Viewing page 111 of 326

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

file

Mr darky will do anything, that may be so, but I don't believe it General, if we have the right men in the right places, I am fully satisfied they can be controlled advantageously for I have tried it this year to see how far I could control the Freedmen by a Judicious course and have succeeded far more than I expected. I called them together during Christmas week, and made them a Speech, told them what we were willing to do, advised them how they had better act and in nothing contrary to your talk to them, told them how to avoid trouble, now and in the future, and urged many plain facts upon them many of which I know had the desired effect upon their minds, and a number of them have told me that my advise was true. I told them to take notice of everything I said and prove it by experience, that what I said to them was only as a private citizen, but was as well for their interest as my own, that we were all alike interested, that we must now learn to live together differently, that we would all be amenable to the Law if we violated the Law, and that each party must not look to the agent of the Freedmans Bureau to make the other do right, but that each one must learn to do his duty, regardless of any power save our mutual benefit. I purpose in the future to give my time manfully to the investigation and study of the new order of things, and give it a full trial, I now close these uninteresting themes to any but those placed in a similar position
I am sir
your obt servt
John E George

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-04-10 08:00:35