February 4.
Father has just left here.
He came down yesterday, and brought me an offer from
Governor Andrew of the colonelcy of his new black regiment.
The Governor considers it a most important command, and I could not help feeling, from the tone of his letter, that he did me a great honor in offering it to me. My father will tell you some of the reasons why I thought I ought not to accept it. If I had taken it, it would only have been from a sense of duty, for it would have been anything but an agreeable task.
February 8.
You know by this time, perhaps, that I have changed my mind about the black regiment.
After father left, I began to think I had made a mistake in refusing
Governor Andrew's offer. . . . . Going for another three years is not nearly so bad a thing for a colonel as for a captain, as the former can much more easily get a furlough.
Then after I have undertaken this work, I shall feel that what I have to do is to prove that a negro can be made a good soldier, and, that being established, it will not be a point of honor with me to see the war through, unless I really occupied a position of importance in the army.
Hundreds of men might leave the army, you know, without injuring the service in the slightest degree. . . . .
I am inclined to think that the undertaking will not meet with so much opposition as was at first supposed.
All sensible men in the army, of all parties, after a little thought, say that it is the best thing that can be done; and surely those at home who are not brave or patriotic enough to enlist should not ridicule or throw obstacles in the way of men who are going to fight for them.
There is a great prejudice against it, but now that it has become a government matter, that will probably wear away.
At any rate, I sha'n't be frightened out of it by its unpopularity . . . .
