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their contract, a provision containing there in.

In addition to his force I was compelled to hire a number of other hands, and gathered from my cotton field (four hundred acres) 135 bales.  my corn, for want of ability to save it, I was forced to sell, as it stood in the field, to the Qr Master of Gen. Custers Division, then stationed at Hampstead.

As the final settlement I paid the negroes for the months of July & August five dollars per month for men & three for women and children, coin, I settled these amts, for the reason that during those months very little was required to be done, as the crops being "laid by", and not in condition to be gathered; At this settlement I refused to pay five hands (if I remember correctly) any thing for the reason of their having flagrantly broken their contract;  I was actuated in this not by the amt of money, but because of the principle involved, and its effect upon future contracts.

Walter L. Mann