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Freedmen now in jail at Brazonia awaiting trial for murder.  One for killing an old Mexican, the other for causing the death of a freedman by beating him on the head with a club.   

I attended court during four days of the term, and witnessed the trial of seven or eight freedmen.

Those not able to employ a lawyer were assigned counsel, who defended their clients with considerable zeal and in three instances with success.

The parties sent to the penitentiary were convicted almost solely upon negro testimony.  The testimony of freedpersons was admitted in the cases of several white men charged with adultery.  In my opinion the civil authorities are disposed to render justice to the freedmen.

But still the freedpeople need the guardianship of the Freedmans Bureau to operate as a moral influence upon those who are disposed to defraud and injure them, and who will do their utmost to prevent justice being rendered them in civil action.  

In my opinion troops are not required here, in order to enforce a compliance with the Civil Rights Bill.  But the freedpeople, would not, strictly speaking, be secure in all the nights granted them by that Bill, were government protection to be entirely