William Schouler, A history of Massachusetts in the Civil War: Volume 2

[22] of the Government, bounties were not only a necessity, but it was just that they should be paid. Massachusetts and the other New-England States did not have so large a proportion of young men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, compared with the whole population, as the Middle and particularly the Western States had. Massachusetts for the last twenty years has been a State to emigrate from, and not to emigrate to. The Western States have received a generous proportion, every year, of our active, ambitious, and enterprising young men, and will continue to receive for generations to come. While the regiments and batteries which went to the war had a fair percentage of men of foreign birth in their ranks and among their officers, they had no representation whatever from the Middle or Western States; but those States were well represented in every regiment and upon every battle-field by men of Massachusetts birth or origin, and were also represented in a greater degree by men of foreign birth than were Massachusetts and the other New-England States. This was all fair enough and proper enough, and could not have been otherwise. Again, Massachusetts had, in proportion to its population, a larger percentage of women and other non-combatants than any other State in the Union. By the census of 1865 the females exceed in numbers the male population nearly fifty thousand, while in the Western States the male population exceeds that of the female. We had also a much larger proportion of old people than the newer States outside of New England. New England, and especially Massachusetts, had, moreover, a large number of her young and active men at sea, and engaged in the fisheries, who were exempt from military service and from draft; yet they were all counted in the population, and made to swell the basis upon which the contingents of States were made. Over twenty-six thousand of this class during the war were in the United-States Navy, for which the Commonwealth until near the close of the war (July 4, 1864) derived no advantage whatever. In the calls made by the President these men were not taken into account. We had to furnish our military contingent as though a navy did not exist. The Western and interior States furnished few or no men for the navy.