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Galveston, Sept. 20th 1866.

Maj. Gen. Kiddoo
Asst Com.r Bureau Freedmen &c
Galveston, Texas.

Sir,
On my return from Houston this morning, I learned that my Agent, Frank C. Easton, had during my absence, yesterday, employed a Freedman, aged about 25 years, to drive my horse in a light wagon, ordinarily used in aid of my surveying party, his yesterday occupied in part in removing earth from the intersection of Avenue M and 13th Sts, where it was an obstruction, to the alley in the rear of lot No. 11, Block No. 133, where it was needed to fill a low place, over which I was  about to transport a house: That after dinner the freedman, then employed as driver, named Fortune Jones, reported to my Agent that a neighbor had forbid his to remove any more earth, for which he had taken six light, one horse loads; That the Agent directed the driver to return to his work and that if questioned to say that he was working under the instructions of the City Engineer; That at three P.M. the driver was brought to the Harrison Livery Stable near the Catholic Church, where my horses are kept, with the horse and wagon, by one Harman Martin, Deputy to the City Marshall, who left the horse, and took to driver to jail, contrary to the earnest advice of L. Armfield, Foreman of the Stable, who assured the said Depy. Marshall that the driver was acting under orders given by my Agent in his presence, the said Dep. M. asserting that he had the Mayor's order to put him in jail; That the said Negro was still in jail, despite all the efforts of my Agent to procure his release, he having applied to the Sheriff of the County, who has charge of the County Jail, to the jailer, to the Mayor's Secretary, who is also a Justice of the Peace, and visited the Mayor's house, all without success; so that the poor Negro laid in jail till 8 A.M. today, without any accommodation but one poor meal, when he was brought to the Mayor's Office, where I met him, and found him arraigned before Recorder Jno. S. Jones, who, upon a statement of facts as here presented,