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War favoring the re-enlistment of three years volunteers then in service, having less than one year to serve of their original term, and recommended that inducements should be held out by the
State to encourage the re-enlistment of these veteran soldiers.
‘I hold it,’ he said, ‘to be not only of grand importance to secure the existence of these war-worn regiments while the war shall last, and especially the services of these tried and brave old soldiers who composed them, but it would only be an act of grateful justice to proffer them the utmost advantages.
Indeed, I cannot feel that it becomes the people of Massachusetts, at this period of the war, to act as if conscious only of the presence of an impending draft, and with a view only to its prevention.
Gratitude, manliness, and honor alike concur with what I regard as the statesmanlike policy of the situation to encourage those meritorious and deserving men to renew their engagement to the military service.’
He concluded this portion of his address as follows:—
Gentlemen, the President of the United States demands a new recruitment of the army of the Union; and it must be had. Massachusetts is summoned to supply her proper contingent.
She cannot falter, and she will not fail.
Three hundred thousand men added now to the national armies, skilfully distributed and led, marching in aid of the forces already in the field, would sweep the Rebellion from the face of the earth.
Our columns, falling on the enemy, already conscious of his waning power, and barely delaying us now at Charleston, on the Rapidan, at Chattanooga, incapable by lack of population to furnish soldiers to recruit again his own wasting ranks, would crush out, by their very weight and momentum, every organized form of resistance.
Rich in material resources, prosperous even in the midst of war, strong in hope and courage, and immensely superior in numerical force, the loyal people of the United States need only to avail themselves of this tide in their affairs to restore almost at a blow the fortunes of the republic, and to vindicate the inevitable supremacy of a national power.
The remaining part of the address is occupied in discussing the wrongs of our colored soldiers.
The Governor took the ground that there was no law existing which made a distinction between the white and the colored volunteers; and therefore to
