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make them have the place; but they still live there, under a few boards placed on the ground, forming a kind of shed, near the few vegitables &c they have raised. I told these poor creatures I could do them no good, but if they knew they had been wronged they must apply to the nearest magistrate to them. Shortly after, they returned and told me that they had called on Mr Thos. H. Bernard, presiding Justice of the County, when, on simply letting him that I had sent them to him; he became very angry, and remarked, that I had nothing to do with him; or he with me; that he had nothing to do with your kind anyhow, and he would have nothing to do with any one who had anything to do with them; that I was placed here to attend to the "niggers" and if they, the two white women, pleased to place themselves on a level with the niggers, he would do nothing for them, and they must go to me. I have my convictions as to the propriety of the conduct of these women, but there seems a great tendency here to crush down the very poor class of whites. Several complaints have been made to me by defenseless white women, of foul wrongs, by which, during the rebelion, they were defrauded of their little all, while their husbands perhaps forced into the army, had been killed, and no visible means of support left to them.

One old white man on the edge of Floyd Co. had three sons in the army. One was killed in action; & the other two having deserted were hunted down by certain citizens in the County (because it is said, of certain acts of depredation they were in the habit of committing) and mercilessly shot; two of their own cousins being the most violent against them; one of them stepping up, and with a pistol killing one of the deserters, after he had

Transcription Notes:
3.2.2024 - Transcribed per guidelines (spelling transcribed as is) and marking for review