of our faith." We can now discover who stands firm, and who are weak-kneed, wavering, and ready to cry, All is lost! Be not dismayed. God, and justice, and big cannon, and twenty millions of people are on our side, while only six millions (and a third part of them are dragged like sheep to the slaughter) are arrayed against us. Who will cry baby? Who will skedaddle? Who will tamely yield up the noblest government in the world? No man will do. it; no friend to republican institutions will entertain the thought a single moment.

The skies will soon brighten. The miserable folly of striving to blow the buried embers of party strife has nearly past. Parties founded on dead issues are themselves dead. In a struggle like this only one party is possible in the loyal States, a Union party. All our interests, all our hopes, all our expectations are centred in this. When we shall present the grand spectacle of thorough unity, earnestness, and determination, as we shall ere long be compelled to do; and when our noble army shall be reinforced to the extent desired, and led by determined living generals, and encouraged by the prayers of the vast Union throng which no man can number; then quick work will be made with this rebellion.

[AUGUST 5, 1862.]

ROUSE, YE LION HEARTS.

Men of New Hampshire, we appeal to you. Now your cheering counsels and your strong arms are needed. Those of you to whom God has given health and strength are favored with high and noble privileges. A voyage through life that is all calm and gentle leaves but a dreary blank; while to buffet the storm and the tempest, to sacrifice, to fight or die in the holy cause of one's country, makes heroes and patriots whose names are held in affectionate remembrance, and whose great deeds are celebrated by an admiring and grateful posterity. We do not forget the long and weary marches you may be called upon to endure. We do

not forget the sacrifices you must make and the dangers you must encounter. We remember all this, but we know that everything worth living for is at stake. We know that we have no property, no home, no country, if the dissolution of the Union is acknowledged. The free North, a long and ungainly strip of country extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, if this rebellion is not subdued, will fall to atoms like a raft of ice that leaps upon the breakers. The power of cohesion will be gone, our nationality destroyed, and the talismanic words, "I am an American citizen," will cease to rouse the pride of the descendants of revolutionary sires. Hence, no earthly truth is more certain than that, however desolating the war may be, there can never be peace in this country, nor prosperity, nor permanency in anything until what was one country shall be again one country.

So feeling, we advocated, with all our might, conciliation. and peace, so long as any hope in that direction remained. So feeling, we have earnestly labored, since the war actually began, in behalf of a bold and vigorous prosecution of the fight on our part, as the only means by which we could be extricated from our terrible peril. This Union, freighted with the hopes, not only of those who now live, but of unborn millions as well, is too great and good to be thus early shipwrecked and submerged. Look over the fair and fruitful fields that lie around you, men of New Hampshire; see the happy homes that nestle sweetly in the valleys and on the hill-tops; and as you are not willing that they should become desolate, oh, by the love you bear to constitutional liberty and to your fellow-men, rouse your lion hearts, gird on your armor, and meet the accursed spoilers of your heritage of freedom at their own guilty thresholds.

CHAPTER IX.

THE CIVILIAN BECOMES A SOLDIER.

1862.

IN August, 1862, Mr. Harriman was both surprised and embarrassed at receiving from Governor Berry and his council a commission as colonel of a regiment of New Hampshire volunteers, to be raised, and numbered The Eleventh. A letter accompanied the commission strongly urging acceptance, and earnestly requesting that he take the stump at once, to raise his own regiment, and to stimulate enlisting, generally. It was a time when darkness was upon the Union cause. It was the summer of McClellan's peninsular campaign, the summer of Yorktown and Williamsburg, of Fair Oaks and the Seven Days' Fight which ended on Malvern Hill, the summer when Union valor nobly stood its fearful test, but Richmond was not taken. The campaign had discouragingly failed of its intent, and the government urgently called for three hundred thousand new men to recruit the army. Enlistment and muster under this call were to be made, while the Confederate army, having turned the tables, was marching northward, was overcoming Union resistance on its bloody way, was threatening Washington, and was pushing on through Maryland, to meet there, however, Antietam's withering check.

Mr. Harriman accepted the commission, and took the stump. His earnest appeals touched the hearts of the people; his eloquent words wrought the desired effects. Of his speeches made during this period of recruiting service, there is extant only the report of the one delivered at

1 He had, during the past year, frequently addressed the people in support of the war for the Union.

a large meeting in Chester, at which Hon. Daniel Clark, of the United States Senate, also spoke.1 But within eight days he had enlistments, many more than sufficient to fill his regiment. The Eleventh, thus speedily raised, went at once into camp on the Fair Ground in Concord, on the east bank of the Merrimack. The work of drill and organization was vigorously pushed; and by the 2d of September officers and men were duly mustered into the service of the United States.

The "Weekly Union," in its issue of August 26, 1862, displayed at the head of its editorial columns the following

announcement:

FOR SALE.

We offer for sale the "Weekly Union" - the material, the office, and all the appurtenances thereto belonging. It is one of the best newspaper establishments in the State; has a large circulation among good paying subscribers, and a large amount of advertising and job-work. The hard. times have not lessened the subscription-list, nor materially affected the business of the office. No paper in the State rests on a firmer foundation. The editor in chief is going to the war, and some new arrangement becomes necessary. A great chance is offered to any suitable man desiring to engage in the newspaper business. Apply immediately.

Mr. Harriman was desirous of transferring the paper to hands that would keep it to the loyal support of the government; but, after unsuccessful efforts to that end, he was compelled to see it go back, in full, to its former ownership, and to the temper it had manifested before the editorial charge of it was assumed by him. In disposing of his interest, he made, too, a large financial sacrifice.

The Eleventh regiment remained in camp at Concord until September 11th. It numbered almost the maximum of one thousand men, and was armed with the Springfield 1 The speech is printed at the end of this chapter.

rifle. Just before starting for the seat of war, the colonel received from citizens of Dover the present of a horse with full equipment. So the civilian of yesterday, aiding effectively his country's cause by voice and pen, was, to-day, the soldier, armed cap-d-pie, ready to wield, with his best might, the unaccustomed sword, for saving the nation's life.

Specch of Colonel Walter Harriman, at Chester, N. H., August, 1862.

MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CITIZENS:-Taking a calm and dispassionate review of this rebellion, from its initial proceedings in the Charleston Democratic Convention of 1860 down to the present day, it must be confessed by every intelligent man, that the high calculations of the conspirators have been sadly at fault. Those conspirators. planted themselves on the ground, first, that the States had, each for itself, the right of secession, and that against this right the government could not interfere. President Buchanan (to his dishonor be it said) avowed this doctrine. in his last annual message to Congress. In the second place, the conspirators took the ground that if the new administration should resolve upon coercion, that act would instantaneously unite the South and hopelessly divide the North. Thirdly, with the aid of certain members of Mr. Buchanan's cabinet, they had provided for the extremity of war, by disarming the government to a great extent, and arming the disaffected States, and it was thought that, in the event of war, United States army and naval officers who were devoted to the South would be found sufficiently numerous to break up the army, to cripple the navy, and to

1 The field and staff officers were: Colonel, Walter Harriman, of Warner; Lieutenant-Colonel, Moses N. Collins, of Exeter (mustered at first as major, but September 9th as lieutenant-colonel); Major, Evarts W. Farr, of Littleton (mustered September 9th); Adjutant, Charles R. Morrison, of Manchester; Quartermaster, James F. Briggs, of Hillsborough; Surgeon, Jona. S. Ross, of Somersworth; Assistant Surgeon, John S. Hayes, of Concord; Chaplain, Frank K. Stratton, of Hampton.