John M. Forbes to Parke Godwin*, June 23, 1862

Boston, June 23,1862.

My Dear Sir, — . . . The “New Bedford Mercury,” under its new management, is getting to be quite a live paper. I wish as much could be said for our administration, which seems to be carrying a millstone about its neck in its dread of the border States and of “Hunkerism” generally. I believe to-day that the old Union Democrats, and even the true men of the border States, are ahead of Lincoln upon this question of hitting the rebels hard — with the negro or any other club. It is strange when a rattlesnake is attacking us that we should be so delicate about the stick we hit him with!

I look with much anxiety to our operations in South Carolina. Beauregard's army, on its way from Corinth, passes directly by Charleston. Our force is ridiculously small for attack, the Key West troops included — if they can get there. Our negro brigade amounts to nothing until trained. We need prompt reinforcement there, or we shall have another blow half struck, or possibly a recoil there.

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* Editor of The New York Evening Post.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 314-5