Showing posts with label Charles R Lowell Jr. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charles R Lowell Jr. Show all posts

Friday, April 10, 2015

Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to Josephine Shaw, July 9, 1863

July 9th (?).

What glorious news about Vicksburg! — and I am particularly glad to have that and Gettysburg come so near the 4th of July — a year ago on that day Jimmy died in a farmhouse on the battlefield of Glendale. The little fellow was very happy, — he thought the war would soon be over, that everything was going right, and that everybody was as high-minded and courageous as himself. For Mother's sake, I wish you had known him, — he was a good son and a pure and wise lover of his Country, — with Father and Mother, I shall never fill his place, nor in the Commonwealth either, I fear.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 275

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Captain Charles Russell Lowell to Anna Jackson Lowell, July 18, 1862

Harrison's Bar, July 18, 1862.

Your two last letters have told me more about Jimmy than I had learned from his friends here — they seem to bring me very near to him and also to you and Father — nearer than I might ever have been, had the little fellow lived. It is very pleasant to have had him with you so entirely last winter. I wish I had seen more of him on the Peninsula.

I think that the officers of his regiment feel his loss very much, for besides being a gallant officer, they all tell me he was a good one, which is much rarer—his noble behaviour after he received his wound has impressed them very much. George will tell you about this; — even Palfrey cannot speak of him without tears.1

Do, dear Mother, write to me a little oftener and try and help me to be a little more like what you saw me as a little child.

Your really loving Son.
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1 Major Higginson, in giving the Soldiers' Field, said of James Lowell: —

“One of them was first scholar in his class — thoughtful, kind, affectionate, gentle, full of solicitude about his companions and about his duties. He was wounded in a very early fight in the war, and after his recovery and a hard campaign on the Peninsula, was killed at Glendale.  . . . Hear his own words: When the Class meets, in years to come, and honours its statesmen and judges, its divines and doctors, let also the score who went to fight for their country be remembered, and let not those who never returned be forgotten.’ If you had known James Lowell, you would never have forgotten him.”

I add this account of James Lowell's parting from life, given by Professor Francis J. Child in the Harvard Memorial Biographies:

When our troops moved on, and orders came for all who could to fall in, he insisted on Patten's (his 2d lieutenant) leaving him.  . . . ‘I have written them all. Tell them how it was, Pat.’ The officers of his regiment who went to bid him farewell tell us that the grasp of his hand was warm and firm and his countenance smiling and happy. He desired that his father might be told that he was struck while dressing the line of his men. Besides this he had no message but ‘Good-bye.’ He expressed a wish that his sword might not fall into the enemy's hands — a wish that was faithfully attended to by Colonel Palfrey,2 through whose personal care it was preserved and sent home. . . .

“Two of our surgeons, who had been left with the wounded at the farm, were much impressed with his behaviour, and one of them told the Rebel officers to talk with him, if they wished to know how a Northern officer thought and felt. . . .

"While the soul of this noble young soldier was passing slowly away, his sister, who had for some time been serving as volunteer nurse on a hospital steamer, which was lying at Harrison's Bar on the James River, only a few miles off, heard of his dangerous wound, and tried every expedient to get to him, but without success.”

2 Francis Winthrop Palfrey, Colonel of the Twentieth Massachusetts Infantry, and later brevetted Brigadier-General U. S. V., a good soldier, and the author of the volume Antictam and Fredericksburg, No. V, in “Campaigns of the Civil War.”

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 221-2, 407-8

Monday, November 17, 2014

Captain Charles Russell Lowell III to Charles Russell Lowell Jr., January 23, 1862

Jan. 23, '62.

I don't know whether the newspapers, which have so many facts to telegraph, have said anything about the rainy, muddy thaw which has been the most important fact in the Army of the Potomac since the first of January. It is particularly hard on cavalry, encamped on a clay bank — the horse splashed with wet clay after three hours' drill is not a cheerful spectacle to the recruit who has to clean him — it opens his eyes to some of the advantages of infantry. Our fellows, however, are kept in spirits by the constant hope of an “advance” — an advance where, or upon what, they do not stop to think; the regular cavalry in the Army of the Potomac are brigaded together under General Cooke,1 and are all kept upon this side of the river: for more than three weeks they have had orders to be in readiness at a few hours' notice: but the country on the other side is so unfavourable to mounted troops, except in small bodies, as vedettes and patrols, that I am inclined to think these orders were only a ruse to deceive Congressmen, and perhaps to get into the papers, and so find their way to the rebels.

You will be glad to hear that the Colonel is sometimes pleased to compliment me, and has even talked of rearranging the squadrons so as to give me command of one — to get a squadron is the height of a Cavalry Captain's ambition. My chance for some time, however, is still a very slim one.
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1 Brigadier-General Philip St. George Cooke commanded, during the Peninsular Campaign (under General Stoneman, Chief of Cavalry), the Cavalry Reserve, consisting of Emory's and Blake's brigades. Major Laurence Williams then commanded the Sixth Cavalry.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 220-1, 406-7