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personal application to you at Columbia with proper proof of identity (see blank forms of affidavit of identity), should such course be preferable to the delay in awaiting payment at a possibly more convenient point to be visited on your tour of payments, with such letter of advice should be furnished a blank for of affidavit of identity for proper execution.

As by Joint Resolution of March 29, 1867 it is required that payment to claimants shall be made to them in person in current funds, it will be necessary that you shall obtain, at Columbia, currency for your checks drawn on the Assistant Treasurer at Charleston, and you will ascertain and report to this office whether currency can be so obtained without discount.

You will be entitled to and paid mileage, for which you will render the proper vouchers to the Chief Disbursing Officer of the Freedmens Branch of this office.

Very respectfully, your obt. svt.
E.D. Townsend
Adjutant General

Transcription Notes:
During the Civil War, Townsend was the acting Adjutant General of The Army. As the principal executive officer of the War Department, working closely with President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, it was under Townsends' signature that orders originated from the War Department.