February 7, 1863.
. . . Emerson and Thoreau are oftener in my mind, in connection with this camp life and these people, than any other writers I know. While I am constantly studying how to keep these men well, or to alleviate their sufferings, they as constantly fill me with something higher than a feeling of philanthropy, a sort of oriental sympathy, outreaching the wants of the body. Gen. Saxton has said that these people are “intensely human,” and I will add that I find them intensely divine. It is, however, more difficult to call out the divine than the human. The blessings resulting from freedom will wash away the accursed stains of slavery and all the world will see that these are also children of God. They have a boundless conception of the divine spirit and an intense trust in the fatherhood of God. . . . It is true, they will commit almost as many sins as their white neighbors, but I am speaking now of the religious element and leaving the moral to be controlled by culture. . . .
Keeping our men below so long on the John Adams destroyed more lives than the rifle shots would have done. It seemed a choice of evils and the least apparent was chosen. But the return of sunshine will help restore the sick.
SOURCE: Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume 43, October, 1909—June, 1910: February 1910. p. 358
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