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we have. I pay them up punctually every month. You know we are radicals like yourself and the friends of the colored people, so that we deal kindly with them. I hear, the Bureau is in the habit of sending servants northward free of transportation. If so, I will engage to pay their passage back to Washington, if they do not please us, or they are not pleased and want to go back, but I shall want them to contract for at least 6 months, if both parties are satisfied. I shall rely on your good judgment, General, in this thing, if you can serve me. Please let me hear from you, when [[strikethrough]] you [[strikethrough]] they can come, if you can get them for me. If the government will not send them to me free of expense I will pay their passage, of course, but I should prefer to save their passage. Sympathizing with you in your unpleasant position, which I trust will soon be changed, I am Faithfully Yr friend
 
W. G. Snethen

Maj. Gen O. O. Howard
Washn D.C.