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Office Asst Supt Freedmen 
Princess Anne and Nansemond,
Norfolk Oct 9th 1865
Respectfully returned to Capt A. S. Flagg A Q M Supt &c with report. I have seen complainant Jolly Hudson who in presence of witnesses says he did not authorize the writin of the letter to make the statement begining "Believing from evidence &c" to the end of the letter. No Genl Hicks has been here. Hudson admits that permission to cultivate the land eminated from me, through his wife, he at the time being sick, that he made no attempt to find me or lay any complaint against Dr White before me. That he does not know the name of the man who wrote the letter, but that he is a friend and intimate of Wm J Hodges (colored) a Baptist preacher, but a worthless mischievous, incendiary character, and the hand writing of the Hudson letter being the same as that of one signed "Howard F Stien" written September 8th /65 to Major Genl. Howard I am satisfied that Hodges is the principal in both communications, the object of which is plainly to create a false impression - the cause - my refusal to allow him to be self constituted head of Schools at Deep Creek - to which refusal I was impelled by full knowledge of the man (Hodges) whose bad character has been reported in writing by me to Col. O Brown Asst Comm &c. Dr White was a disloyal absentee, but I am not informed as to his position in the Rebel Army

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-01-16 05:56:05 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-01-16 09:36:27 To learn more about William J Hodges, see https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/hodges-william-johnson-d-1872/