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was deeply stirred as he contemplated the perils to which these high-souled youths were soon to expose themselves in encountering an enemy who had threatened enslavement to the black soldiers, and death to their white officers, if captured in battle,1 and whose bitterness would be intensified by the sight of their Massachusetts flag.
He had not, however, anticipated the test that was soon to be brought home to himself.
When it became evident that enough recruits would be obtained to form a second colored regiment, to be known as the Fifty-fifth Massachusetts, a commission as second lieutenant in it was offered to his eldest son, and the latter, who had not imbibed his father's non-resistance views, and had longed to enter the army after the adoption of the emancipation policy, eagerly embraced this opportunity of serving the cause of liberty in the way of all others that he would have chosen.
The father did not shrink from the test.
1 See Jeff. Davis's message and the bill passed by the Confederate Congress on the subject (Greeley's “American Conflict,” 2: 523, 524).
2 Ms.
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