Chattanoog Tenn. Oct 6th 1865
Capt.– I have the honor to forward to you the following information which I recd. to day from Gen'l: Spears of Pikeville Bledsoe County Tenn.– He states that the pooer class of whites in Sequache Vally are very bitter toward the freedmen and punish them severely– They have ordered all of the Black's to leave the Valley– Their reason for so doing is, because the orriginal owners of the slaves are leasing them lands and the white laboring class is bitterly opposed to it. The men enter the houses of the freedmen and rob them of their money and clothing. The genl states that protection will have to be granted to the freedmen in some shape. He also states that the home-guards there are the worst enemies the freedmen have– He will keep me posted in regard to the matter I think of going up there next week I will report the state of things as soon as I return. Very Respectfully Your Obt Servt
N. B. Lucas
Capt N. B. Lucas to Capt W. T. Clark, 6 Oct. 1865, L-54 1865, Registered Letters Received, series 3379, TN Assistant Commissioner, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, & Abandoned Lands, Record Group 105, National Archives. Lucas signed as an officer in the 18th U.S. Colored Infantry as well as Freedmen's Bureau superintendent. No reply has been found in the assistant commissioner's letters-sent volumes. It is not known whether Lucas followed through on his plan to visit the Sequatchie Valley; no report of such a trip has been found in the letters-sent volume of his office or among the letters received by the assistant commissioner.
Published in Land and Labor, 1865, pp. 716–17.