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means fitted to increase the glow of the general hopefulness, warm and invigorate the patriotism of the people, and thus avoid many of the evils which naturally flow from a merely mechanical and legal enforcement of duty, and from that sadness of heart which usually settles on a people after long experience of war.
Governor Andrew proposed to meet
Governor Seymour in New-York City at such time and place as he might select, and suggested Friday or Saturday of the ensuing week.
Whether the interview ever took place or not, we are unable to say, as we do not find any further reference to the subject on the files of the
Governor.
On the 15th of August, the
Governor wrote to the
Secretary of War the following letter:—
I had the honor, when in Washington, the first week in July, to call your attention to the cases of several officers of the Thirty-sixth U. S.C. troops, who were degraded by General Orders No. 46 from General Butler's headquarters in April last, which act of degradation has been declared by the Judge-Advocate-General of the army (Holt), on proper reference to that officer, to be utterly without warrant of law. I believe also, that the order was hasty and ill-advised, even though it had been legally competent.
The particular individuals for whose rights and welfare I intervened had long been faithful and meritorious soldiers of the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts, who had earned in the field the recommendation of their field officers to promotion, and they had all secured the reputation of bravery and fidelity.
You remarked to me in July, that, while you were unwilling to reverse General Butler's orders, and send back these officers to their regiment, you would, on my recommendation, restore them to their rank as commissioned officers, and assign them to regiments outside of General Butler's department.
I have accordingly revised my inquiries, in order that I might not carelessly use the confidence reposed in me, and do therefore make the following recommendations; viz., that Captains George B. Proctor and George Y. Allen, and First-Lieutenants George L. Seagrave, Allen Parker, Edward Townsend, and Leonard Y. Gaskell, be liberated from their present unlawful confinement and duress, that their swords be returned to them, and that they be assigned to duty or recommissioned as the dates of their original commissions respectively.
