The book has come apart.

Holderness says he saw the book when its sewing had come apart.

Some leaves fell out.

He says he picked some of them up from the floor and put them in the book.

He does not say where in the book he put them, whether he knew their order, or whether every leaf was recovered.

How does the source make the book reachable?

Holderness says Ward kept his books and papers on a table in his public room, free for anyone who chose to turn them over and inspect them. He says he frequently looked over the registration book.

Calvin H. Howell separately says he examined the book to see whether his own name was enrolled. He found erased names and leaves torn out. Ward explained the erasures as consensual withdrawals by people who had decided to go west; Howell heard no explanation for the torn leaves.

Under cross-examination, Howell says his name had been placed on Ward's register. He describes himself as a white man who had headed a Choctaw family at the treaty date and claimed one and a half sections under Article XIV. Because he understood there was no difficulty with his own right, he declared himself outside the controversy.

Howell's statement earns a registered-name and self-described claimant state, not an adjudicated entitlement, completed location, or patent. His observation remains separate from Holderness's event: it does not identify the leaves Holderness handled or place that handling in the agency's public room.

Where else does the book go?

John W. Byrn says that while attending to business at the agency he found the registration book upstairs in a box of pears, already tattered and full of blots. He says it was afterwards thrown about the house. Byrn admits tearing part of its cover to wipe his razor and says he thought Gabriel Long tore some leaves. After a great sleet, the book was picked up on the back piazza wet and frozen, then taken to the fire and thawed.

The deposition identifies Byrn as high sheriff of Lowndes County. Byrn also describes earlier service as commissary at Dancing Rabbit Creek, work valuing and selling Choctaw cattle, and later agency work as commissary and contractor. His account places his business and discovery of the book at the agency; it does not name the room in which he tore the cover.

Byrn's account earns a spatial and material sequence and a public-role relation. It does not date each movement, prove that Long tore particular leaves, convert Byrn's admitted act into a finding of official misconduct, or connect this damage to the leaves Holderness later handled.

Holderness discloses a land-sale position in the larger Article XIV controversy.

In the same deposition he says he had opposed the reservation locations and wanted public-land sales to continue. He also describes buying three and one-half sections with Samuel Ragsdale for $3,500 cash after sales were stopped.

That disclosed interest travels with his testimony. It does not prove that his handling of the leaves was improper or that he altered the register.

The registration failure was not merely hypothetical.

The report says Hancock stated that the leaf carrying his registration was lost. The committee found that his name had been entered, but was not returned to the War Department through accident or mistake.

It then assigns the consequence: failure to locate the reservation was “wholly the fault of the agents of the United States”; the agent had neglected to return Hancock's name.

When Hancock sought repair, the Department directed the locating agent to inquire of Ward. The locating agent then said he would accept proof of registration only from Ward, because Ward was the witness named in his instructions.

The Hancock case is independent. It does not establish that Holderness handled Hancock's leaf, or that any Bell, McKinney, or other claimant disappeared because of the leaves Holderness saw.

The remedy took six more years.

In 1842, Congress authorized Jubal B. Hancock and his children William M., Mary M., and Caroline D. to enter 1,440 acres from eligible public lands in Mississippi. The act says their treaty land had been “improperly located” by George W. Martin, the United States locating agent, and that they had been deprived of it by the Secretary of War's decision.

The act authorizes substitute entry and directs patents after entry certificates. It does not establish that the family completed the entry or received those patents. Those are later land-office states.