How dreadful it is to see our best boys of all the State,
slain, bleeding, worn out by ditching, bridging, dirt digging, and wheeling,
and by guarding the property of rebels who, with their very slaves, are in the
war against us; — and the cold, people not allowed to lighten the toil. Now —
is not a "nigger" who is good enough to fire grape, cannon and rifle
shot into the ranks of a Bunker Hill regiment good enough to fight traitors?
That is my only question. Before God I believe we are doomed unless we will
awake to reason. — But I am a follower—not a leader. I will work with the
energy of despair even if I am shorn of the buoyancy of Hope. And I must
perhaps be allowed — as Todd1
— in my letters to Mr. Stanton [to] make a humble suggestion, sometimes.
— You know the old proverb that “A cat may look at a king.”
_______________
1 Governor Tod of Ohio.
SOURCE: Henry Greenleaf Pearson, The Life of John A.
Andrew: Governor of Massachusetts, 1861-1865, Volume 2, p. 23-4
No comments:
Post a Comment