Centreville, Virginia, Sept. 14, 1863.
My Dear Henry,
— I was glad to see your fist on an envelope some weeks ago. I ought to have
written you sooner, but it is so infernally quiet here now that to get together
material for a letter is a labour.
I am glad, old fellow, to hear that your wound is at length
convalescent. It would have been a bore to carry a ball in it all your life,
with a chance of its giving you a twinge any minute. . . .
You ask me no end of questions about the army. As if we take
interest in the army. We are an independent, fancy department, whereof I
command the cavalry, and we take no interest in wars or rumours of wars.
I have seen men who profess to be going to and from the “front,” — but
where is the “front”? We are in the “front” whenever General Halleck has
an officer's application for leave to endorse. Stanton is so fond of us,
however, that he keeps us on the safe “front” — the “front” nearest Washington, whereby I am
debarred from the rightful command of a brigade of five regiments in Gregg's
division, which Gregg offered me, and which he applied for me to take, my own
regiment being one of the five. But Stanton is very fond of us, and
keeps us where it is safe.1
. . . I hope you will be kept at home until next January,
for between now and then I mean to be married (if President Lincoln and General
Lee do not interfere), and I shall be glad to have your countenance, so do not
let your wound heal itself too rapidly. What do you hear from Frank? Give him
my love, when you write. Tell him I gave him myself as a sample to be avoided,
and I now give him Rob Shaw as a pattern to be followed. I am glad Frank
remained in that regiment. It is historic. The Second Massachusetts Cavalry and
some others are more mythic. . . .
About coloured regiments, I feel thus, — I am very glad at any
time to take hold of them, if I can do more than any other available man in
any place. I will not offer myself or apply for a place looking
to immediate or probable promotion. If one goes into the black business he must
go to stay. It will not end by the war. It will open a career, or at any rate
give experience which will, inevitably almost, consign a man to ten or twenty
years' hard labour in Government employ, it seems to me. Since Shaw's death I
have had a personal feeling in the matter to see black troops made a success; a
success which would justify the use (or sacrifice) made of them at Wagner.
Do you know the President is almost ready to exchange your
brother Jim, and leave Cabot (it might have been Frank just as well) in prison
at Charleston, after all the promises that have been made by the officers of
the Administration? This is disgraceful beyond endurance almost.2
_______________
1 The Government and Major-General Heintzelman,
commanding the Department of Washington, fully appreciated the advantage of
having so efficient a cavalry commander and well disciplined a force in the
neighbourhood. But they had to resist other competitors, for, besides the
desires of General Gregg to have Lowell and his regiment in the Army of the
Potomac, another general repeatedly importuned the War Department for them.
Major-General N. P. Banks (Department of the Gulf), in his report to General
Halleck, March 27, 1863, speaking of his need of cavalry, says: —
“I
feel especially the loss of the Second Massachusetts Cavalry, raised expressly
for my expedition; for, besides its strength, I relied upon Colonel Lowell to
infuse the necessary vigour into the whole cavalry service.”
Again, April 18, 1863, General Banks sends the following message
to Major-General Halleck: —
“I beg leave, at the risk of being
considered importunate, to repeat my earnest request that more cavalry be sent
to this department. . . . If you will
send me the Second Massachusetts Cavalry, raised expressly for my command, with
their arms and equipments, I will mount them here from the horses captured on
this expedition. Its commander, Colonel Lowell, is personally nearly as
important to us as his regiment."
As late as September, General Banks was still pleading for
the cavalry. General Halleck answered: “In regard to Colonel Lowell's regiment,
I need simply to mention the fact that it is the only one we have for scouts
and pickets in front of Washington.”
2 The officers here spoken of are
Captain James J. Higginson, of the First Massachusetts Cavalry (who was
captured in the fight at Aldie, where his brother, the Major, was wounded), and
Captain Francis Lee Higginson, his younger brother, and Captain Cabot J.
Russel, both of the Fifty-Fourth. As has been said, Captain Russel's family
were not sure of his death. When the news of the raising of coloured troops was
heard in the South, it had been threatened that captured privates should be
sold to slavery and the officers treated as felons. This threat was not carried
out, but difficulties arose about exchanges; and in this matter, and that of
their payment, the course of the Administration and of Congress was for a long
time timid and discreditable.
SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of
Charles Russell Lowell, p. 302-4, 443-4
