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of course you are not to blame, it is a hardship, that no one foresaw, & was no ones duty to prevent, and now it is too late.  I have stated the substance, & almost literally the language I used, & have qualified no objectionable expression by omission or otherwise.  I think a large majority of these animals were in the hands of landless persons, white & black; some were in possession of women, having no husbands,- but families of children.  A poor old horse or mule made to many such, all the difference, in the future, between wealth & poverty, between comfort & want.  They had been finding these animals from their pittances of corn, worth here $2.00 per bushel, & corn fodder worth $2. per hundred.  I suppose the animals issued by Capt. Garoutte at Raleigh were of the same (their) worthless character, as I believe that Q.Ms. were only authorized to issue unserviceable ones.  I cannot pretend to quote what Capt. G. said, which in part or rather mainly drew out my remarks, in explanation of my views, nor do I suffer it of any consequence to do so.  There were perhaps from six to ten or twelve persons within hearing of our conversation on the sidewalk.  If any freedman or poor whit people heard what I said, I doubt not they approved my news - any horse speculators who may have heard them, perhaps did not.  I had expressed substantially the same, Colonel, in a letter I had the honor to write you on the same subject a few days before, without any idea I might be insidiously