Viewing page 284 of 310

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Rogersville Tennessee
April 4, 1866

General Fisk: 
Your order relieving me from further duty as Superintendent of the Affairs of the Bureau for Hawkins County at Rogersville Tennessee has reached me.

The duties of the Situation from which you have seen cause to remove me were not at all pleasant or agreeable and consequently I am not displeased on that account but I am persuaded that my action as an officer of your appointment has been grossly misrepresented. My action in the case of Stewart vs Kyle seems to meet your disapproval and lead to my being relieved of duty. You have reached the Conclusion that I exercised power not within my jurisdiction when I required Stewart to pay expenses or be imprisoned.

Now I required Mr. Stewart to pay the cost because in my judgment the Case was fairly against him. I spoke of putting him in prison not on account of the action or any part of the action between him and Kyle concerning the mule but because of the contemptable manner in which he treated me while I was investigating the matter in regard to the mule He cursed and abused the Freedmens Bureau and all who were concerned in the institution and I therefore threatened to imprison him unless he would become quiet. I was actuated to pursue the course that I did in regard to my official action are persons who have been largely interested in slave property previous to the Rebellion. We have may such persons in this country who have but little idea that property can be so transformed invigorated and vitalized as