Your letter came all right—& I was glad to hear from you, boy, & to know that you had got home to your own folks at last—& now I hope you will get well & strong again, dear son—& I hope it may be God's will that you will not only get so, but keep so.2 Armory Square hospital is broken up, & all the sick & wounded have been taken away, or forwarded home. I have not seen No. 6. in Ward C. that you speak of, but shall no doubt meet him soon, & that little matter is all right any how.3 Al, you was quite low, one time there in the Hospital—& the worst of it was you was down-hearted & homesick, & said nothing to any body—only when I came around, & we soon had quite a love toward each other, & no doubt that did you good—only I now regret that I did not do more for you, & come to see you oftener.
I am working now in the Attorney General's office. This is the place where the big southerners now come up to get pardoned—all the rich men & big officers of the reb army have to get special pardons, before they can buy or sell, or do any thing that will stand law—Sometimes there is a steady stream of them coming in here—old & young, men & women—some of the men are odd looking characters—I talk with them often, & find it very interesting to listen to their descriptions of things that have happened down south, & to how things are there now, &c. There are between 4 & 5000 pardons issued from this Office, but only about 200 have been signed by the President—The rest he is letting wait, till he gets good & ready—What I hear & see about Andrew Johnson, I think he is a good man—sometimes some of the letters he gets are sent over to this office to be answered—& occasionally that job falls to me—One of them was a letter a few days ago from a widow woman in Westfield, N Y. Her husband was in Texas when the war broke out, joined our army—& was killed by the rebels—they also confiscated his property in Texas, leaving his family helpless—this lady wrote to the President for aid, &c—I wrote the President's answer—telling her that she should have her husband's pension, which would be pretty good, as he was a captain—& that the rebs in Texas could not hold any such property, but that she could bring a suit & get it back, &c.—then put in a few words to cheer her up, &c.—
Dear son, I did not finish my letter because I have not been able to get the little picture of Lincoln & Washington4—but I succeeded in getting one this morning—I send it as a little present to my dear boy, & I hope it will please him, for there is something about it that is both pleasing & solemn to me, though but a small picture—We are having a cloudy drizzly day here & heavy mist—There is nothing very new or special—There was a big match played here yesterday between two base ball clubs, one from Philadelphia & the other a Washington club—& to-day another is to come off between a New York & the Philadelphia club I believe—thousands go to see them play5—
I keep well, & every body says I am getting fat & hearty—I live at the same place in M street, 468—only I have moved into the front room—it is pleasanter—I have my meals brought up to me—my landlady gives me very good grub, $32.50 a month—Well I must draw to a close, as the sheet is most full—When you write, to let me know how you are, & if you have rec'd this, direct to me, Attorney General's office, Washington D. C.
Now, Ally, I must bid you good by, & I send you my love, my darling boy, & also to your parents, for your sake—you must try to be a good young man & behave right & manly, for that is far more than worldly prosperity—Farewell, dear son,
Walt Whitman