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Bladensburg, Md. Sept 16 1865

On the morning of Saturday 19" August 1865, an altercation between Mrs Hardesty and Sidney Carter, a colored woman attracted my attention by Mrs Hardesty saying "I wish the house (Sidney Carter's) would take fire and burn down" or "It is a pity the house would not take fire and burn down"  I cannot remember the exact language.  Sidney Carter who had until this time been in the house, came out and asked "whose house" she wanted burned down.  Word followed word in a quarrel.  Mrs Hardesty staying in her yard and Sidney Carter in the street, until Mrs Hardesty threatened to call her husband.  Sidney Carter then said, " I dont care for your husband or Mr Suit either", and that is the sauciest language I heard her use.  I am confident if she had said anything else that I should have heard it for I stood as near her as Mrs Hardesty did, and was listening to the conversation.  In a short time Mrs Hardesty called to Mr Jno S Suit, her father, and told him of the quarrel, when he took a stick of wood, a piece of a boat paddle or oar, and went into my garden where Sidney Carter was a work and commenced to beat her without any explanation, or asking her any questions.  Sidney was knocked down,  and beaten badly with the oar and after getting up and going outside the yard, crying out with pain, was again set upon and beaten by Suit, who did not seem satisfied with the punishment he had first inflicted.
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