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P38

[[stamp]] THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE UNITED STATES [[/stamp]]

James City County Virginia
February 1st 1866

Presedent Johnson

Dear Sir

My situation is so deplorable that I am compeled to call on you for aide & hope that you, who are blessed with the reches of this world will not suffer an aged widow & afflicted orphan to slave. I never knew what it was to want before the cruel war, but the universal freedom & roguishness, of the negroes have brought me to beggary. I first loss my horses, one horse Churchwell the negro bureau has at York Town, & the other a negroe has below York & a few weeks since they stole all of my cattle & I am now destitute, & unable to defend myself & if I were, my life would be taken, as it has been threaten several times, by negroes.  The say that treason is a crim & should be punished & I consider the evil emancipation the greatest punishment that could be inflected not only upon the guilty, but the inocent, for it has been instrumental of bringing the inocent widows & orphans to Starvation & have filled our once happy land with robbers & murders & have not only [[strikethrough]] brought [[/strikethrough]] brought the whites to starvation, but have brought the negroes too & made them the most degraded set that ever did exist. Mr. Johnson you may think that I have exaggerated, but I invite you