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These gentlemen, I am informed, are held as prisoners, in the assumed capacity as privates, in assumed contempt of military authority, and duly committed, by the mere fact of declining to return to duty as privates in the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts volunteers (from which regiment they were once formally and lawfully mustered out, to accept commissions), and of demanding their rights as officers, including the right to be duly heard.
Such being their condition, I pray that action may be had immediately; and I would add that I am advised that what these officers personally and really desire is a proper military investigation or trial, to be followed by such vindication or punishment as to law and justice may appertain.
We will only add, that these gentlemen were restored to their commands, and rank of officers.
On the 13th of August, the
Governor wrote to
Hon. Edward Bates,
Attorney-General of the
United States, in which he refers to the portraits of the
Attorney-Generals of the
United States in his department, and adds that he noticed, when he was there the last time, that there was no portrait of
Levi Lincoln, of
Massachusetts, who was
Attorney-General under
Jefferson.
He said,—
Believing that there was a good portrait of him in the family of his son, the venerable Levi Lincoln, still living, who was for so many years the Governor of this Commonwealth, I made inquiry on the subject, and through D. Waldo Lincoln, Esq., now Mayor of the city of Worcester, the eldest son of ex-Governor Lincoln, I have received a photograph of it, which I inclose.
Governor Andrew then inquires whether there is any fund under the control of the
Attorney-General, from which to defray the expense of a copy for the
Attorney-General's rooms.
He concludes,—
I do this from a most earnest respect for the eminent character of Attorney-General Lincoln, as well as from that just pride of locality which makes me wish that such a memorial of so distinguished a citizen of Massachusetts should not be omitted from a collection of portraits in the department which he once honored.
If no such fund is available, I will endeavor, if you desire, to cause a copy of the portrait to be made at private expense, and to be presented to your office.
A copy was made by
Mr. James S. Lincoln, of
Providence,
