could see that emancipation would be as sure to reach the slave at home as a fugitive. 

Avarice impled men to make wholesale conscription of the negro, and gave his family encouragement to leave good homes to appease the natural feeling to have them with him. And Misjudgement permitted