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

The Governor had written, the day before, to Senator Sumner, in favor of the confirmation, by the Senate, of Colonel Gordon's nomination, and hoped ‘it would be unanimous.’

The letters written by the Governor from the first of January to the first of July, 1862, fill five volumes, of five hundred pages each: from these volumes we have made the extracts immediately preceding. The letters in these volumes relate to every matter of detail connected with our regiments in the field, the proceedings of the Legislature, recruiting at home, coast defences, building monitors, the sick and wounded, the State aid to soldiers' families, the selection of officers, the discipline of the army, the delay of the Government to hasten warlike measures,—all which, though of great and lasting interest, are too voluminous even to name by their titles and dates, in a work like this. This herculean labor of correspondence was continued by the Governor until the end of the war; and he retired from the gubernatorial chair, after five years of official service, which required more active thought and exertion, and was freighted with higher duties and responsibilities, than had been imposed upon all the Governors of the Commonwealth in the preceding fifty years.

In the first six months of 1862, four thousand five hundred and eighty-seven men had been recruited for three years service, and sent to the front; also, a company of light artillery, known as Cook's Battery, which was mustered in for six months service,—these men were in the Thirtieth Regiment; three companies of unattached cavalry, which left the State by transports for the Department of the Gulf, Jan. 3, 1862; three companies of infantry, to complete the organization of the Twenty-ninth Regiment, which was sent forward, Jan. 7, to Fortress Monroe; the Twenty-eighth Regiment, which left the State for South Carolina via New York, Jan. 8; the Sixth Battery, which sailed from Boston for Ship Island, Department of the Gulf, Feb. 7; the Thirty-first Regiment, which sailed in transport for Fortress Monroe, Feb. 21, and from Fortress Monroe to Ship Island, Department of the Gulf; seven companies, comprising what was known as the Fort Warren Battalion, and afterwards as the Thirty-second Regiment, which were