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or in their immediate vicinity, many of them having located in villages having little or no land. I would respectfully recommend that all   in the list be set apart for the use of the Freedmen and Refugees.

The necessity of this is obvious, it protects colonization within the State as contemplated, but if the Freedman is to be governed by the same laws that govern free labor in the North, it will doubtless be better to give up some of these lands when confiscation shall have become more general throughout the State - and enough land can be obtained in each county for the use of the Freedmen belonging to the County. The Freedmen will doubtless succeed much better at or near their old homes until the time arrives when Capital shall locate itself and indicate to the laborer where his home shall be.

The lands improved by buildings located in towns are needed in part for teachers, as quarters. Those required for this purpose could be advantageously rented for the benefit of the Bureau.

I am General.
Very Respectfully 
Your Ob Servt
Sgd. O. Brown
Capt & A.Q.M.
Assistant Commissioner

Official 
J.A. Bates
Brvt Lt Col & A.A.A.G.

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(3) Norfolk Va.
June 6th 1865

Howard Maj Genl O.O.
Commissioner

General:
I enclose herewith an article cut from the "Old Dominion", our local paper of this morning. It appears to me that we have the remedy in such an iniquitous combination if we are allowed to take possession of all the confiscated lands we require and permit the negroes to work them on their own account. Can I, must I compel a man with a wife and perhaps half a dozen helpless children to work for five dollars per month except during the few days in harvest? It seems that Virginia Capital has already combined against the labor of its former slaves and the result of this action will be (if the article is to be believed) to reduce them to a more wretched and miserable condition than that of slavery.

Looking at the matter from another standpoint, it does not greatly improve in its appearance. A class of men that has done every thing in its power for the last four years to destroy the Govt, get together and fix the price of labor for other men that have been loyal, at so low a rate that they must see their children, if they have any, starve or become paupers, and this not under the protection of the State Government but under the protection of the Military power of the Federal Govt. 

If the citizens of Virginia are allowed to deal with the colored people in this manner I think they may truly be congratulated on being rid of slavery. It would have been a "sharp business operation" for them under the old regime to have had their negroes clothed, their Doctors bills paid and to have been cared for and boarded while sick at 5.12 = $60 per year.

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