Captain Charles Fessenden Morse, October 6, 1862

Maryland Heights, October 6, 1862.

Everything continues quiet with us. We have a nice camp and are beginning to make ourselves comfortable. I have a floor in my tent and a patent bedstead of Hogan's invention. Our mess gets on finely; we have plenty to eat and very good too. I know you will be pleased to feel that I am no longer in danger of starvation. You'd hardly believe we had suffered any hardships lately, to see us after dinner or supper, sitting or lying around my tent, enjoying our pipes and cigars, reading the papers or having a quiet discussion on some subject.

Last week, we had a visit from President Lincoln, accompanied by Generals Sumner and Howard and a large staff of other officers. He reviewed our regiment briefly, we receiving him with the customary honors. General Sumner paid our regiment the handsomest compliment that I have heard come from any officer of high rank. He said, in our hearing, to the President, “This is the Second Massachusetts Regiment, the first regiment that volunteered for the war. I have it on good authority, General Sedgwick, that it is the best regiment in the service.”

Such praise as this, coming from the source it does, is very pleasing. After the review, I was detailed (I suppose from my knowledge of the mountain paths and the fact that I had a horse), to guide the party to the summit of the Maryland Heights. I showed the way until we got to a path where it was right straight up, when Abraham backed out. I think it must have reminded him of a little story about a very steep place; at any rate, around they turned and went down the mountain. I gave “Uncle Abe” a few parting words of advice with regard to the general management of things, bade them farewell, and went back to camp.

I am afraid we have lost Colonel Andrews; he was detailed day before yesterday, to take command of a brigade of four new regiments; this is probably but an intermediate step before being commissioned Brigadier. Captain Cogswell is now in command; if neither Major Savage nor Captain Quincy ever come back, he will be Colonel, making Mudge Lieutenant-Colonel, and Russell, Major, and me second Captain, Curtis' old place on the left of the line.

Has the death of Major Sedgwick been spoken of in any of the Boston papers? You remember he was formerly a first Lieutenant in our regiment; he left us last autumn to go to his cousin's, General Sedgwick's, staff, where he was made Assistant Adjutant General and promoted to be Major. We have seen a good deal of him since we left Washington. He was one of the most interesting men in conversation I ever knew, full of stories and experiences of the Peninsular campaign, in which he took an active part, having been present at most of the principal battles. The night before Antietam, he was around at our bivouac. We were discussing the probabilities as to when Richmond would be taken; I made him a bet of a basket of champagne that it wouldn't be taken the 1st of January, 1863. This wager he accepted and registered in my pocket book and signed his name to it. The next day was the battle. General Sedgwick went into it with his division in Sumner's corps; Major Sedgwick received his wound in that terrible wood where our right wing suffered its heaviest loss. The bullet went through his body, grazing his backbone, instantly paralyzing the whole lower parts. He remained on the field two or three hours perfectly conscious, though suffering the worst pain. During this time he wrote several pages in his book, requests, etc. He was removed to Frederick, Maryland, where he died two or three days ago. He was only one among many, but he was one of the original “Second,” and a man I always liked very much.

I believe I have not told you about our old flag. Sergeant Lundy is color-bearer now (the old Crimean soldier of whom I sent the daguerreotype); he's a splendid fellow and plucky as can be; all through the action, he kept the flag up at full height, waving it to and fro. Well, on examination of it after the fight was over, we found twenty new bullet holes through the colors and three through the staff. The socket in which the butt rested was shot away close to the Sergeant's belt. Our old staff was shot in two at Cedar Mountain, and is now at home being mended. While I think of it, I must tell you of one most singular incident that happened the day of the battle. As we were advancing over one part of the field, which was pretty thickly covered by our dead and wounded, a man of Company F, Captain Mudge's company, suddenly came upon the dead body of his father, who was in the Twelfth Massachusetts Regiment and had been killed early in the day. It was a terrible meeting for father and son; they had not seen each other for over a year. The next day the son got permission to bury his father in a decent manner and put a head-board at his grave.

Have you made up your mind about the Emancipation Proclamation? At first, I was disposed to think that no change would be produced by it, but now, I believe its effect will be good. It is going to set us straight with foreign nations. It gives us a decided policy, and though the President carefully calls it nothing but a war measure, yet it is the beginning of a great reform and the first blow struck at the real, original cause of the war. No foreign nation can now support the South without openly countenancing slavery. The London Times, no doubt, will try to make out slavery a Divine Institution, but its influence does not extend everywhere. I think the course of that paper, since this war began, has been more outrageous than anything I ever knew of; you wouldn't think any paper could be so base as to say, as it has just said, that the President's Proclamation was published to produce a servile insurrection. It may have the effect to cause disturbances among the troops from the extreme Southern States, who will think, perhaps, that their presence is needed more at home than up in Virginia. There is no mistake about it, if the fact becomes generally known among the slaves of the South that they are free as soon as within our lines, there will be a much more general movement among them than there has been before. It is evident that Jeff Davis is frightened by it, to judge by the fearful threats of retaliation he is making.

Yesterday, Bob Shaw and I took a fine horseback ride of about twenty miles, visiting the vicinity of Antietam. Most of McClellan's army is encamped near there. We expected to find the First Massachusetts Cavalry, but they had moved up the river to Williamsport. My horse is in fine condition, now; she seemed to enjoy the exercise yesterday as much as I did.

SOURCE: Charles Fessenden Morse, Letters Written During the Civil War, 1861-1865, p. 95-9