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40 bright and learn as rapidly & are equally as well advanced as white children of the same age in the North. I gave but little attention to the subject of schools as my time was taken up with other matters. You undoubtedly are well advised with regard to the system of schools in the Mississippi Valley and the progress they have made, as the Asst. Commissioners and School Superintendents have made lengthly and able reports. In closing my report of Col. Eatons administration of Freedmen in the Mississippi Valley which continued for about two years, I have the honor to state the following to be my opinion in brief, which opinion has been formed after an impartial and careful investigation of his Department. I believe Col. Eaton to have been strictly honest in his management of the freedmen in the Vally. If he has committed frauds; if he has appropriated monies which did not properly belong to him; if he has defrauded the freed people; or swindled the Government; or permitted any of these abuses in his Department, or allowed them to pass unnoticed, I have been unable to discover it. The record does not show it & the closest inspection will fail in revealing it. That many abuses have crept into his Department; that unprincipled and incompetent men have been employed; that extreme suffering and oppression has prevailed at times; that mistakes have been made, and that the policy pursued has not always worked for the best, is true. But that Col.