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enough of moral courage to face that Gorgon Public Opinion.

It is possible that the animus of the cadets is no better than that of the students of the college, but, if so, their discipline is good, for I have as yet seen no manifestation of their hatred or ill manners while, on the contrary, the students have, during the holy days, and on previous occasions, vented their spleen on one in shouts, hisses, and the most opprobrious language. Whenever I appeared in the street, the day before Christmas, the air would ring with shouts of "damned Yankee!" "Bureau!" "damned Freedmans Bureau"! and one young man meeting me as I was quietly returning from my office to my face called me a "damned Yankee son of a bitch!"- and made demonstrations as though he intended to strike me. This insult I could not resent as the fellow was drunk, and was led away from me by his friends. The truth is that in most of these cases of abuse the parties perpetrating it were drunk but then we know that when men are drunk "from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh."

I must also say that several citizens of the town have expressed to me their disapprobation of such conduct.

Excuse this detail of personal experience. It may appear like egotism, but my object in giving it is to show how readily a bureau agent here may confront the indignities he may receive in his own person with the general relations existing between the white citizens and the freedmen of the county, and in this way insensibly allow his individual feelings to prejudice his judgment, a mistake against which I shall endeavor to guard myself. 

The Freedmans school in Lexington is well conducted

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-03-08 15:54:54 I debated whether the first word of line 9 is "sing" or "ring," but compare the first letter of that word with the first letter of "receive" and "relations" on line 24. based on that comparison, I believe the word is indeed "ring" ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-03-10 18:02:12