William Schouler, A history of Massachusetts in the Civil War: Volume 1

Captain Wardwell's authority to raise a regiment in Massachusetts was not recognized by the Governor. He was granted permission to raise a company for the Twenty-second Regiment, and he was afterwards commissioned captain in that regiment. Having protested to the authorities in Washington against this pernicious and illegal system of granting special permits to raise regiments in this State, on the 28th of August—the very day on which Wardwell had been given authority to recruit a regiment,—the Governor received a telegram from the Secretary of War, that ‘he would not sanction for the future any such irregularities;’ and Quartermaster-General John H. Reed, who was then in Washington, was requested by Governor Andrew to call upon Mr. Cameron, and to ‘express the pleasure’ which the information had given him. Innumerable difficulties had arisen in New York from similar practices, which led to the issuing by the War Department of General Order No. 71, which directed ‘all persons having received authority to raise volunteer regiments, batteries, or companies in the State of New York to report immediately to Governor Morgan.’ They and their commands were placed under his orders, who would organize them ‘in the manner he might judge the most advantageous.’ In a letter dated Washington, Sept. 6, written jointly by General John H. Reed and Colonel A. G. Browne, Jr., to Governor Andrew, they state that they had held interviews with the President and the Secretary of War the day before; and both had promised that no more special permits should be given, and that General Order No. 71 should be made to apply to Massachusetts the same as to New York. These preliminary details are necessary in order to have a correct understanding of the controversy which grew up between the Governor and General Butler.

On the seventh of September, the Governor received a telegram from President Lincoln, urging him to forward troops as speedily as possible to General Sherman's headquarters; to which he replied on the same day, ‘I have written General ’