Boston, May 19,1862.
Hon. Edwin M. Stanton,
Secretary of War, Washington, D.
C.:
Sir, — I have this moment received a telegram in these
words, viz: —
The Secretary of War desires to know
how soon you can raise and organize three or four more infantry regiments and
have them ready to be forwarded here to be armed and equipped. Please answer
immediately and state the number you can raise.
L. Thomas, Adjutant-General.
A call so sudden and unforewarned finds me without materials
for an intelligent reply. Our young men are all preoccupied by other views.
Still, if a real call for three regiments is made I believe we can raise them
in forty days. The arms and equipments would need to be furnished here. Our
people have never marched without them. They go into camp while forming into
regiments and are drilled and practised with arms and march as soldiers. To
attempt the other course would dampen enthusiasm and make the men feel that
they were not soldiers, but a mob. Again, if our people feel that they are
going into the South to help fight rebels, who will kill and destroy them by
all the means known to savages, as well as civilized man; will deceive them by
fraudulent flags of truce and lying pretences (as they did the Massachusetts
boys at Williamsburg), will use their negro slaves against them, both as
laborers and as fighting men, while they themselves must never “fire at an enemy's magazine” I
think that they will feel that the draft is heavy on their patriotism.
But, if the President will sustain General Hunter,1
recognize all men, even black men, as legally capable of that loyalty
the blacks are waiting to manifest, and let them fight, with God and human
nature on their side, the roads will swarm if need be with multitudes whom
New England would pour out to obey your call.
Always ready to do
my utmost, I remain most faithfully,
Your obedient servant,
John A. Andrew.
____________________
1 Lincoln's
proclamation, cancelling Hunter's, bears the same date with this letter of
Andrew's, May 19.
SOURCE: Henry Greenleaf Pearson, The Life of John A.
Andrew: Governor of Massachusetts, 1861-1865, Volume 2, p. 11-13
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