Saturday, March 28, 2015

Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to Josephine Shaw, June 22, 1863

Camp, June 22, 1863.

Lee is in earnest in some direction, and, within a month, I think we shall need all the troops we can raise, either to enable us to reap the full benefit of a victory or to lessen the disaster of a defeat. I am going to write to Governor Andrew that it is not enough for Massachusetts to be ahead in volunteering, ahead in coloured troops, and ahead in so many things, she must be ahead in conscribing, that is the example needed now, — conscription for old regiments, no more officers, only men: and in conscription, why should not Massachusetts set the example of no substitutes? She has already so many men ahead against the next draft, that the conscription will not be very severe, and why should not all go who are chosen?

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 263

No comments: