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State of California----Executive Department

Sacramento, May 25 1862

My Dear Mother.

While mourning our common loss my heart overflows with sympathy for your bereavement. We alll of us talk daily of our mother and of her lowly condition. It is a great consolation to know that Charles is so near you. We feel confident that his affection will do all that is possible to cheer and lighten the burthen of your sorrows.

With the death of our dear father has departed a great part of the sun shine of existence. My hopes and ambitions have been so much associated with the idea of his gratification and approval that there seems to be a great and dreary blank where there was always joy and gladness

His death was to us sudden and at this time unexpected. We had