Viewing page 288 of 309

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[stamp]] correspondence [illegible] [[/stamp]]

Grimes County March 8th /66

My Dear Genl, 
On yesterday I concluded to ride down and spend the day with your son, and to ride with him over his plantation, to see the progress of his farming; I returned home with the conviction that I had never seen the McAlpine plantation in such beautiful order. 1600 acres are now ready for the seed. He has already planted his corn and will commence planting cotton on Monday. Nearly every one are through with their corn planting; I have never known the Country so forward with their work; The freedmen as a general thing so far as I can learn, are beating the calculations of every one. 

I have had however a great rush of business for the last three weeks; Freedmen from a distance are now coming in complaining of non payment. How strange it is that so many men are not willing to do by others as they would wish to be done by, yet it is so. Tomorrow (Saturday) there will be before me come 34 complainants. I intend to award them every dollar that the evidence will warrant.

Genl I have adopted the plan of bringing both the citizen & the freedmen to their oath, in their statements before me; I find I elicit the whole truth by this method. Please say to Capt Moore that I have failed in making my monthly reports to him, from the fact of