Diary of Reverend James Freeman Clarke: November 18, 1861

To see review at Upton's Hill. See distant skirmish.

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 275

Diary of Reverend James Freeman Clarke: November 19, 1861

Brigade review.

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 275

Diary of Reverend James Freeman Clarke: November 20, 1861

Grand review, — 53,000 men.

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 275

Diary of Reverend James Freeman Clarke: November 24, 1861

[At home.] Preach sermon on "Washington in November." Church crowded.

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 275

Address of Reverend James Freeman Clarke at the Funeral of William Lowell Putnam, October 29, 1861

In the fatal battle a week ago, Putnam fell while endeavoring to save a wounded companion, — fell, soiled with no ignoble dust — “non indecoro pulvere sordidum.” Brought to the hospital-tent, he said to the surgeon, who came to dress his wound, “Go to some one else, to whom you can do more good; you cannot save me,” — like Philip Sydney, giving the water to the soldiers who needed it more than himself. And still more striking, as showing his earnest conscientiousness, is the fact that he refused to allow Sturgis to remove him, saying: “It is your duty to leave me. It is your duty to go to your own men, and leave me here.” And his friend was obliged to carry him away in spite of this protest.

How hard that these precious lives should be thus wasted, apparently for naught, through the ignorance or the carelessness of those whose duty it was to make due preparation, before sending them to the field! How can we bear it?

We could not bear it, unless we believed in God. But it is not any blind chance, nor yet any human folly, which controls these events. All is as God wills, who knows what the world needs, and what we need, better than we can know it. And the death of Christ has taught us that it is God's great law that the best shall be sacrificed to save the worst, the innocent suffering for the good of the guilty. This is the law, ordained before the earth was made; and every pure soul sacrificed in a struggle with evil is another “lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”

And do we not see, in these great sacrifices, that the heroism itself is already a great gain? Is it not something to know that we do not belong to a degenerate race? Is it not a great blessing to know that we also, and our sons, are still as capable as our fathers were of great and noble sacrifices, — that Massachusetts still produces heroes, — that these boys of yours, trained perhaps in luxury, can, at the call of their country, die cheerfully for their land?

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 274-5

Diary of Reverend James Freeman Clarke: June 2, 1861

Afternoon to Brook Farm, to "Camp Andrew" to preach.

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 273

Diary of Reverend James Freeman Clarke: June 9, 1861

Preach at Camp Andrew in afternoon.

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 273

Diary of Reverend James Freeman Clarke: June 16, 1861

To Brook Farm, preached fourth time, —  text, “Be not weary.”

[He owned Brook Farm, and had given the use of it for the camp of the Massachusetts Second, while it was recruiting and preparing for the front.]

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 273

Diary of Reverend James Freeman Clarke: July 8, 1861

Gordon's regiment left Brook Farm. Went up there before breakfast.

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 273

Diary of Reverend James Freeman Clarke: July 22, 1861

News of defeat at Bull Run.

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 273

Diary of Reverend James Freeman Clarke: July 23, 1861

State House; General Schouler.

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 273

Diary of Reverend James Freeman Clarke: September 26, 1861

National fast. Preached on “Slavery and the Union.” Church very full.

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 273

Diary of Reverend James Freeman Clarke: October 1, 1861

Delegate to Republican Convention at Worcester. I presented two emancipation resolutions. Both set aside.

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 273

Diary of Reverend James Freeman Clarke: October 21, 1861

Battle of Edwards' Ferry [Ball's Bluff]. Took telegram to Dr. Holmes about his son.

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 273

Diary of Reverend James Freeman Clarke: October 29, 1861

Funeral of William Lowell Putnam.¹ I spoke.

_______________

¹ Who had died in the battle of Ball's Bluff.

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 273

Sermon of Reverend James Freeman Clarke: April 21, 1861

If the true position of a nation is its highest moral attitude, then we may say that these free States were never in a better condition than they are to-day. The end is not yet; no, and though they take Washington, take our President prisoner, seize the archives, and install themselves in the Capitol, that is not the end. So long as the magnificent spirit which actuates the whole North to-day continues, the spirit of devoted patriotism, of perfect unanimity of sentiment, of generous self-sacrifice, of calm, quiet courage, which does not boast at the beginning nor flinch at the end, so long the nation is safe. . . .

This is a sort of Pentecostal Day, in which the whole multitude are of one heart and one soul; nor says any one that aught that he possesses is his own, but we have all things in common. . . .

For the sake of national prosperity, for the sake of outward union, for the sake of a mere mercantile peace, we have here at the North been conniving for years at a system of despotism more cruel than exists elsewhere on the face of the earth.

Now we are punished in just those three points. Our prosperity has received a terrible check, our Union is dissolved, and our peace has terminated in what threatens to be an awful war. . . .

Let us stand by each other now in these dark hours, trusting in God's eternal justice and truth. He that is for us is more than they that be against us.

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 271-2

Diary of Reverend James Freeman Clarke: April 13, 1861

Fort Sumter surrendered.

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 271

Diary of Reverend James Freeman Clarke: April 15, 1861

President's proclamation calling out seventy-five thousand men.

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 271

Diary of Reverend James Freeman Clarke: April 16, 1861

3d, 4th, and 6th regiments meet on Boston Common.

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 271

Diary of Reverend James Freeman Clarke: April 19, 1861

Massachusetts men attacked and killed in Baltimore by the mob. Spent two or three hours in the governor's room at the State House.

SOURCE: Edwin Everett Hale, Editor, James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary and Correspondence, p. 271