Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Poetry and Incidents., Volume 1.
Frank Moore, Ed.

Washington, Jan. 2, 1861.--“Scarce a man here from the Free States, and few from the border Slave States, (I refer to men in society,) hesitates now to declare in the most emphatic language, that the Union must and shall be preserved. Even Gen. B. F. Butler, of Massachusetts, one of the most ultra of Breckinridge's supporters, and the bitterest of Anti-Republicans, does not hesitate to assure Southern men that the Free States are forgetting all political parties and uniting as one man for the Union. Talking with a South Carolina Commissioner, the latter is reported to have told him that if Massachusetts should send 10,000 men to ‘preserve the Union’ against Southern secession, she would have to fight twice the number of her own citizens at home, who would oppose the policy. ‘By no means,’ Mr. Butler replied; ‘when we come from Massachusetts we will leave not a single traitor behind, unless he is hanging upon a tree.’ Private accounts from Charleston state that a thousand negroes are engaged in the erection of fortifications in the harbor, and that the channels leading to Fort Sumter have been obstructed by sunken vessels, and the buoys removed. Also that Governor Pickens [10] has received the offer of 10,000 volunteers from without the State, who hold themselves in readiness to march at a minute's warning.” --Times, Jan. 3.