Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Harvard Memorial Biographies

[184] they begin to grumble now about the present administration being no stronger than the last, when it has had barely one month to make thousands of appointments, put money into its empty treasury, and extricate almost every department from the infernal state of confusion in which it was left by the rascals that have been in power for the last four years.

On the 19th of April, at the President's call for seventy-five thousand men, he marched with his regiment to Washington, leaving the following note for his father, who was expected home in three days:

Staten Island, April 18, 1861.

my dear father,—When you get home you will hear why I am not here to receive you. Badly as I feel at going before you come, it seems the only way, unless I give it up altogether, which you could not wish any more than I. You shall hear from me as often as I possibly can write, if only a few words at the time. We go to-morrow afternoon, and hope to be in Washington the following day. I want very much to go; and with me, as with most of the others, the only hard part is leaving our friends. God bless you all, dear father. Excuse the shortness of this farewell note.

His descriptions of the famous march from Annapolis are very graphic, but must be omitted for want of room. The call for the Seventh Regiment extending only to thirty days, he applied for and obtained a commission as Second Lieutenant in the Second Massachusetts, and left with that regiment for the seat of war in July, 1861. The following extract will give a glimpse at his first year's life in camp:—

guard-tent, Second regiment, camp Hicks, near Frederick, Md., 3 1/2 A. M., Dec. 25, 1861.

dearest mother,—It is Christmas morning, and I hope it will be a happy and merry one for you all, though it looks so stormy for our poor country one can hardly be in a merry humor.

I should be very sorry to have a war with England, even if we had a fine army, instead of a pack of politicians for officers, with their constituents for rank and file; and all the more so, of course, thinking that we shall have to take many ‘whoppings’ before we are worth much. War is n't declared yet, but does n't it look very much like it to every one at home? Here, we have made up our minds that we shall have much more soldiering to do than we expected