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Office Provost Marshall
Ft Smith Ark Jan 24,, 1866.

Bvt Maj Genl H.J. Hunt
Comdg Frontier District

General,
I have the honor to make the following report of facts as elicited on personal inquiry of the persons whose names appear on the enclosed paper.

I. Daniel Sooman & Andrew Chief Watkins were on their way to my office to report the condition of their families and the families of others of their acquaintance in the Choctaw nation and to ask for assistance to get them out- These men met Mr Pratt on the street and told him their business. He told them that he could get their families out and went with them to Mr Manners - Chaplain Springers Assistant- Mr Manners had no authority to act in any such case. Mr Pratt then took these men to Fort No 4 and held a kind of meeting and told Sooman to hunt up all the black men who had families or relations in the nation and he