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Bureau of R. F. & A. Lands,
Office Asst Sub Asst Com'r
Farmville Va. May 4th 1867.

Respectfully returned with the information that my opinion that in the within named case. - "The evidence did not clearly sustain the charge &c." was based upon the fact that in my judgment the record does not show any direct testimony connecting Joe Bell with the Burglary, and I do not now see anything in the testimony, as stated in the enclosed copy of the record, that justifies any substantial suspicion of guilt - excepting - that during the night in which the Burglary was committed, Joe Bell carried to the house of Samuel Thackston a quantity of lard in a tin fiskin. This, in connection with the conversations, which then and subsequently occurred between Joe Bell & his mother at Mr Thackston's, furnished the only ground upon which the suspicion of guilt, could be inferred, and which was admitted by the defense.

But the absence of direct testimony to the effect that the prisoner committed the Burglary - his crippled condition - and the failure of the prosecution to even identify the fiskin & lard as the fiskin & lard taken from Mr McGeehee, all combined to justify me in expressing the opinion "That the evidence did not clearly sustain the charge &c."

However, I am informed that the aforesaid Joe Bell has been pardoned by Govr Pierpoint, and is now at his house in this 

Jno W. Jordan
Bvt Lieut Col U.S.V.
Asst Sub Asst Comr.