George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, March 11, 1863

11th March, 1863.

Not only has the reaction consumed itself, but it is of the greatest significance that the result is not due to a victory, but is a purely intellectual and moral recuperation. I have been very sure that, when the Democratic party found that they could not operate on the base of peace, they would hurry over to war, as McClellan from the Pamunkey to the James. But the movement shows that the strongest and most sagacious men of the party are its old Southern leaders. Jeff and his friends have known from the beginning that it was a war of ideas, which had exhausted compromise and had to fight. The Northern Democrats refuse to acknowledge the truth, but they are forced to act upon it, which comes practically to the same thing.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 164

Charles Eliot Norton to James Russell Lowell, December 19, 1861

The Albemarle, New York, December 19,1861.

. . . This is a wonderful city. It has greatly changed since you and I were here eighteen years ago. There is a special fitness in the first syllable of its name, for it is essentially New, and seems likely always to remain so. It is all of the New World, and what Villemain says of Joinville is true in another sense of the impression that a stranger receives from New York “On dirait que les objets sont nés dans le monde le jour où il les a vus.” The only old things here are yesterday's newspapers. People do not seem to live here, — they pass the nights and spend the days in the city, — that is all. The persons whom I meet in the street do not have, to my eyes, the air of belonging here, or of being at home. They look restless, and even the children have tired faces as if they had been seeing sights too long.

The New Yorkers have got Aladdin's lamp, and build palaces in a night. The city is gay, entertaining, full of costly things, — but its lavish spending does not result in magnificence, it is showy rather than fine, and its houses and churches and shops and carriages are expensive rather than beautiful. Architecture is not practised as a fine art, it is known here only as a name for the building trade.

Boston is farther off than it used to be from New York. We are provincials, with a very little city of our own. This is really metropolitan, and has great advantages. A few years hence and Boston will be a place of the past, with a good history no doubt, but New York will be alive. It seems to be getting what Paris has so much of,—a confidence in the immortality of the present moment. It does not care for past or future.

My windows look out on the junction of Broadway and Fifth Avenue, and there is not a livelier place in the world.

The news from England, I trust, is not so bad as it seems. The manner in which the country has received it is most satisfactory, — and there is apparently no reason to fear war as the result of any popular excitement here, or of any want of temper or discretion on the part of the Administration. It is a fortunate thing for us that Seward has regained so much of the public confidence. He will feel himself strong enough not to be passionate or violent. I cannot believe that the English ministry mean war, — if they do they will get it and its consequences.

How good the new number of the “Atlantic” is! I have read and re-read your letters in it, always with a fuller sense of the overflowing humour, wit and cleverness of them. You are as young, my boy, as you were in the old time. It seems to me indeed (you will take what I say for what it is worth, and of this you are a better judge than I am), that there is some risk from the very abundance of your power lest the popularity and effect of this new series of the "Biglow Papers" should not be as great as it ought to be. This letter of B. Sawin's is too full, and contains too much. I know that the necessity of the case forced you into details in order to place your characters on the stage in an intelligible way. But I am afraid that the public will be impatient of detail, and will complain of divided interest. It was this that prevented common readers from appreciating the delightful fun and humour of “Our Own.” The truth is that for popularity — that is, for wide, genuine, national popularity — there is need of unity of effect. One blow must be struck, not ten. Moreover our people are more in earnest now than they ever have been before, they are not in the vein for being amused by the most humorous touches of satire unless there be a simple, perfectly direct moral underneath. The conclusion to which I want to come is this, — that you must interrupt the series of Birdofredum's letters, by some shorter pieces of Hosea's own, the shorter the better if so be that they give expression and form to any one of the popular emotions or sentiments of the moment; — and more than this, that you should make them as lyrical and as strong as possible, binding the verses together with a taking refrain. The pieces in the old “Biglow Papers” that have become immortal are the lyrics; — the John P. Robinson; the Gen. Cass says some one's an ass; the Apostles rigged out in their swallow-tail coats, and so on.

Am I right? I believe so. And if I am, I am sure that you can do what I think should be done. You have a fine chance (me judice) at this moment to put the popular feeling toward England into verse which shall ring from one end of the country to the other. Do let Hosea do it, and send it with one of his brief old-fashioned letters to the publishers for the next number, — and keep back Birdofredum till March. If you hit the nail of the minute such a ringing blow on the head as you can hit it, all the people will cheer and laugh, and throw up their hats in your honour. I am so proud of you, and love you so well that I not only want you to do the best for the country but am sure that you can do it. And love gives me the precious right to write thus freely to you. . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 247-50

Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, December 5, 1861

Shady Hill, 5 December; Thursday evening.

. . . We are very serious over the President's Message. We think it very poor in style, manner and thought, — very wanting in pith, and exhibiting a mournful deficiency of strong feeling and of wise forecast in the President. This “no policy” system in regard to the conduct of the war and the treatment of the slavery question is extremely dangerous, and must at the best produce very unfortunate divisions of opinion and of action among the people; — it is truly a very sad thing to see each successive opportunity for great, decisive, right counsels thus thrown away and worse than lost. The chances of true success for us are diminishing with alarming rapidity. The Sibyl has burned three, — six, — seven — of her books. How many has she left to offer us? And shall we not have to pay more than we can get, for what are left? . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 246

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, February 14, 1863

February 14, '63.

General Burnside came to see mother a day or two since. He spoke with utmost respect and love of Joe. He said that he was one of the few officers that “rose” in the fight; that his coolness, valor, and sagacity kept pace; and that he would have been necessarily a distinguished officer. Dear boy! I see his calm, sweet, dead face, and I think of his lovely life, “wrapped sweet in his shroud, the hope of humanity not yet extinguished in him.”

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 162

Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, October 2, 1861

Newport, 2 October, 1861.

. . . I sent you yesterday a copy of de Vere's last volume of poems. There are some very charming things in it. He has genuine poetic sensibility, and with age he gains power of expression and depth of thought. In everything he writes he shows the refinement of his taste, the delicacy of his feeling, and his strong religious sentiment. He is greatly pleased with any expression of appreciation from America, and if you have a fit opportunity I wish you would say something of this volume in print. And if you should do so, please be sure to tell me, (for I do not always see “Harper's Monthly” and “Weekly”), that I may send it to him.

De Vere has taken from the beginning the most intelligent and sympathetic view of our great contest. I read you, I think, one of his letters about it; and in later letters he has expressed his convictions still more fully and warmly. Nor is this volume without the marks of his hearty interest in our struggle.

I have great faith in Fremont. But how painfully little we know! and how ungenerously that little is used against Fremont by the public generally in forming their opinion of his course! I earnestly hope that he may soon have a success which shall win back to him the popular confidence. Events prove Lincoln's modifications of his proclamation even more unfortunate than it at first seemed, — and even at first it seemed bad enough. In a fight so desperate as that which is now being waged in Missouri we have need of all our arms, — and Lincoln has compelled us to throw aside the most effective of them all, — he has spiked our gun of longest range. Have I before quoted to you Milton's sentence about those “who coming in the course of these affairs to have their share in great actions above the form of law or custom . . .  dispute precedents, forms, circumstances when the commonwealth nigh perishes for want of deeds in substance, done with just and faithful expedition?” “To these,” as he says, “I wish better instruction, and virtue equal to their calling.”

It is an unexampled experience that we are having now, and a striking development of the democratic principle, — of great historic deeds being accomplished, and moral principles working out their results, with out one great man to do the deeds or to manifest the principle in himself.

The fight in Kentucky seems to me one of the most important phases in the war. Her conduct for the past year has been so mean that she deserves the suffering that has come upon her; but in her borders we have now got slave-holders arrayed against slave-holders, and between them they will kill slavery in her limits. I hope you are wrong in thinking that we shall lose her, — though, if we do, I shall not much grieve, believing that every reverse of ours but makes our final success more certain, and gives to it a solid reality which would not be the result of an easy triumph. . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 242-4

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, February 6, 1863

February 6, 1863.

Why should Dr. Holmes trouble himself about the base of McClellan's brain? McClellan has nothing to do with all this McClellanization of the public mind. The reaction requires a small Democrat with great military prestige for its presidential candidate. The new programme, you know, is a new conservative party of Republicans and Democrats, and all mankind except Abolitionists. It will work, I think, for as a party we have broken down. I blame nobody. It was inevitable. The “Tribune,” through the well-meaning mistakes of Greeley, has been forced to take (in the public mind, which is the point) the position of W. Phillips, — the Union if possible, emancipation anyhow. As a practical political position that is not tenable. If, by any hocus-pocus, the war order of emancipation should be withdrawn, we should be lost forever, beyond McClellan's power, assisted by John Van Buren, the “Boston Courier” and “Post” and the “New York Herald,” to save us. There's nothing for us but to go forward and save all we can.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 161

Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, August 24, 1861

Newport, 24 August, 1861.

. . . I do not agree with you that the war is likely to be short. Its issue may soon become certain, but it will be long before we can lay down our arms. Nor am I ready yet to share in any gloomy prognostications. I believe the people will save the country and the government in spite of all the weakness and mismanagement and corruption at Washington. Nor am I afraid of the effect of another defeat, — if another should come. It will indeed bring to the surface an immense show of cowardice, and meanness; but we have no right yet to believe that the temper of our people is so low that it will not rise with the trial and [sic] of calamity. I bate nothing of heart or hope, and I grieve to think that you should ever feel out of heart or despondent. We have not yet more than begun to rouse ourselves; we are just bracing to the work; but we are setting to it at last in earnest.

The practical matter to be attended to at this moment seems to me to be the change in the Cabinet. A change must be made, — and it will be made, if not by the pressure now brought to bear, then by a popular revolution. We shall have public meetings of a kind to enforce their resolves in the course of a few days, if Cameron, Welles and Smith are not removed, or the best reason given for retaining them. Mr. Seward ought to understand that it is not safe for him that they should any longer remain in the Cabinet. If another reverse were to come and they still there, the whole Cabinet would have to go; — and then let Mr. Lincoln himself look out for a Committee of Safety. . . .

Let me hear from you again soon, — and above all do not begin to doubt our final success.

If the fortunes of war go against us, if all our domestic scoundrels give aid to the cause of the rebels, — we still shall not fail, and the issue will be even better than our hopes.

Most affectionately

Yours,

Charles E. N.

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 241-2

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, December 28, 1862

December 28, '62.

This will be a crucial week. The counter proclamation, the edict of emancipation, the opposition of Seymour & Co., and the mad desperation of the reaction, — all will not avail. The war must proceed, and to its natural result. Even Joseph Harper, the most Southern of the firm, said to me yesterday, “The negroes must be armed, and if Seymour does not support the war he will have no support.” Perhaps, if any possible way of settlement could be devised, there might be a strong party for it, but in deep water we must swim or drown. All our reverses, our despondence, our despairs, bring us to the inevitable issue: shall not the blacks strike for their freedom?

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 161

Charles Eliot Norton to Mrs. Gaskell, August 12, 1861

Newport, 12 August, 1861.

My Dear Mrs. Gaskell, —  . . . Your note came to me just at the time of a great sorrow in the sudden and terrible death of our dear friend Mrs. Longfellow. You have no doubt seen some notice of it. The fatal accident took place on one of our hot summer days in July. It was in the afternoon. She was with her two youngest little girls in the library, and having just cut the hair of one of them she was amusing them by sealing up some packets of the pretty curls. By some unexplained accident one of the wax tapers she was using set fire to her dress. It was of the lightest muslin, and the flame almost instantly spread beyond her power to extinguish it. Her first thought was to save her little girls from harm, and she fled from them into her husband's study, where he was lying asleep on a sofa. Hearing her call to him he sprang up, seized a rug from the floor, wrapped it round her and tried in vain to put out the fire. Before he could succeed the flames had done their work. She was taken upstairs, and the physicians were very soon with her. There was nothing to be done but to alleviate her suffering which for an hour or two was intense. She was rendered unconscious by ether, — and when its use was discontinued the suffering was over and did not return. Through the night she was perfectly calm, patient and gentle, all the lovely sweetness and elevation of her character showing itself in her looks and words. In the morning she lost consciousness and about eleven o'clock she died. Poor Longfellow had been very severely burned in trying to put out the flames, and for several days was in a state of great physical suffering and nervous prostration. I have never known any domestic calamity so sad and tragic as this. Of all happy homes theirs was in many respects the happiest. It was rich and delightful not only in outward prosperity but in intimate blessings. Those who loved them could not wish for them anything better than they had, for their happiness satisfied even the imagination.

Mrs. Longfellow was very beautiful, and her beauty was but the type of the loveliness and nobility of her character. She was a person whom everyone admired, and whom those who knew her well enough to love loved very deeply. There is nothing in her life that is not delightful to remember. There was no pause and no decline in her. It was but a very few days before her death that Lowell and I, as we came out from a morning party where we had met her, agreed that she had never been more beautiful or more charming. She had a fine stateliness and graciousness of manner. Reserved in expression, but always sweet and kind, it was only those who knew her well who knew how quick and deep and true her sympathies were, how poetic was her temperament, how pure and elevated her thoughts. Longfellow was worthy of such a wife.

Ever since I was a very little boy he has been one of our nearest friends, and for many years our lives have been closely connected with theirs. Their home is a little more than a mile from ours, but in affection they have been our nearest neighbours. It was a touching coincidence that her funeral took place on the eighteenth anniversary of her wedding day. Such a short time as it seemed! Such a happy time as it had been!

The next week we came to Newport, and here we have been living for the last four weeks very quietly, — save that I went to Cambridge a fortnight ago to see Longfellow. He was still confined to his bed, but his hands, which had been most badly burned, were becoming serviceable once more; and he was suffering more from feebleness than from pain. I have never seen any one who bore a great sorrow in a more simple and noble way. But he is very desolate, — and, however manfully and religiously he may bear up, his life must hereafter be desolate. I hope he may find happiness in his children; his three little girls are very dear and charming, and his two boys are just growing into young-manhood.

I have never known a private sorrow affect the community as this did. It went to the heart of every person, — and for a time even the pressing interest of our public affairs seemed remote. . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 238-41

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, December 15, 1862

New York, December 15, '62.

I am at my mother's, — a house of mourning. On Saturday afternoon my brother Joe fell dead at the head of his regiment, ending at twenty-six years a stainless life in the holiest cause and in the most heroic manner. God rest his noble soul, and grant us all the same fidelity! My mother, who has felt the extreme probability of the event from the beginning, is as brave as she can be; but it is a fearful blow. She does not regret his going, and she knew the risk, but who can know the pang until it comes?¹

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¹ Joseph Bridgham Curtis was born in Providence, R. I., October 25, 1836. Educated as a civil engineer at the Lawrence Scientific School, Cambridge, Mass., he entered the Union service at the outbreak of the war in 1861 as engineer on the staff of the Ninth Regiment of the New York State National Guard. On the organization of the Fourth Rhode Island Regiment, he was appointed Adjutant. He served with Burnside at Roanoke and in the Army of the Potomac. The regiment was cut to pieces at Antietam, and fell back in disorder. Lieutenant Curtis seized the colors, shouting, “I go back no further! What is left of the Fourth Rhode Island, form here!” But there was not enough left to form, and Curtis, for the rest of the day, fought as a private in an adjoining command. He was made Lieutenant-Colonel on the reorganization of the regiment, and was in command at Fredericksburg. He was instantly killed at the head of his men on the evening of the battle of December 13,1862.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 160-1

Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, July 26, 1861

Newport, 26 July, 1861.

. . . From the first I have looked on our defeat¹ in Virginia as a hard lesson, not as a disaster to be greatly regretted. It has taught us much. Instead of weakening confidence in our troops, the fight of last Sunday, in spite of its issue, will strengthen their faith in themselves. And in its effect on the public sentiment of the North it will be like the fall of Sumter. Everything that makes the attainment of our object in fighting more difficult, makes it at the same time more certain. Had we marched only to easy victory we might have had but half a triumph: now the triumph of our cause is likely to be complete. Nothing tears veils like cannon-shot, and the dullest eyes are beginning to see the real cause and the true remedy of our troubles. The emancipation of Virginia from slavery was finally settled, I think, last Sunday.

The New York papers, always excepting the “Evening Post,” go from bad to worse, the “Tribune” leading the rest. Fortunately none of them have much effect on public opinion, and they are losing most of what they may hitherto have possessed. “II y a quelqu'un qui a plus d'esprit que M. de Voltaire: c'est tout le monde.” The downfall of the fourth estate need not be wept over. . . .

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¹ At Bull Run.

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 237-8

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, December 10, 1862

Lowell, December 10, '62.

I had a very large audience this evening, and the lecture was admirably received. One man said, in the Cambridge vein, “He is a very dangerous man, he puts it so plausibly!” An American says so of the doctrine of the Declaration! You see there is work before us.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 160

Charles Eliot Norton to James Russell Lowell, July 21, 1861

Newport, 21 July, 1861.

Dearest James, —  . . . Newport is very pleasant, or perhaps I should better say, would be very pleasant were it not so far from you! It is quieter than usual this year, and the gay people are less extravagant in their display. As for the sea and the sky nothing new is to be said of them, — they are the same as ever. The hearts of the town's people are in the war. Nearly two hundred Newporters have gone to it, and Colonel Burnside is a Newport man. To-day everyone is anxious about the expected battle, — for the Newport troops are in the advance. I heard a story of the departure of the company which pleased me. It may not be literally correct, but this is what was told me. When Governor Sprague received from Washington the answer that his offer of a regiment was accepted, he at once sent out his requisitions to the captains of the various companies to assemble with their commands at Providence. The requisition reached Newport at six in the morning. Captain Tew, a fisherman, sent word to Providence that he would be there at two o'clock with fifty men. The news ran through the town, and when the company marched down to the boat there were not fifty but one hundred and fifty men in the ranks. Mr. Thayer of the Orthodox Church made a prayer upon the wharf; the whole town was there, silent and uncovered, but when the boat started the cheers broke out one after another. The company went without a flag, and it was resolved to send one to them. In a day or two it was made and sent to Providence, and presented with a speech and the usual formalities. When Captain Tew took it he said, “I thank you for this flag. I don't know how to make a speech. Let us pray.” So he made a prayer ending with words like these, “If we are successful, give us, O Lord, the spirit of moderation; if we be beaten, help us to stand firm unto death.”

And these are the men who are called names by the Southerners; who are supposed to be marching with Booty and Beauty on their banners; whom “la jeunesse doree” of Virginia and South Carolina would hardly touch with the points of their swords!

How well our Massachusetts First have done! It is a fine thing that Massachusetts men should again be foremost in the post of danger, and that Massachusetts blood should be the first shed in the advance of this great army of Freedom. Can we be too glad to belong to New England, to be her children, and to be living in these days?

Surely you will write some poem to give expression to the feeling and thought which is in the souls of the people. You wrote “Italy — 1859”! do write “America — 1861.” . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 235-7

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, October 6, 1862

North Shore, 6th October, 1862.

As for me and my chances, and the peace of the estimable Jane, — which is the only peace I care for just now, — they are in great peril! The “outs” in the county here have worked like beavers against me, who represent the “ins.” The free and native citizens of the island (especially those born trans mare) are resolved that a foreigner shall no longer carry the county in his fob. They beat me in going to Syracuse, and they have elected an anti-Curtis delegation to the Congressional Convention. There will be an unofficial delegation from this county which will urge me upon the Convention, and will say that I haven't the delegation because I refused to work for it. They will also say that I shall accept if nominated, although I do not think that the nominee will be elected. If they say what I have said to them — that for the right kind of a man I shall do exactly as I should for myself, they will probably secure another nomination, — because the convention will say: “Let us, then, have a candidate who will unite Richmond.” I should be very glad to be nominated, and gladder to be elected, but I have not taken the necessary steps.¹

I am going up to town this evening to dine with Colonel Raasloff and Count Piper and two or three more. The colonel goes to China immediately. I shall have to espouse the proclamation and make them like it, which they do not yet.

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¹ He was not nominated.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 159-60

Captain Charles Russell Lowell to Henry Lee Higginson, February 15, 1863

Readville, Feb. 15, '63.

My Dear Henry, — I wrote you last a most “quaintly moral” letter.  . . . I think public opinion here is getting stouter, more efforts are making to educate the great unthinking. Good editorials are reprinted and circulated gratis.¹ A club is now forming in Boston, a Union Club, to support the Government, irrespective of party, started by Ward, Forbes, Norton, Amos Lawrence, etc., etc. This seems to me a very promising scheme. Clubs have in all trying times been great levers for moving events along. A similar club has already been started in Philadelphia under equally good auspices.

Our black regiment is likely to provoke discussion also, and in that way, if no other, to do good. Bob Shaw comes as Colonel, to arrive to-morrow, and Pen Hallowell as Lieutenant-Colonel (been here some days).² I have no idea that they can get a full regiment in New England, but think they can get enough intelligent fellows here to make a cadre for one or more regiments to be raised down South. I do not know how much you may have thought upon the subject, and I may send you a few slips to show you how we feel. I am very much interested without being at all sanguine. I think it very good of Shaw (who is not at all a fanatic) to undertake the thing. The Governor will select, or let Shaw select, the best white officers he can find, letting it be understood that black men may be commissioned as soon as any are found who are superior to white officers who offer. The recruiting will be in good hands. In the Committee of consultation are Forbes and Lawrence;² in New York, Frank Shaw; in Philadelphia, Hallowell's brother. You see this is likely to be a success, if any black regiment can be a success. If it fails, we shall all feel that tout notre possible has been done. If it fails, it will at least sink from under our feet the lurking notion that we need not be in a hurry about doing our prettiest, because we can always fall back upon the slaves, if the worst comes to the worst. You remember last September, upon somewhat the same ground, we agreed in approving the Proclamation, however ill-timed and idle it seemed to us. We shall knuckle down to our work the sooner for it. My first battalion (five companies, 325 strong) leave on Thursday for Fort Monroe. The battalion from California will be here in March. We have only about 175 more men to get here to reach a minimum. Now that Stoneman is Chief of Cavalry, I think I can get where I want to, so you can see me before the end of the summer.

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¹ The New England Loyal Publication Society had this origin: —

Mr. John M. Forbes kept an eye on the newspapers or other publications, irrespective of party, for any strong and sensible paragraph, speech, or article advocating a vigorous prosecution of the war. In the midst of all his important public and private works, he had these copied and multiplied and sent, at his expense, all over the country, especially to local newspapers. When the work became too serious an undertaking for one man, he formed the society, which became an important and efficient agency, during the last three years of the war, for the spreading of sound doctrines in politics and finance. Party and personal issues were excluded. Mr. Charles Eliot Norton took charge of the work as editor, and James B. Thayer, Esq., was the secretary. The Executive Committee were J. M. Forbes, President; William Endicott, Treasurer; C. E. Norton, J. B. Thayer, Edward Atkinson, Martin Brimmer, Rev. E. E. Hale, Henry B. Rogers, Professor W. B. Rogers, Samuel G. Ward.

² Readville, near Boston, was then the principal camp of assembly and instruction, and the Second Massachusetts Cavalry and the Fifty-Fourth Infantry were camped side by side. The latter was the first coloured regiment that went to the war from New England. It was regarded as a dangerous and doubtful experiment, — by some persons as a wicked one. Part of the men were obtained in Massachusetts, but a great number of them from Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, by the energy and patriotism of Major George L. Stearns. Braving much hostile public opinion and ridicule, the field officers of the regiment, and many of the line, left white regiments to make the Fifty-Fourth a success.

The Colonel, Robert Gould Shaw, had served with credit in the Second Massachusetts Infantry; the Lieutenant-Colonel, Norwood Penrose Hallowell, a gallant fighter of Quaker stock, had already served in the Twentieth regiment, and later became Colonel of the Fifty-Fifth, while his brother Edward succeeded him as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fifty-Fourth.

Major Higginson in his address, at the dedication of the Soldiers' Field, said of Robert Shaw: —

“I first saw him one evening in our first camp at Brook Farm — a beautiful, sunny-haired, blue-eyed boy, gay and droll and winning in his ways. In those early days of camp life, we fellows were a bit homesick, and longed for the company of girls . . . and I fell in love with this boy, and have not fallen out yet. He was of a very simple and manly nature — steadfast and affectionate, human to the last degree, without much ambition, except to do his plain duty. You should have seen Robert Shaw as he, with his chosen officers, led away from Boston his black men of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts amid the cheers of his townsmen. Presently he took them up to the assault of Fort Wagner, and was buried with them there in the trench.”

³ Of the summer of 1862, Mr. Forbes wrote in his notes: —

“In that summer I had the satisfaction of getting up the Committee of a Hundred for promoting the use of blacks as soldiers, and acted as chairman of it.

“We raised, I think, about $100,000 by subscription among the most conservative Republicans.  . . . I was able to do something towards the choice of the right officers, as well as in raising the men.”

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 234-6, 414-5

Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, June 16, 1861

Shady Hill, 16 June, 1861.

. . . Here at home we are all well, — and leading such tranquil lives that the contrast between them and the labours, anxieties, and sorrows of the war, is brought very strikingly home to our hearts. I know you must have felt very deeply the death of Theodore Winthrop. The loss of such men as he makes us feel how heavy a price the country has to pay for the support of the principles that are at stake. It is sad that he should have fallen so early in the struggle, and in such fulness of life. But no lover of his country, of liberty or of peace, would desire to change the manner of his death. Few men in our days have been happy enough to be called to die for a principle, or for their country's sake. There is real glory and joy in dying while doing good service in this war.

I am told that Winthrop's article, which is to appear in the “Atlantic” this week is as full of spirit and manliness as the one that came out last month. But with what a solemn commentary will it be read.

Our regiments enlisted for the war are going off one after another. The best of them is Gordon's,1 — so called from its colonel who is a West Pointer. It is officered throughout by gentlemen, and its ranks are full of fine fellows. But, I forget, you know all about it, and your hearts will follow it and go with it wherever it goes. . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 234-5

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, September 25, 1862

North Shore, 25th September, '62.

My Dear Charles, — I hoped to hear from you, for I knew you would say what I felt.

Coming at this moment, when we were in the gravest peril from Northern treachery, the proclamation clears the air like a northwest wind. We know now exactly where we are. There are now none but slavery and anti-slavery men in the country. The fence is knocked over, and straddling is impossible.

Now, if my friends nominate me for Congress, I shall accept. Success I should like, but I don't count upon it. I should stump the district and sow the seed.

When I think of Wilder Dwight and the brave victims, my joy is very sober. How the country will be filled with mourning as our victory goes on! For victory it must be now. We heard of Bob¹ through Dr. Stone. They were both in the thick of the fight and escaped unhurt. You saw the account of our brave Joe. Think of the service these soldiers of less than two years have seen! I saw a banner of Sickles's brigade. It has been in ten battles!

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¹ Robert Gould Shaw.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 158-9

Charles Eliot Norton to Arthur H. Clough, May 27, 1861

Shady Hill, 27 May, 1861.

. . . My last letter to you was written a day or two before the fall of Fort Sumter. Since then I have wished over and over again that you were here, that you might have seen and taken part in the magnificent popular movement of these days.

As events have turned out nothing could have been more fortunate than the bombardment of the fort, and the lowering of the national flag before the force of a rebellious State. The guns of South Carolina battered down a great deal more than the walls of the fort, — party divisions and prejudices, personal interests, private or social differences, all fell before them. The whole Northern people was heartily united, and there was but one feeling and one will among them all. It was not that their passions were aroused, or that they were seized with the sudden contagion of a short-lived popular excitement, — but all their self-respect, their intelligent and conservative love of order, government, and law, all their instinctive love of liberty, and their sense of responsibility for the safety of the blessings of freedom and of popular government, were stirred to their very depth. The question at issue was put so plainly by the Charleston guns that no man in the Free States could hesitate as to the answer. . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 234

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, August 11, 1862

Naushon Island,¹ 11th August, 1862.

My Dear Charles, — Here we have been for a week to-morrow, and in the salt sea air we all seem to be perfectly well. It is only about thirty miles from the southern point of Rhode Island, so I breathe my native Narragansett air and am electrified. The island is about eight miles long and one or two broad. It is beautifully broken, with superb beechwoods rising and opening into bare uplands, from which you see the ocean or Vineyard Sound, and again opening into sunny, grassy nooks and spaces with clusters of shrubs in which the deer lie or feed. Day before yesterday we started a pair of magnificent bucks. The paths and dells are endless. From the house you have a sea horizon and the entire sky, with woods almost to the horizon, and holding azure crescents of sea (as in " Maud ") in their tops. The house is immense, the life simple, the hospitality unbounded. To-day the governor and three of his suite are here, beside ourselves and three or four other visitors. There are riding, driving, rowing, sailing, shooting, fishing, billiards, dancing, — what you will. You join the doers, or you go apart and do nothing or mind your own business. Mrs. Forbes is incessantly working on preserves and comforts for the soldiers, and we all pull lint at intervals. I have been reading here Tocqueville's “Ancien Régime.” It is very calm and wise.

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1 The summer residence of Mr. John M. Forbes.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 157-8

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, August 3, 1862

North Shore, Sunday, 3d August, ’62.

It is not easy to say who is responsible for this extremity. I do not blame any one man; the difficulty is ultimately in the nation, but a good deal must be shouldered by those who so attacked McClellan that he became the centre of party combinations. I think that he must soon retire from his command, for the faith of his own army is leaving him. Yet I think that history will record that he was a faithful and devoted citizen and soldier, and that, if he was unequal to his task and did not know it, it was an ignorance he shared with the most accomplished of our military men, and with the mass of the people.

The country seems to me to be making up its mind whether it will own itself beaten. But I do not lose heart, although in events there is little to encourage. I cannot believe that a people which has shown itself so singularly ready to learn what to do and how to think will fail in this crisis. If the government continues to move as fast as the nation, all is saved. I don't know whether I think it will or not.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 156-7