Unknown to John Milton, February 8, 1864

Respectfully returned to Honorable Secretary of War.

Maj. P. W. White, chief commissary of subsistence, Florida, has been called on to investigate the allegations against the purchasing officer and agents of the Bureau, and to take immediate steps to remedy the evils if found to exist.

L. B. NORTHROP, Commissary-General.

CALHOUN County, Fua., December 20, 1868.

Right Hon. JoHN MILTON, Governor of Florida:

My Dear FRIEND: After my best respects to you as my friend and chief justice of the State of Florida, I avail myself of this opportunity of writing to you a few lines to ascertain if it is law for these ”pressmen” to take the cows from the soldiers’ families and leave them to starve. Colonel Coker has just left my house with a drove for Marianna of about 200 or 300 head. Some of my neighbors went after him and begged him to give them their milch cows, which he, Mr. Coker, refused to do, and took them on. And now, my dear Governor, I assure you, on the honor of a gentleman, that to my knowledge there are soldiers’ families in my neighborhood that the last head of cattle have been taken from them and drove off, and unless this pressing of cows is stopped speedily there won’t be a cow left in Calhoun County. I know of several soldiers’ families in this county that haven’t had one grain of corn in the last three weeks, nor any likelihood of their getting any in the next three months; their few cows taken away and they left to starve; their husbands slain on the battlefield at Chattanooga. This is a true state of things in my county; I vouch for them as an honest man. Now, if this is law I should be glad to know it, so I could know how to act by the law, for I have had a different notion of the law; and as a sound man, I think this pressing of all the cattle will have a bad end, in my judgment, and I am not all that think so. I think if it could be stopped it would have a good effect on this part of the community. I should be obliged to you if you feel a freedom to write me on this subject soon, as I look upon procrastination as the great thief of time.

your obedient servant,