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11

that government would divide up the plantations and distribute them to the negroes, and it was sometimes painful to disabuse their minds of a notion so fondly cherished, and so prevalent.

While we were absent from Yazoo City a soldier of the 50th U.S.C.I. who was home on a furlough and who had been preaching to his friends and the people was shot without provocation, by ruffians who disliked his uniform, as much as "the speech of freedom."

Two of the parties in this atrocious affair were recognized by the negroes and arrested by Lt. Col Pope of the 33. Ill. Inft. commanding this post, and sent to Vicksburg for trial. The principal murderer is supposed to have escaped. We heard also of a murder of a Freedman at Vaughns Station, but could get few particulars,