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Louisburg Franklin Co No Carolina
January 14th 1868

Genl O.O. Howard
Dr sir

Allow me to make an appeal to you in behalf of the Freedmen on my place and that of Mrs Johnson.

Our crops the past year were an entire failure, owing in great part to the excessive wet season.  We were drenched with rain from beginning to the end of the year. And unless the Freedmen can get assistance from you, they must all perish. We have expended all the means, we were possessed of in buying fertilizer and meat for last year. And we are now almost as helpless as the Col'd people.

I see from the news papers that it is proposed that you advance them, provisions in the shape of a loan. And take a mortgage on their crops, by so doing you would enable the Col'd people to make another crop, preserve life and I hope be fully prepared at the end of the year to pay back fully in kind if not in money. And knowing the situation of the Freedmen fully on these two places