Saturday, March 25, 2017

Diary of 1st Lieutenant Lemuel A. Abbott: Tuesday, September 6, 1864

O, such a terrible day! Rain, wind, sleet and everything to make it gloomy. The Vermont troops have voted to-day as directed by the Governor. My Company (E) cast seven votes for the Republican candidate. The other men didn't know who the Democratic candidate was and so didn't vote. Nothing has disgusted me so since I left Vermont. I'm sadly disappointed politically, in my Company, but the men are good fighters and I like them. They seem devoted to me. It is disappointing, though, to have to send such a report to Vermont! It's mortifying! But I mustn't let the men know how I feel for it can't be helped now. It makes me feel queer, though, for my Republicanism is as staunch as the granite hill (the Bar re granite quarries) on which I was born. I am dazed at the result of the vote in Company E! I guess I'm in the wrong pew politically; very few democrats in Barre.

SOURCE: Lemuel Abijah Abbott, Personal Recollections and Civil War Diary, 1864, p. 144

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