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Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen & Aban'd Lands.
OFFICE SUPERINTENDENT 1ST DIST.. VA.,
Norfolk, Va., Jan 20th 1866.

Colonel;

I have found several cases in the Isle of Wight County, since I wrote you, where the Freedmen had been contracted out against their will, for little or nothing, by one Gray, former sheriff of the County. I have given Lieut McDaniels full instructions on the subject. These cases could not be found by Lieut Dowd as they were in the outskirts of the County, some 17 miles from the centre. It appears this Gray has been operating in the outskirts of several of the counties, claiming that the "Yankees," as he calls the officers of this Bureau authorized him to do so. His method of procedure, was to get a parcel of the citizens to go with him to a house and filling out one of our Blank Contracts for just what he was a mind, to compel the Freedmen to sign, saying "if they had not made up their minds, he would make it up for them, and with threats make them touch the pen, when he made the crop. I went to the Captain in command of this Post, for men to assist my officers in setting 
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