Dr. Seth Rogers to his daughter Dolly, February 7, 1863

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

Dr. Seth Rogers to his Daughter, January 13, 1863

January 13, 1863.

. . . When I sit down at evening it always seems as if there could be but one subject to write upon, the music of these religious soldiers, who sing and pray steadily from supper time till “taps” at 8.30, interrupted only by roll-call at eight. The chaplain's pagoda-like school-house is the scene of earnest prayers and hymns at evening. I am sure the President is remembered more faithfully and gratefully in prayer by these christian soldiers than by any other regiment in the army. It is one thing for a chaplain to pray for him, but quite another for the soldiers to kneel and implore blessings on his head and divine guidance for his thoughts. These men never forget to pray earnestly for the officers placed over them; such prayers ought to make us true to them.

This afternoon, for the first time, our men are getting some money — not direct from the Government, but through that constant friend to them — Gen. Saxton, who waits for Government to refund it to him. The real drawback to enlistments is that the poor fellows who were in the Hunter regiment have never been paid a cent by the Government. Without reflection, one would suppose the offer of freedom quite sufficient inducement for them to join us. But you must remember that not the least curse of slavery is ignorance and that the intellectual enjoyment of freedom cannot, by the present generation, be so fully appreciated as its material gifts and benefits. Just think how few there are, even in New England, who could bravely die for an Idea, you will see that the infinite love of freedom which inspires these people is not the same that fills the heart of a more favored race. . . .

Before breakfast this morning I stood on the shore and listened to the John Brown hymn, sung by a hundred of our recruits, as they came up the river on the steamer Boston, from St. Augustine, Fla. Our Lieut. Col. [Billings]¹ went down last week for them and today we have received into our regiment all but five, whom I rejected in consequence of old age and other disabilities. It seemed hard to reject men who came to fight for their freedom, but these poor fellows are a hindrance in active service, and we might be compelled to leave them to the mercy of those who know not that “It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”

. . . I wish you could see how finely the Colonel appears in my dress coat. His was sent from Worcester quite a time before I left New England, but has never reached him. Very likely some miserable colonel of a poor white regiment appropriated it. I pity those who get so demoralized by association and wish they could have the benefit of our higher code. As I am less for ornament than for use here, I offered my coat to the Colonel, and was glad to find that Theodore [a tailor in Worcester] had applied his “celestial ” principle “ under the arms,” so that a Beaufort tailor could easily make an exact fit for the upper sphere. To sick soldiers it is unimportant whether I have one or two rows of buttons, and my handsome straps fit just as well on my fatigue coat as on the other. . . .

At this moment the camp resounds with the John Brown hymn, sung as no white regiment can sing it, so full of pathos and harmony. I know you will think me over enthusiastic about these people, but every one of you would be equally so, if here. Every day deepens my conviction that if we are true to them they will be true to us. The Colonel arrives at the same conclusion. When I think of their long-suffering at the hands of the whites, and then of their readiness to forgive, I feel a reverence for the race that I did not know before coming among them. You need not fancy that I find them perfect; it has not been my fortune to find mortals of that type, — even in Worcester, — but I do find them, as a people, religious, kind hearted, forgiving and as truth loving as the average of whites, more so than the Irish of the lowest rank.

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¹ Col. Liberty Billings.

SOURCE: Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume 43, October, 1909—June, 1910: February 1910. p. 344-5

Lydia Maria Child to John Brown, October 26, 1859

WAYLAND, Mass, Oct. 26, 1859.

Dear Capt. Brown: Though personally unknown to you, you will recognize in my name an earnest friend of Kansas, when circumstances made that Territory the battle-ground between the antagonistic principles of slavery and freedom, which politicians so vainly strive to reconcile in the government of the United States.

Believing in peace principles, I cannot sympathize with the method you chose to advance the cause of freedom. But I honor your generous intentions — I admire your courage, moral and physical. I reverence you for the humanity which tempered your zeal. I sympathize with you in your cruel bereavement, your sufferings, and your wrongs. In brief, I love you and bless you.

Thousands of hearts are throbbing with sympathy as warm as mine. I think of you night and day, bleeding in prison, surrounded by hostile faces, sustained only by trust in God and your own strong heart. I long to nurse you — to speak to you sisterly words of sympathy and consolation. I have asked permission of Governor Wise to do so. If the request is not granted, I cherish the hope that these few Words may at least reach your hands, and afford you some little solace. May you be strengthened by the conviction that no honest man ever sheds blood for freedom in vain, however much he may be mistaken in his efforts. May God sustain you, and carry you through whatsoever may be in store for you!

Yours, with heartfelt respect, sympathy and affection,

L. MARIA CHILD.

SOURCE: The American Anti-Slavery Society, Correspondence between Lydia Maria Child and Gov. Wise and Mrs. Mason, of Virginia, p. 14

Diary of Judith W. McGuire: July 28, 1862

The report of Hindman's having captured Curtis untrue; but our army is doing well in the West. Murfreesboro', in Tennessee, has been captured by Confederates — a brigade, two brigadiers, and other officers, taken. “Jack Morgan” is annoying and capturing the Kentucky Yankees.

The true Southerners there must endure an almost unbearable thraldom!

A long letter from S. S., describing graphically their troubles when in Federal lines. Now they are breathing freely again. A number of servants from W. and S. H., and indeed from the whole Pamunky River, went off with their Northern friends. I am sorry for them, taken from their comfortable homes to go they know not where, and to be treated they know not how. Our man Nat went, to whom I was very partial, because his mother was the maid and humble friend of my youth, and because I had brought him up. He was a comfort to us as a driver and hostler, but now that we have neither home, carriage, nor horses, it makes but little difference with us; but how, with his slow habits, he is to support himself, I can't imagine. The wish for freedom is natural, and if he prefers it, so far as I am concerned he is welcome to it. I shall be glad to hear that he is doing well. Mothers went off leaving children — in two instances infants. Lord have mercy upon these poor misguided creatures! I am so thankful that the scurf of the earth, of which the Federal army seems to be composed, has been driven away from Hanover. I would that "Clarke" were as free.

SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, p. 128

Wilder Dwight to Elizabeth White Dwight, Saturday, July 18, 1861

charlestown, Va., July 18, 1861.

From Bunker Hill to Charlestown may not seem a long way to a Massachusetts man, but in Virginia it is a hard day's work. Our regiment slept on its arms at Bunker Hill Tuesday night. We thought the forward movement was to be on Winchester. A feint was made that way. The enemy had obstructed the main road. We held Johnston's men, expecting attack. By our sudden flank movement we have got him. If McDowell has done rightly by Manassas, we will put Johnston in a tight place. Yesterday we were ready to start at three, A. M. Twenty thousand men move slowly. It took till nine in the evening to get the regiment into position at Charlestown, twelve miles off. We were in the reserve, fifteen hours in the saddle. When the men were drawn up, and had stacked their arms, they fell right down to sleep as they stood. The day was bitterly hot; the march terribly tedious, but glorious. Twenty-five thousand men occupy the town where John Brown was hung. We are the first Massachusetts regiment which has defiantly, and without interruption, stalked through Virginia. In the afternoon we entered a small village on our route. The band played first the Star Spangled Banner, then Hail Columbia, then Yankee Doodle. Our horses arched their necks and moved to the music. The men moved with fresh life and spirit. Our splendid banner, not a star dimmed, flaunted in the faces of the sulky Virginians.

The country is splendid; but, as the hymn-book says, “Only man is vile!” My cook came to me on the route, after vainly endeavoring to forage for our dinner, and said, “I tout Virginny was a perducing country, but I don't see nothin' growin' fit to eat nohow.” The negroes sat on the fences along the route, and wondered. Our march means freedom to them. It means, too, the restoration of the Union line wherever we move. The-American flag sprouts in the furrow of our ploughshare. It is hard work, slow work, new work; but it has its compensations, this military occupation of a country. “Southern blood has been boiling all day,” said a woman standing on the door of a farm-house on our line of march. Just at dusk, as we neared Charlestown, there was a cannonading in front. We threw out skirmishers and drew up the battalion, but have not yet learned the cause of the alarm. This is not a very coherent epistle. It exhibits only an echo of the tone of feeling which animates one on an expedition like ours. You would have wondered to see our jaded men prick up their ears, and stand alive again, when they thought a brush was at hand. The Indiana regiment in our rear yelled like wild Indians. I think Johnston will retire without much of a fight. But here we know nothing except the movements of our own brigade. Half of our force goes out of service tomorrow. This will hamper our movements.

SOURCE: Elizabeth Amelia Dwight, Editor, Life and Letters of Wilder Dwight: Lieut.-Col. Second Mass. Inf. Vols., p. 51-2

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: May 6, 1861

To-day a Yankee was caught in the street questioning some negroes as to which side they would fight on, slavery or freedom. He was merely rebuked and ordered out of the country. Another instance of Southern magnanimity! It will only embolden the insidious enemy.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 32

Diary of Rutherford B. Hayes, Monday, January 27, 1861

Six States have "seceded." Let them go. If the Union is now dissolved it does not prove that the experiment of popular government is a failure. In all the free States, and in a majority if not in all of the slaveholding States, popular government has been sucessful. But the experiment of uniting free states and slaveholding states in one nation is, perhaps, a failure. Freedom and slavery can, perhaps, not exist side by side under the same popular government. There probably is an “irrepressible conflict”* between freedom and slavery. It may as well be admitted, and our new relations may as well be formed with that as an admitted fact.

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* This phrase had first been used by William H. Seward in a speech at Rochester, New York, October 25, 1858.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 4