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

Maj. Genl. 
O.O. Howard
Com. of the Bureau of 
Refugees Freedmen and 
Abandoned Lands. 

General 
The undesigned planters on the Seaboard of South Carolina for themselves, and for such others as received rations from the "Bureau" during the past year to carry on their planting operations, respectfully submit this petition for your serious consideration, with the hope that you will extend to them such relief as their necessities require, and as it may be in your power to grant.

It is unnecessary to advert particularly to the causes which induced you in the early part of the present year to conceive the benevolent purpose of extending aid to the planters of this Section, by authorizing the local agents of the "Bureau" to advance rations monthly to the embarrassed planters, and to take their respective Bonds that the Rations so advanced, would be either returned in kind, or the value thereof would be paid out of the ensuing crops. The spirit which prompted so philanthropic a scheme could only have emanated from