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Statement of Asberry Laughlin - Freedman of color who saw his legs cut off by Dr. Williams and Dr. Joseph Clark - I know that Richard Thomas Griffin worked for Wm. G. Gammon at Knoxville, and afterwards at Jonesboro - was most inhumanly treated all the time by Gammon - So much so that Griffins friends both white and colored told him often to leave Gammon, and make his way down to the Federal Army of Knoxville - if he could in the month of Dec 1863 or January 1864 - I don't know precisely which - he was sick and Gammon ordered him out with a team, and he was not able to drive a team, and he attempted to get away to Knoxville - but Capt. Gammon sent men after him, and he heard of them being after him, and he had to hide out in the freezing cold weather from then till his feet got frost biten prety bad - when he came in finding he could not get through the lines without being caught, he came in, he was informed by William R Boyd and other that Gammon was going to whip him unmercifully, and he left town again and laid out two or three days in the bitterest cold weather I ever knew in my life - they found him and brought him in and I saw them cut his feet off in the basement story of the Court House - they did not try to do anything to take the frost out of his feet. but cut them off left him laying on the floor where it was done till the next day. myself + others fixed a bunk, and put him on that - I attended to him myself eight or ten days then it was cold freezing weather all the time - the doctor nor Gammon never dressed his legs but once after they were cut off. Williams said to him I thought it would kill you Dick but I believe you will get well - or I believe you will live - after eight or ten days Gammon sent him to Minerva Dangerfield, and told her she had to keep him, which she did for fifteen or eighteen months for which she never got one cent of pay. I do know that Gammon was the cause of all his misfortune - or at least him + Dr. Williams. I have stated nothing but the truth in the above, which can be proved by many others
(sgd) Asberry Laughlin
man of color