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Bureau Refugees, Freedmen & Abandoned Lands
Office Asst. Superin Sub Dist No 8. 7th Dist Va.
Lexington, Va Feb. 28th 1867

Brvt. Brig. Genl. O. Brown A.A.G.

General

In accordance with Special Order No 10 Head Quarters Asst. Commissioner State of Virginia dated Richmond Va 1866, I have the honor to make the following Report of Freedmens affairs in this Sub-District for the month of February.

The reciprocal feelings and general relations of the Whites and Blacks continue as represented in my Report for the last January.

The number of Freedmen lounging about the streets of Lexington has however decreased during the month and the most of them are going to work with a better will than I had anticipated, but I find that, in many cases, the men who have gone to the country to work have rented rooms in town for their wives and children, paying from five to ten dollars per month rent when each one could have gotten a house and garden in the country free of rent, and from three to six dollars per month with boarding for their wives, provided these latter would have worked

But the women generally have an invincible repugnance to learning the towns and villages where they have plenty of acquaintances and can go gadding about at their pleasure and hate the restraint that a life of service in the county imposes.  The mischief resulting from their folly does not end with the keeping their husbands