[131]
Fervently devotional to the cause of our country and to the great interests of our country and of the great interests of posterity as well as our own time, and cordially in earnest in the support of the honor and success of your Administration, the people of Massachusetts are ready for the amplest and promptest obedience to your commands.
The above letter was inclosed in one to
Mr. Foster, the
Attorney-General of the
State, who was in
Washington.
He was requested to call upon the
President and deliver it to him, and to exert his power and influence to have matters properly adjusted and permanently settled.
A number of ladies of
Cambridge formed a society to work for the soldiers.
They requested
Professor Washburn, of the Law School, to communicate their purpose to the
Governor, who wrote, May 3, in acknowledgment of the offer as follows:—
In glancing over the list of their names, I realize most completely how deep a hold the cause, in behalf of which those troops are mustered, has upon every social class in our community; that there are no hands in Massachusetts too delicate to contribute something to the work.
Almost the next letter which I opened, after breaking the seal of yours, was from a poor needle-woman, saying she had but little, but desiring to give something from that little in the same behalf; and surely a cause which so appeals both to the garret and the drawing-room cannot be other than national and just.
May 4, Governor writes to
J. Amory Davis,
President of the Suffolk Bank,—
Please read the within.
We shall have an extra session of our Legislature on Tuesday, May 14.
Will the banks of Massachusetts take $5,000,000 of United-States loan at par?
If not,—supposing that the Legislature of Massachusetts should authorize a loan of $5,000,000 to the United States,—would the banks lend that amount to this Commonwealth?
They have already offered it more than $6,000,000. Will you confer on this subject with the gentlemen upon State Street? I should like to see you, and any others who will take an interest in this subject, at your first convenience.
This brings the correspondence of the
Governor to the day when orders were issued by the War Department, that no more three months regiments would be accepted.
On the 3d of