[576]
to take higher and clearer ground than ever.
It is not every man who recognizes “the day of his visitation,” nor is it every people or party.
At the moment we have ours, we should rise to fresh courage, as we see the audacity of domestic Northern treason, bristling its accursed crest.
Now is the very day to make a loftier appeal than ever to the American people, and to get a prouder response.
In the spirit of the national instinct of the idea of democracy, of popular liberty, I would spurn the bare suggestion of ceasing hostilities now, and the very thought of dealing with the rebel chiefs with peace; but I would seize the occasion for an appeal to all the people, both South and North, against the assassins of liberty, and the enemies of this our Government.
Thus may we carry the elections in the North, and ultimately reach the misguided and oppressed, the real democracy of the South.
There is nothing on the
Governor's files to show that the meeting of the
Governors was ever held.
On the 21st of September, the
Governor received a letter from
Otis Newhall, of
Lynn, asking for the discharge of his son,
James O. Newhall, of the Eleventh Regiment, who had been wounded in the
battle of Spottsylvania, sent to the
United-States General Hospital at Readville, and, on recovering from his wounds, had again gone to the front.
In the mean while, the Eleventh Regiment's original term of service had expired, and the men who did not re-enlist had returned home, and been discharged.
Mr. Newhall gives the following reasons for asking the discharge of his son. He had enlisted in December, 1861, as a recruit for the Eleventh Massachusetts, expecting to be mustered out with the regiment, which expectation was not realized.
From the time he was mustered into service until he was wounded at Spottsylvania, he was never absent from duty, never having spent an hour in hospital, but was, as I am informed by his captain, a good soldier throughout; taking part in most of the battles in which that grand old regiment was engaged.
He is one of my five sons that went to sustain the honor of their country in the early part of the Rebellion; and I cannot but take pride in referring to them as having performed their duty nobly and well.
Two of them remain at the front; one was lost at the second battle of Bull Run; one other was taken prisoner, after being wounded, in the battle of the Wilderness in May last, and