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Specification 3rd charge 1st I have to say a colored man did call to have his claim made out his discharge having been filed in the Bureau and entrusted to the care of Hildreth by whose want of care the discharge was missing from the office, I advised the man to make affadavit setting forth the facts as they were and charging Hildreth with losing the discharge.

To the 4th. Specification the window of a colored soldier from the Easter shore of Maryland called at the office for the purpose of giving the required evidence of her marriage bringing with her the widow of the minister who married her and two women who acted as her bridesmaids all of whom were present when the ceremony was performed. I was engaged with another case and directed Hildreth to take the testimony and draw up the necessary affadavit; when he asked if any church records were kept at the time they were married to which the widow of the minister replied that no public records were kept but that her husband might have taken a memorandum of the marriage on his private books all of which had been in an old trunk on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and I expressed it as my opinion that the evidence of these three women was better than the memorandum on the private book of the deceased minister.

To the 5th. specification I have to say that I did go with the man to F. P. Stevens and ascertained there, that the man had come to Stevens to have his state bounty collected and Mr. Stevens had given him his receipt for that of the Bureau, while he made inquiry at Annapolis if any bounty was due. In answer to specification 6th, All the persons sent for by me did not come on fools errands but had their claims properly