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order has been fully or properly carried out, and I respectfully recommend that the papers be returned to Capt Crandon as not being a compliance therewith.  A record of an investigation was, if only intended as preliminary, bofore a Freedman's Court, would show at least what claim was presented, and by whom, and would also aid the judgment if not afford ground for action.  At present the papers present nothing but a vague defence to a hypothetical claim of some imaginary person or persons: being a problem of three unknown quantities without any known, the solution of which is a touch above the undersigned.
Respectfully submitted,
Garrick Mallery
Lt Col. V.R.C.