Camp E. Of Capitol, May 23, 1863.
E. wrote me an
account of your flag presentation and sent the speeches: I suppose the responsibility
of your own speech to follow prevented you from appreciating the Governor's
speech as he was delivering it — but, as read, it seems full of feeling and
sense, lofty sense and common sense — he is a trump.
Your regiment has
proved such an entire success — has given such good promise of taking a very
high place among our Massachusetts regiments — that it is easy to forget the
circumstances under which you took hold of it: I feel like telling you now, old
fellow (as an officer and outsider, and not as your friend and brother), how
very manly I thought it of you then to undertake the experiment.
When the First
Massachusetts Cavalry were at Hilton Head, they had far less illness (70 or 80
per cent less) than the regiments on the right and left of them. Dr. De Wolf
attributes this in great measure to the liberal use of quinine — every morning
from May 1st to August 30th every man who chose to come for it at sick-call got
a couple of grains of quinine in a drink (quantum sufficit) of
whiskey. I believe Mr. Forbes sent down at different times 60 pounds of
quinine. I mention this for Dr. Stone's1 benefit — though probably
you and he have already heard it. I do not fancy the blacks will suffer much,
but I advise you officers to take whiskey and quinine freely if you are in a
malarial region — it is not to be taken beforehand to prepare the system
against a time when you may be in an unhealthy camp; but when you go into a
malarial camp, commence taking it at once as a specific and direct antidote to
the malaria which you are taking.
_______________
1 Dr. Lincoln Ripley Stone, of Newton,
Massachusetts, was the surgeon of the Fifty-Fourth.
SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of
Charles Russell Lowell, p. 242-3, 418
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