Viewing page 258 of 262

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

present benefit of friendliness than the prospective danger of a Radical majority. The meetings which have been held at several places in Augusta Co. have been attended by a respectable "outside" sprinkling of whites and no interruption has anywhere occurred. The Freedmen are moderate in their ideas but to a man insist upon such legislation as will secure their present rights in the time to come. 

In Highland Co. the Freedmen are few and will not take any step towards organization or public assertion of their rights- and from the character and expression of the citizens as seen & heard by me at Court held at Monterey they could gain nothing by any association- The Freedmen left in that County are however generally well treated now- as the citizens find they leave at once if any undue pressure is brought to bear against them. In both counties I have labored personally to instruct them in their rights by meetings (public) in the evenings so as not to interfere with work on the farms and 

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-03-16 10:16:21