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by the Civil Courts, no matter how good the judges, how faithful the Sheriffs, or how honest other magistrates may be, Bad men will manage, some way or other, to clear themselves & friends, be the case against them ever so strong You cannot possibly believe the extent of the immunity which has protected crime, there has not been a criminal conviction in the County in twelve months, but our conviction for a capital crime (horse stealing) are ten years, & God knows that there is no other region in these United States, so cursed with crime, so filled with lawless men, who have done their lawless acts so unblushingly as in this North-Eastern Texas
I have been writing of crimes against white citizens, & it is unnecessary to say that the freedmen are in much greater peril, it would really seem that the blacks are still in servitude, & indeed they are, the servitude of fear. There have been innumerable cases of outrage, from murder, down to simple assaults reported to me since my arrival, so far a payment for labor is concerned; the freedmen are almost universally cheated out of their wages, the fact is true of their whole district. 
There is to my mind but one remedy for this difficulty, & that as follows, place Counties of Fannin, Hunt, Lamar, Hopkins, Red River, Titus, Bowie & Davis under Martial Law, Place in command of this Dist some such man as Gen Oakes, & good results will speedily follow, Let this be done & every good citizen will rejoice at it & every loyal citizen will thank God that the Gov't has at last taken the matter in hand with the determination that the present state of affairs shall continue no longer.
The loyal men whom I have met in this section have but one cry, "protect us, show us & the bad men among