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1866. will have been made, & the hardest of the work regarding new Contracts got through, I have not been absent from my office at all, except upon official business connected with this Bureau.
There are stationed at this Post ostensibly two Companies of the 17th U.S. Infty, the number of men however present will not much (if any) exceede one Company 
These in my opinion are quite sufficient.

I am at present unable to give any information regarding the working of the "Apprentice Law", the "Vagrant Law" & the "Labor Law" passed during the last session of the State Legislature.

You ask if (in my opinion) the Civil Authorities would protect & give the Freedpeople justice, if the Troop were removed, my answer is most emphatically no, they would not, I am quite satisfied that if the Troops were removed & the Bureau abolished, that the Freedpeople in this neighborhood would be in a worse condition, than when Slaves, as they were even then protected by their owners to some degree, but as Freedpeople no one takes any interest in them, except to get all they possibly can out of them, In fact without the protection of the U.S. Government they would be in a worse condition then a Dog without a master; this I think is pretty clearly demonstrated