Headquarters Stevens' Div.
9th Army Corps, Newport News,
Aug. 2d, 1862.
My dear Mother:
As General Burnside's Corps is being transferred to other
scenes, and as our turn to go on shipboard will come to-morrow, I take this
opportunity to inform you of our intended change of Camp. I cannot tell you
where I am going. I hope and think we are to join Pope. So soon as we shall
have arrived at our destination, I will let you know. I fear a letter or two
may be lost, but hope not.
The Governor of Connecticut made a most excellent
appointment in Wm. Ely to the Colonelcy of the 18th R. C. V. Cool, decided,
brave, enterprising and experienced, he will fill that position with honor to
himself and to his native State. —— —— will
find he has made a great mistake if he has entered this new Regiment with a
view to playing a high-handed insubordinate part. There are ways of bringing
fractious officers and soldiers to a sense of duty now, that were quite unknown
at the time of the three months' service. The news in the papers of yesterday
relative to drafting if the contingents are not filled by Aug. 15th, if true,
must occasion quite a panic in the North. I am glad of it. This bounty business
is simply disgusting. If there is so much spare money to be thrown away, it is
better that it should be given to those who have borne the burden and heat of
the day, than to those who enter at the eleventh hour. It speaks badly for the
patriotism of the North, if the bribes must be increased now to induce men to serve
their country in the hour of its extremest peril. I say it is a poor system,
and believe in the draft — the rich to serve with their wealth, the poor with
their muscle, and the patriotic of both classes the best way that lies in their
power. Bythe-way, I enclose for your album a capital likeness of Col.
Farnsworth, of the 79th Regt.
SOURCE: William Chittenden Lusk, Editor, War Letters
of William Thompson Lusk, p. 171-2
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