It affords me great gratification to express to you my admiration for the noble conduct of the troops from your State, under my command, in the late actions before Richmond. No troops could have behaved better than did the Ninth and Twenty-second Regiments and Martin's Battery (the Third), and portions of Allen's (the Fifth), or done more to add to our success. Their thinned ranks tell of their trials; the brave men lost, their heroic dead, and gallant conduct, and devotion to their country. Their discipline was never excelled; and now, with undaunted hearts, they await, with confidence of success, the order to advance. I hope you will be able to send on men to fill their depleted ranks, even in parties of ten, as fast as recruited. A few men joining us now gives great heart to all men, and adds to our strength nearly five times the same number in new regiments.The call issued on the 4th of August, by the President of the United States, for three hundred thousand men for nine months service, added materially to the labors of the Governor and the different departments of the State. These men were to be drafted. The number which Massachusetts was called upon to furnish was nineteen thousand and ninety. Regulations for the enrolment and draft were issued from the War Department Aug. 9, and additional regulations were issued on the 14th of August, directing that the quotas should be apportioned by the Governors of States among the several counties and subdivisions of counties, so that allowances should be made for all volunteers previously furnished and mustered into the United States service, whose stipulated terms of service had not expired. To make this new enrolment, and establish the number of men which each town and city must furnish to complete its proportion of the nineteen thousand and ninety men subject to draft, required great labor and accuracy of statement. It threw an immense weight
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in the Army of the Potomac, and to report to him their condition, and the names of the proper persons to be commissioned to fill existing vacancies of field and line officers.
Of Colonel Ritchie's report to the Governor we have spoken in the preceding chapter, and from it made several extracts.
On the 26th of July, Major-General Fitz-John Porter wrote to the Governor a letter, from Harrison's Landing, Va., which was promulgated in special orders July 30, in which he said,—
1868. E. P. DUtton and Co. Boston,.
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