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After the fall of Richmond my regiment lay a short time on the South Side Railroad at Black's & White's Station.

There I had frequent interviews with the planters about the condition of the freedmen and their future prospects and treatment.

I also conversed freely with the colored people and learned of their treatment, and their disposition to labor if fairly dealt with.

The one great evil was the want of confidence, on the part of the freedmen, in the good will of the former masters; this feeling having been very naturally produced by the ill treatment a large percent of them had received.

For instance, I could not induce a servant woman with three children, to return to her former master and agree to work for him - and he a Baptist Clergyman, on account of the cruelties his wife had practiced toward her. She shrewdly declaring that she would again be abused and she would have no way to protect herself; thus showing that she knew well the character of these petty female tyrants of the South.

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