Samuel Gridley Howe to Henry Wilson, May 12, 1858

Boston, May 12, 1858.

Dear Sir, — I have just received your letter of the 9th. I understand perfectly your meaning. No countenance has been given to Brown for any operations outside of Kansas by the Kansas Committee. I had occasion, a few days ago, to send him an earnest message from some of his friends here, urging him to go at once to Kansas and take part in the coming election, and throw the weight of his influence on the side of the right. There is in Washington a disappointed and malicious man, working with all the activity which hate and revenge can inspire, to harm Brown, and to cast odium upon the friends of Kansas in Massachusetts. You probably know him. He has been to Mr. Seward. Mr. Hale, also, can tell you something about him. God speed the right!

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 462

Edward Everett Hale to Charles Hale, August 8, 1862

But Abraham's draft is universally well received and has hurried up the volunteering at once. When it is filled, nearly half our military population in Massachusetts will be under arms. . . . Gov. Andrew is sentimentally opposed to a regular draft, a very absurd opposition. I think there are already evidences that he means to call out the volunteer militia for nine months, instead of bravely taking by lot his 15,000 men.

SOURCE: Edward Everett Hale Jr., The Life and Letters of Edward Everett Hale, Volume 1, p. 330-1

Edward Everett Hale to Charles Hale, August 5, 1862

August 5th, 1862.

Old Abe has called out 300,000 men by draft, and has informed us that if the 300,000 volunteers do not appear by the 15th he will draft for them. This is as it should be — if he had put his figure higher it would have been better. The act giving him power was run through just in the heel of the session. The old theories of war are exploded, which spoke of people's staying at home and sending a few wretches to do the fighting. For if everybody goes on both sides, universal service justifies itself by the great appeal in fact, which I have so often lectured about in theory; viz. the appeal to physical force. The result of universal suffrage may be right or may be wrong, but it is the result which will be carried through.

SOURCE: Edward Everett Hale Jr., The Life and Letters of Edward Everett Hale, Volume 1, p. 330

Edward Everett Hale to Charles Hale, July 31, 1862

July 31, 1862.

Our recruiting goes on very well, except in Boston where it has been badly botched, and drags terribly. I suppose we none of us knew last year how much the recruiting was stimulated by the zeal of officers to fill their companies and earn their commissions. Now we make few or no new officers, filling the vacancies from the ranks, and exhorting people to go into the old regiments. It is therefore nobody's business in particular to go round hunting up the men. In the country where everybody attends to what is nobody's business this makes no difference and every day the selectmen of any number of towns appear with their full quotas of men taking them to the camps. But public meetings and all that sort of thing do not do this work for us in Boston. They say today that the Maine quota is full. I dare say, that with the absurd bounty we are paying for men which has done more to check recruiting than to help it, we shall draw men from Maine to fill up our gaps. People are getting into better spirit and the tone of the public is absolutely firm, ‘They have just found out that this is not a picnic,’ as I heard some one say in the cars today.

SOURCE: Edward Everett Hale Jr., The Life and Letters of Edward Everett Hale, Volume 1, p. 329-30

Edward Everett Hale to Charles Hale, July 25, 1862

The recruiting goes on perfectly steadily. William Loring my old parishioner, who is Lt. Col. commanding the 34th wrote down to me to ask me to be chaplain of his regiment and I was sorely tempted, I confess. I suppose if I was at even a regiment's headquarters, the feeling that all was ill done would be rather worse than it is in this blissful ignorance in which we live.

SOURCE: Edward Everett Hale Jr., The Life and Letters of Edward Everett Hale, Volume 1, p. 329

Edward Everett Hale to Charles Hale, April 1, 1861

I want to congratulate you specially on the dignity, spirit, decorum, and wisdom of the paper since the war began. I think it really deserves all praise.

In the way of war poetry, print again Holmes's verses of the President's Fast. We had them the day after. The burthen

“God bless them when our Northern pine

Shall meet their Southern palm.”

runs in my head all the time. Indeed the whole thing fills me with unutterable sadness. But if we come out of it a nation it is worth something.

SOURCE: Edward Everett Hale Jr., The Life and Letters of Edward Everett Hale, Volume 1, p. 326-7

Edward Everett Hale to George Abbott, approximately April 1, 1861

Your letter, shows that you had there no idea of the way the whole North is backing up this movement. I have no idea that in 1775 there was such unanimity. There was not, of course, a thousandth part of the power.

SOURCE: Edward Everett Hale Jr., The Life and Letters of Edward Everett Hale, Volume 1, p. 327

Edward Everett Hale to Charles Hale, March 2, 1861

I doubt if we have any news. No other paper than ours had the final report of the Peace Conference. That august body seems to have done its duty in biding over the weeks before next Monday, perhaps would have done more duty if it had bided a little longer. There is great virtue in Time.

SOURCE: Edward Everett Hale Jr., The Life and Letters of Edward Everett Hale, Volume 1, p. 326

Edward Everett Hale to Charles Hale, March 24, 1861

March 24.

dear Charles:

I have just sent your name to Cabot as a member of the drill club. You will have to pay Salignac six dollars; there is a fee of twenty-five cents a month to the man who cleans the guns, hence called quartermaster. If it is convenient for you to come round at 11 tomorrow (over Jones, Louis, & Ball's, No. 20) or a few minutes before eleven, I will meet and introduce you. But you cannot take your first drill at that hour, — and if you are pressed for time, I will find what the hour for the new comers is, and let you know. We are to move this week to a hall in Sudbury St., because the floor where we are is not safe.

SOURCE: Edward Everett Hale Jr., The Life and Letters of Edward Everett Hale, Volume 1, p. 324-5

Edward Everett Hale to Charles Hale, February 26, 1861

February 26, 1861.

There is not any news at all, but that we drilled with muskets yesterday for the first time. Why the pesky things did not fall on the floor before us I do not know. It is excellent exercise and so trivial in its detail that it is perfect rest. I have slept better since Feb. 1st than for a great while before and have not once been tired.

SOURCE: Edward Everett Hale Jr., The Life and Letters of Edward Everett Hale, Volume 1, p. 324