CINCINNATI, May 23, 1861.
DEAR UNCLE:–I received yours of the 17th this morning, and am glad to know that your views as to finishing and furnishing the house correspond with our own. If I should not go away during the summer, I will, of course, visit you several times, and we can arrange all these matters. . . .
I suspect you do not like to commit yourself on my warlike designs. We have often observed, that on some questions, advice is never asked until one’s own purpose is fixed; so that the adviser is throwing away breath. Perhaps you think this is such a case, and perhaps you are right; but if the dispatches of this morning are correct, that the Government already has two hundred and twenty thousand men, and will accept no more, the question is settled.
It is raining again–disagreeable times for people in camp. I have not seen any Fremonters, but have written to Haynes ¹ to come and see me, with any of the men.
Sincerely,
R.B. HAYES.
S. BIRCHARD.
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¹ W. E. Haynes. Later a colonel. Long a prominent citizen of Fremont. Member of Congress, etc.