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17

the remark that no Brownlow nigger should work on their plantation next year. However in each case where the employer was incorrigable and would not listen to argument, or demands of justice I found situations for his discarded help at Dover Tenn. to work on the National Cemetery, where they are paid $18 per month and rations, and some were sent to Dixon Co. Tenn, to work in the furnace where they are receiving much better wages than while working lands of this county.

I have said this much of our political troubles, because it has been the all absorbing question here for the last few weeks, and the freedmen by their orderly conduct and a firm determination to do what they thought was right, have shown themselves worthy of better treatment at the hands of their former masters.

In pursuance to your instructions I thoroughly investigated the difficulty or misunderstanding among the Freed men at Cumberland Furnace