Covington, Kentucky
15th March 1861

Dear Cousin

Your last letter of February 6th duly to hand. I enclose with this 2 photographs of myself and the doctor which we hope will please you. We sent recently to England 13 of the same sort to our Sisters.

Business is at a stand still in the States and political matters at fever heat, nothing particular has happened since Lincoln's inauguration, the government have in contemplation to abandon Fort Sumter. I think myself it will be a good policy as the Secessionists will then have nobody to fight - I had only returned from a 3 weeks cruize in Tennessee & Northern Kentucky when your last letter arrived - Feeling in those States is much stirred up, tho' the Union men have the day as yet.

I am now clerking with Farrell & Fry in Cincti in the produce and Commerce [?] business and shall stick to it - it is a line of business I have wished for some time to get into. If the present administration avoids a collision, except they are attacked, I think secession will be as dead as a hammer in 9 months. Memphis already feels the beneficial effects of the new tariffs in the Confederate Southern States; goods being shipped there in large quantities to be smuggled over the border into Ala., Miss., Fld. The South has been purchasing largely from Ohio of breadstuffs for which they have to pay cash. If they should get to fighting I shall mussle [hustle?] somewhere, perhaps over the mountains to California.

The doctor desires his affectionate greeting to you and Walter. Did I understand you to say in your last letter that you preferred to see a Cint. paper to a New York - if so I shall send you one.

Excuse haste - I am scrawling this in a hurry from the office in Cinti. and am on the fast line as I have some customers waiting. No news recently from London. With every friendly wish,

Believe me

Yours very truly

Charles Manfred