John M. Forbes to Thomas Baring, September 11, 1863

Yacht Azalea, Off Naushon, September 11, 1863.

I have yours of the 19th of August. The issue of 5-20's is not officially announced. . . .

The editorial of the “Times” on ironclads works well; when you see that question settled, I think you can make money by buying the bonds left with you.

I have no fear of any early collision with your country, if the North succeeds, without compromise, in whipping the scoundrels. If we could ever be so weak as to give in to them and degrade our present government in the eyes of the people, — the slaveholders, coming back with their power for mischief remaining, might join the tail of the sham democracy who have always been willing to coalesce with the sham aristocracy, and this combination might use the joint armies and the Irish to pitch into you. If we put the slaveholders under, as we mean to do, with their beautiful institution destroyed, there will be no danger of war with England until some new irritation comes up; we shall be sick of war. . . .

I wish you would pull up in time! Then we could join you in putting Napoleon out of Mexico, and in stopping French colonization in that direction. We ought to be allies! and Mexico gives us another chance to become so.

With best regard to Mr. Bates, and others round you.

N. B. My young soldier continues well, thank you. I have just sent him his eighth horse, so you may judge he has not been idle!

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 2, p. 55-6

John M. Forbes to Mrs. N. J. Senior, June 27, 1863

New Lodge, Windsor Forest, 27 June, 1863.

My Dear Mrs. Senior, — I cannot thank you too much for your most welcome note, and for its result in a line just received from your brother promising to be in on Monday, and to see me.

Your warm sympathy touches a chord that seldom vibrates. I had thought myself proof against cold or heat, and that I was entirely indifferent to English opinions and feelings, which I found so generally against us. Like the traveler in the fable, I can stand the pelting of the storm, but your sunshine draws off my cloak, and makes me aware that I am open to its cheering influence; and I tell it you that you may know how much good you can do to others.

I venture to send you three cards, one of myself, one of my daughter Mary, the wife of Lieut.-Colonel Russell, and one of my son, W. H. F. The last was north of Washington, on the Potomac, not far from the crossing place where the raid we hear of to-day occurred. If you read in the papers of some disaster or success to the Second Massachusetts Cavalry, you may look with more interest upon the faces of those who have such a deep concern in its fortunes. My only strong belief is that you may hear of misfortune there, but not of dishonor.

I shall now hear nothing more from them for the next two anxious weeks, and shall then, if all goes well, try to visit the camp.

I shall keep your note to read on the sea, and to show, perhaps, to my young soldier.

Most truly and gratefully yours,

J. M. Forbes.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 2, p. 38-9

Dr. Oscar De Wolf to Sarah Hathaway Forbes, July 9, 1862

Hilton Head, South Carolina,

July 9, 1862.

My Dear Mrs. Forbes, — Your box reached us safely this morning. A steamer leaves for New York in two hours, and I make haste to tell you how much I wish that every regiment in the service had a Mrs. Forbes to look after its hospital department.

When the doctors began to look around after the engagement at James Island, they found themselves destitute of a great many things they needed to make their wounded comfortable. The cavalry regiment had more material suited to the occasion than any other five regiments in the expedition. Our chests and boxes were opened wide, and our reputation as always looking out for No. 1 was never less selfishly exhibited. The credit does not belong to us, but more than to any one else, to you. I have written Lieutenant Forbes to-day telling him of the boxes we have received, and begging him to thank you for us. Without seeing it personally one cannot imagine how much the want of such material embarrasses an army on the march or the field. At best, men must suffer a great deal; but without constant attention to the clothing, bedding, and dressing of the sick and wounded, their condition is terrible. At present we have need of nothing. The fifty sheets you have sent us have made our measure full; those we wanted; the rest will be packed away against our time of need. . . .

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 322-3

Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to John M. Forbes, October 17, 1864

Cedar Creek, Oct. 17, 1864.

In spite of Will's anxiety to be back with us, and of our desire to have him back, I cannot but hope for your sake that he may somehow be delayed till we are safely in winter-quarters. Mails are very irregular up and down the Valley, and during active operations I am sure you and Mrs. Forbes would be constantly anxious about him, — more even than you can be now. Let him come back in time to open the Spring with us; that will be early enough to “retrieve all disasters” that you speak of. It was very kind of you to write me as you did about Billy; I know how you feel about him. I will tell you, what I believe I did not tell Alice, that I got off and walked some time before finally deciding to take him into the charge where he was hit, and that I had three orderlies' horses killed or disabled under me that day. I tried to use him as I knew you and Will would wish him used. He was a dear little horse, — did not always have a sore back, had got over that weakness bravely, — you see he was improving to the last day of his life.

I get the Chaplain's “Army and Navy Journal” for the present, — shall subscribe myself when he returns, — I have generally liked its articles about operations before Richmond, as they told me all I ever learned about that campaign. Its notices about this Shenandoah campaign have not been very good: it has been wrong in some most important facts and in some of its criticisms. It has been entirely wrong too in praising ——— so constantly; ——— from the beginning has been the laughing-stock here, — his absurd newspaper reporter may have caused this, — but worse than that, his false despatches to the General and his constant habit of having “infantry” in front of him, and of falling back “pressed,” have on two occasions come very near causing great disasters.

I am very glad, my dear Mr. Forbes, that we have not a handy writer among us. The reputation of regiments is made and is known in the Army, — the comparative merits are well known there. Such a notice as I saw of the —th ——— Cavalry makes a regiment ridiculous, besides giving the public false history, — yet I have no doubt the writer meant to be honest.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 362-4

John M. Forbes to Governor John A. Andrew, November 4, 1861

Boston, November 4, 1861.

My Dear Sir, — I beg leave to second my son's application for a commission in the First Cavalry Regiment, and to say that nothing would induce me to seek so perilous an honor for him but a conviction that he is morally and physically well adapted to do good service to the good cause. Moreover, I know that he is actuated by the highest motives in seeking service: such motives as alone can reconcile parents to offering their sons!

I do not seek for him any specified position, but only ask that he should have a chance, before he is fixed in the lowest grade, to show whether he is fit for anything higher; in short, that he shall be judged by what he can do, rather than by his age, which is only just past twenty-one.

Very truly yours,

John M. Forbes.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 258

Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to John C. Bancroft, May 24, 1863

Camp Near Washington, May 24, '63.

We have been ten pleasant, sultry, summer days in camp here, monotonous, but enough occupied not to dislike the monotony, — dry and cool and dewy in the morning, and still and cool in the evenings, — with a very pretty view from my tent front (where we sit under a fly) — nothing striking, only green hills and fields and cattle, and off on the right the Potomac, and beyond rise the heights, where they have put forts, — you would not suppose it, however, it looks as peaceful as a Sunday should. It makes me infernally homesick, John, — I should like to be at home, even to go to church, — nay, I should even like to have a chaplain here to read the service and a few chapters I would select from the New Testament, — you’ll think it must be a peaceful scene to lull me into such a lamblike mood.¹

Lamblike, however, seems to be the order of the day, — unless, indeed, Grant's success at Vicksburg is to be believed. The Army of the Potomac is commonly reported to be going into summer quarters.

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¹ Soon after, Rev. Charles A. Humphreys was appointed Chaplain of the Second Cavalry, and joined the regiment in Virginia. He was cordially received and treated with consideration by Colonel Lowell, and remained with the regiment until the close of the war, except during some months in the summer and autumn of 1864, when he was in a Southern prison with Major Forbes and Lieutenant Amory, all having been captured in a disastrous fight at Zion's Church. Mr. Humphreys held his Colonel in the highest esteem. He wrote an article about him, in the Harvard Monthly, in February, 1886, to which I am indebted. It was through Chaplain Humphreys' instrumentality that the marble bust of Colonel Lowell., which adorns the Memorial Hall, at Cambridge, was made by the sculptor Daniel Chester French, — a gift of the officers and friends of the regiment.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 247, 418

Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to Josephine Shaw, May 15, 1863

Camp East Of Capitol, May 15, 1863.

I date this May 15, 1863, — ought it to be 1864? — it seems to me a month since “this morning and at least a year since Tuesday noon. The other part of my date carries me back a year, — for “Camp East of Capitol” was the familiar name of the barracks where my military young idea was taught to shoot.

I wish you could look in at tea now, and see what a pretty scene our camp presents. You would be sitting on the grass at the edge of a very pretty orchard, in which (behind you) Ruksh and Nig are quietly feeding, — in front the ground slopes gently off and at fifty yards' distance commence the company lines, — from here you look down into these so entirely that not a man can swear or a horse switch his tail in anger without our knowing it. The tents are in three rows, the two companies of a squadron being on a line, the horses of each squadron to the right of the tents, — stable duty is just over and the men are swarming about before getting supper. I may have forgotten how a camp-fire smokes, or it may be I am partial to the fires of my own camp (you know my weakness); certainly these camp-fires look uncommonly blue — and picturesque, — even Will's¹ fellows have contrived to get up a jolly blue smoke.

_______________

¹ Major William H. Forbes commanded a Massachusetts battalion, Major D. W. C. Thompson the California Battalion, which had only landed in New York on April 14 and had, consequently, been but a month in camp at Readville. This was of less importance, as the Californians were all good riders, and had probably had some elementary instruction in military duties and drill before sailing. The First Battalion, under Major Caspar Crowninshield, already serving in the Peninsula, contained the "California Hundred," under Captain J. Sewall Reed, and several Massachusetts companies. These components of the regiment became thoroughly welded by the active service in the Valley, but at first the state line was sharply drawn by the soldiers. Lieutenant S. W. Backus, in his reminiscences of the regiment, wrote: —

“While we were comparatively recruits, marching past other troops, whenever the question was asked, ‘What regiment is that?’ the answer would come from one part of the line ‘California Hundred,’ from another  ‘California Battalion,’ and from still another, ‘Second Massachusetts Cavalry.’ No wonder the questioners were often puzzled to know who we really were. We soon, however, overcame this folly, and to say we belonged to the Second Massachusetts Cavalry was honour enough in our minds.”  But the Lieutenant adds, with amusing recurrence to the first thought: —

"We, however, indulged ourselves in the thought that the Californians really did constitute the regiment, and with this idea we felt satisfied that we would not completely lose our identity."

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 237-8