WAR DEPARTMENT,

Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands,

Washington, May 9^th 1867.

Dear Father

I received your letter dated at Chillicothe Ohio yesterday. I am at last installed in my new position. I was officially appointed on the 9^th of April and to day I have rec^d. my first hundred dollars for my one month service. I am boarding now at what is called cheap rates viz. $25.00 per month. House rent here is very high, the cheapest way to live here is to get a small lot on the outskirts of the city and build a little house, this is the opinion of all here. The clerks in these Departments have organized a building Association, whereby they get property cheap by making contracts with builders for a number of houses. I propose to make this place my home hereafter. I can get along better here than in Rochester and have more rights, for next year I will become a voter here. Gen^l. Howard is very well pleased with me thus far and I mean to keep on his right side if possible. My business mostly is corresponding with offices of the

bureau and also private writing for Gen^l. Howard, he comes in now and then and dictates a letter to some of his personal friends and I write it. I have a splendid desk and a comfortable chair, in my room is Lieut. Sladen the Gen^ls private Secretary, and a Mr. Owen chief clerk of the Bureau, all perfect gentlemen and very radical. In the building there are over thirty clerks. If you think well of it, and would invest about $1800 in a small and good house giving me a chance to pay for it, it would lessen my expenses almost one half. I can purchase a lot here for about $800 and have a very good house built for $1000. Twenty five dollars per month for one is too much to pay for board and only two meals a day, and still that is the cheapest board you can get here of any account. The weather here for the last few days has been very stormy. I have plenty of leisure time here as office hours are from 9 A.M. until 4 P.M.

Maj. Saxton who is on duty here, and is a brother to Maj. Gen. Saxton, has asked me if I would procure your autograph for him. I told him that I would. Love to Mother, Libbie, and all

Aff. Yr. Son

Charles R. Douglass