R[usell] L[ant] Carpenter to Frederick Douglass, March 20, 1865

Bridport March 20—

My dear M^r. Douglass,

I write to congratulate you on the rapid strides which the cause of freedom is making. I want to know how it affects your personally—In what way do you make a livelihood? Do you find remuneration [illegible] as a writer and a lecturer? Have you yet any job under government? I should like to see you employed by the new Department for Freedmen and Public Lands at Washington,

and yet anything in the red tape line would not suit you!

War, and the evils attending it, are to me so horrible, that they take away considerably from the rapture I should else put in emancipation. The miseries of many of the freedmen are heart-rending. However, there are redeeming features, and in some points of view, the mass of the efforts made for them are greater than could have been anticipated.

Your sons and son-in-law are, I hope, still safe and uninjured. I hope they will be able to carry on your work in the elevation of their people.

I send you an Inquirer, with a [leader?] of mine, which I hope to follow by others—You don't expect [direct?] appeals from me; so you will not be disappointed in what I say.—I hope that I have been the means of [illegible] some information on the great

questions at issue—Some of the things you have said in time past, have been against the government. If you have now a more favorable opinion, I shall hope to publish it. Unless any part of you letters are marked private or are obviously so as their nature, I take for granted that you have no objection to the publication of extracts which I think may be generally useful.

It seems a very long time since we heard from you—I suppose you have heard nothing of that letter, containing £5, which we sent you a year ago. The Bank made it good t me, on my signing a proper form. I was glad that the second remittance arrived safely

Ever very faithfully yours,

R L Carpenter