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WAR DEPARTMENT
BUREAU OF REFUGEES, FREEDMEN, AND ABANDONED LANDS,
Office of Chief Medical Officer,
Washington, July 14, 1868

General,

From the tenor of your endorsement of the 13th upon Dr. De Lamater's letter of July 3rd forwarded to your office with my endorsement of July 9, I fear that both you and the Commissioner may possibly have misapprehended my views as to the transfer of the colored dependents now in Bureau hospitals to the care of civil authorities.

I am far from advocating, or wishing, an immediate and indiscriminate closure of our hospitals, with the expectation that the civil authorities would then be obliged to look after and care for the pauper patients. That would be an unreasonable and criminal act. But what I do wish, is, for the Bureau officers to convince themselves that the change must be made, and then vigorously set to work to convince the State