eople, and will not allow them to
build a school-house on it.

STATEMENT OF FLOYD SNELSON.

Floyd Snelson, foreman of the hands employed by the Government in the
National Cemetery, Andersonville, Georgia, says:

"That in July, 1868, after the work was suspended in the cemetery,
and the Lieutenant in charge had gone to Marietta, Georgia, and the
schools for the freedmen were closed, and the teachers had left for
the North, Mr. B. B. Dikes notified all the colored people who
occupied buildings on the land now claimed by him, formerly
occupied by the Confederate Government, in connection with the
Andersonville prison, that they must get out of their buildings
within four days, or he would have them put out by the Sheriff, and
they would have the cost to pay. Nearly all of these men had been
in the employ of the Government, at work in the National Cemetery,
many of them from the commencement of this work after the
surrender. They all occupied these buildings by permission of the
officer in charge of the cemetery, by whom they were employed. Many
of them had built these houses at their own expense, and cleared,
fenced, and cultivated gardens of from one to four acres, which
were covered with corn, potatoes, and other vegetables, which, with
their houses, they were required to leave without any compensation.
Including these laborers and their families, about two hundred
persons occupied these buildings. On account of the great
difficulty of getting homes for so many on such short notice, most
of these colored people applied to Mr. Dikes for the priviledge of
occupying their houses and paying rent, either in money or a part
of the crops that they were growing. But he refused, and said they
could not stay on any terms. On the day appointed by Mr. Dikes,
(Wednesday, July 29th, 1868,) the most of the white people in from
six to ten miles around, appeared in Andersonville, with their
arms, and Mr. Souber, the magistrate of the district, and Mr.
Raiford, the Sheriff of the county, accompanied by a party of some
twenty-six or thirty armed white men, went to the houses of all
these people, (except a very few who had vacated their premises,)
and threw all their furniture, and provisions of every kind, out of
doors. They then nailed up the doors of all their cabins, on the