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CHARLES R. DOUGLASS TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS
Washington, D.C.1Charles’s letter was written on stationery with the following printed letterhead: “war department / bureau refugees, freedmen, and abandoned lands / office general superintendent schools.” 2 January 1869.
DEAR FATHER:
I wish you a “Happy New Year,” and a long and prosperous life.
The holidays are over without anything remarkable transpiring in my family other than sickness. I have never before experienced such a dull Christmas and New Years. Libbie2Mary Elizabeth “Libbie” Murphy Douglass. has been sick for nearly a month with a poisoned face, but now she is fast recovering.
The Bureau is supposed to be closed3From a peak of 901 employees in 1868, the Freedmen’s Bureau shrank to 158 employees the following year. Despite reduced federal appropriations, Commissioner O. O. Howard managed to keep the organization in operation until it was officially disbanded on 1 July 1872. EAAH, 2: 65–69. but such is not the case as the Educational Department will be continued perhaps for two or three years, and I am happy to say that the Gen[era]l. Supt. recommends no reduction of <the> clerical force in this office. I have worked pretty hard during the last six months both in and out of the office, and should I live to see the beginning of another new year I hope to be able to spend it happier than the past.
Will you be here on the 13th inst to attend the Natl. Colored Convention?4The National Convention of Colored Men was held at the Union League Hall and Israel Church in Washington, D.C., on 13–14 January 1869. This was the first truly national black convention; strong delegations from southern and border states were among the 160 attendees. Douglass was selected the gathering’s president, George T. Downing chaired its business committee, and George B. Vashon wrote the meeting’s public address. The primary goal of the convention was to lobby Congress and the incoming president, Ulysses S. Grant, to pass the Fifteenth Amendment, which would grant suffrage to African American men in all states. Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 4: xxvi; Washington Daily Morning Chronicle, 14–16, 18 January 1869; NASS, 23, 30 January 1869; Hugh Davis, “We Will Be Satisfied with Nothing Less”: The African American Struggle for Equal Rights in the North during Reconstruction (Ithaca, N.Y., 2011), 63–64. The best men we have are expected here on that occasion.
I have a copy of your list of appointments for the West,5Among the stops on Douglass’s lecture tour of the Midwest in the late winter of 1869 were Mozart Hall in Cincinnati, 8 February; Lincoln Hall in Danville, Illinois, 16 February; Rouse’s Hall in Peoria, Illinois, 22 February; the Athenaeum, Dubuque, Iowa, 1 March 1869; the Opera House in St. Paul, Minnesota, 13 March; and the Opera House in Minneapolis, 13 March. Douglass usually delivered his lecture “William the Silent,” which received very mixed reviews in the press. Danville (Ill.) Commercial, 11 February 1869; Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, 11 February 1869; Alton (Ill.) Daily Democrat, 12 February 1869; Peoria (Ill.) Daily Transcript, 17 February 1869; Danville (Ill.) Times, 20 February 1869; Dubuque (Iowa) Daily Times, 2 March 1869; St. Paul (Minn.) Daily Pioneer, 9, 10, 12 March 1869; Minneapolis Tribune, 11, 14 March 1869; Fremont (Ohio) Weekly Journal, 9 April 1869. and I will occasionally drop you a line.
I have strong hopes of securing a position for Fred as soon as Grant is inaugurated.
I have begun to teach night school at my house for adults, and have eight or ten students at 50¢ per month.
As soon as I can secure 30 or 40 pupils Gen[era]l. Howard6O. O. Howard. will allow me free use of the Bureau school-house which is only a short distance from my house.
Little Chas. Fredk7Charles Frederick Douglass. grows finely, and is very fond of music. He will listen to anything he hears sung, and then will hum the tune as correctly as any body. He will also try to repeat some of the words. He is altogether a bright boy & promises to be very smart.
Hoping this finds you well, and with love to mother, and the family[.] I am affectionately,
Your Son.
CHAS. R. DOUGLASS
ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 2, frames 422–23, FD Papers, DLC.
