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LaGrange Prince William County Virginia
Genl. Auger, Head as I understand, or rather as Rumour reports (for it is not being in my power to pay the subscription for and then portage of a newspaper, all the information I get is Rumour and as far as my knowledge extends of the Freedmens Bureau I infer that all matters in which the freedmen are concerned is under your Control and that it is in your power to provide for the indigent of them, last Oct: I called upon a Gentleman at my Court House who I understood was an assistant to you, He admitted he was and that he would pass through my Region of the County and give his attention to all Cases that required it; this I suppose he failed to do, as I have heard nothing of him since except that he had to leave Brentsville (My County Seat) soon after, in consequence of a mutinany of the men station there under him, amongst themselves, or against him. Subsequently, Say the first week in last month (the first Monday in every month is our County Court day) I addressed a written note to the United States officers in charge or command at Brentsville that if the United States was doing anything to keep alive and in existence, the Colored Women and children it had freed, there could not be a stronger claim on the Government than existed on my premises! I call the Land I held and owned at the Commencement of the War, mine, because I have Conformed to the Presidents Proclamation of the 29th May 1865, by taken the Amnesty Oath, he provided for us all and of course gave up My Slaves and all Claims to them. Though the number I Considered myself entitled to, when Genl. Lee surrendered the Southern States, and people to the United States, was not less than forty, till then as I have since, I used everything I have received for the use of my Lands, in feeding those who remained here and have come back here. All the young men (I mean my slaves that were) left me me in March 1862. Fourteen in number all but one raised by myself except one and not one of them over forty years old and not more than three over