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encourage when hell itself wont stop them. There is scarcely any be they white or black in this country who go unarmed. Throughout the country the colored nearly all go armed with either muskets, rifles or shot guns, when they hold their meetings. I have repeatedly cautioned them against such, but they say the whites have revolvers concealed and they carry theirs openly. Thus is the state of affairs in my Division.
Temperance is not looked to the colored man will have liquor as he will bread, and it will take years of hard work to break him from the use of spirits. Their ministers use it and therefore they use it.
Negroes are nearly all at work in my Division The crops are looking well and promise a better yeild than has been realized for some years before.
I am General,
With great respect
Your Ob'dt Servant
Henry K.W. Ayers,
A.S.A. Com'r &c

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-03-25 21:51:10