![Transcription Center logo](/themes/custom/tc_theme/assets/image/logo.png)
This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.
Baltimore Md March 13th 1868 Brvt Brigadier General H. Brooks Asst. Commissioner Bureau Refugees Freedmen & A.L. General- Your letter of the 13th inst. directs me to furnish you with a statement of all the facts and circumstances which have come to my knowledge referring to certain charges preferred by C.W. Hildreth against Genl. E.M. Gregory and against myself and very respectfully submit the following statement correct to the best of my knowledge. The charges and specifications preferred against Genl. Gregory bear on their face ample testimony how deep a being can sink in crime from his insatiable desire of revenge. The charges are nothing but vile slanders. Because General Gregory relieved Hildreth from the charge of the claim division and reduced him to the clerkship he is trumping up complaints against a gentleman who kept him (Hildreth) in his position out of pity for his destitute family until forbearance ceased to be a virtue. When Genl Gregory required me to take charge of the claim branch he informed me that there was something wrong and the confusion in which I found the books and papers of which this Hildreth had charge prove how unworthy he was of the trust who signed himself on the official documents [[?]] of the claim division. I never heard Hildreth say to Genl. Gregory that a good responsible officer should be appointed to take charge as he says in specification 2nd charge 1st The labor performed by Hildreth during his administration a period of six months or more, appeared to me to be so trifling that an ordinary business man would have performed the same duties in a month. In response to charge 2nd specification 1st I would state that I often heard Genl. Gregory say to the claimants of State bounty that the Bureau could not collect these claims and he frequently recommended them