Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Captain Charles Russell Lowell to Anna Jackson Lowell, July 1, 1861

New York, July 1, '61.

Dear Mother, — Got my orders this morning all right — have taken the oath of allegiance, and signified my acceptance of the appointment, —so I am now fairly in the U. S. Army. I shall leave here to-morrow evening for Pittsburg — learn from Captain Cram of our Regiment that the captains will probably be put on recruiting duty for a month or more. This will not be a very pleasant occupation for the summer months, but the barracks and riding school at Pittsburg are not ready, and anything is better than idleness or Washington.

Dr. Stone is very impatient under Scott's wise delay.

It seems to me that the necessity for martial law throughout Virginia and Maryland is daily becoming stronger. Our Army is becoming demoralized — Union men are alienated and treason is encouraged by even Banks's operations in Baltimore: he can arrest men, but what can he do with them without martial law?

You would not like to see me in uniform — I look like a butcher.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 213

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