Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Harvard Memorial Biographies

[212] speech; how strongly yet delicately Revere restrained undue license in each!

But Revere was reserved for future services to his country, and for a more glorious death than that of a constructive criminal. The government of the United States released the privateersmen as pirates, changing their status to that of prisoners of war; and on February 22, 1862, after four months confinement, Major Revere returned on parole to the home from which he had been separated under such painful circumstances.

Observation and reflection, while a prisoner, had confirmed his original conviction, that the war of the Rebellion was a war for the supremacy or extermination of human slavery. He clearly saw that the institution of slavery was the salient point of the Rebellion, and that the success of the Union arms, even if it demanded ‘the last man and the last dollar,’ was an imperative duty. To a friend and brother officer who largely enjoyed his confidence, and shared with him the hardships of Richmond and accommodations of camp life, he often and earnestly spoke of this obligation, as due both to God and country. It was a conviction which had its birth in his soul.

With recruited health and strength came the desire for active service, but he was still under the military restraints of his parole, and the policy of the United States government did not seem, at that time, to encourage hope of speedy exchange. It was determined, however, to make an effort to obtain one, by personal application to Secretary Stanton. Accordingly, having selected Major McAlexander of Alabama, a prisoner of war confined at Fort Warren, and having arranged with him a plan of proceeding, Major Revere applied to the War Department at Washington for a leave of absence for Major McAlexander, permitting him to visit Richmond, on condition that he should return to Fort Warren within fifteen days, or should transmit to General Wool, commanding at Fortress Monroe, an order of the Confederate authorities, exchanging him for Revere. Secretary Stanton granted the