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the valley of South Hahpeth, and what that is heah sah, ah subsisting upon the charity of theiah faumah maustahs" It struck me that in a great many cases this would prove very light diet, but I did not say so. And the Mayor was right for all the able bodied Black have left the valley and gone or come to Nashville. Mr Thomas Allisson with whom I stayed all night of the 27th inst has 20 Blacks on his plantation - 700 acres fine land - and of the 20, there are 3 - women - who are able to work. Mr Allisson is quite an aged man, in embarrassed circumstances, has always born the name of a kind master, and even now is willing to do all in his power for these helpless people who remain with him. He says: "I cannot find it in my heart to say to these old people "You must go" and yet it will come to that for I can hardly support my own family; (a large family of daughters) had my able bodied people remained with me I might possibly have been able to pay them for their labor and support the infirm too." He said this in ignorance of the fact that I am connected with this Bureau but supposing me to be a County officer.

I found almost all the Planters afraid of and ready to denounce the Bureau and very few of them seem to understand the Equal Rights policy of the contract system, and are afraid to enter into any agreement with the Freedmen, lest in case of a difficulty with him he be hauled up before the Freedman's Court, and wronged by the partiality of an "Abolition Clique"

I endeavored to disabuse their minds of this

Transcription Notes:
first line spelling is to show the speaker's "Southern brogue" "and what that is here sir, are subsisting upon the charity of their former masters"