come with an entire consecration of ourselves to the single purpose of restoring and saving the republic? Are we willing to ignore the past, to let by-gones be by-gones, and to press forward to the mark of the prize of our high calling as ardent lovers of our country? And is it not clear and indisputable that there is no possible nucleus around which we can rally for the constitution and the supremacy of the laws, except the administration of the government? Mr. Lincoln is no President of my choosing. The Secessionists themselves are responsible. They designed his election, and secured it. Many of us opposed him zealously, and regretted his election as we regret a public calamity; but he is the President of the United States, lawfully elected, rightfully inaugurated, and at the head of the government. If the Union is to be saved, it must be by upholding the administration. Every blow designed to crush or weaken the administration is a blow against the Union. Will my Democratic friend who voted for Douglas, perhaps, who voted against Lincoln,—will he recall the noble example of Clay and Webster in 1832? They were politically opposed to Jackson, violently opposed to him, but how they rallied to the support of the old hero of the Hermitage in the bitter days of nullification. Every man who is not at heart an infamous traitor to his country will do likewise. Professional president-makers, schemers, tricksters, must stand back. The people are moving. Down in front! you who would resist the rolling tide. These are no ordinary times. Fearful maladies require powerful remedies. This rebellion is not to be crushed by platforms nor party manœuvres. These things will not have the weight of a tackhammer in breaking the force of the revolt. The great Fernando Wood meeting in New York city, on the second day of July last, might resolve, as it did (oh, with what excruciating severity), that the rebellion is an "irregular opposition" to the constituted authority of the government, but what traitor in arms is conciliated by this very tender and considerate treatment? Irregular opposition! A barbarous, brutal, causeless rebellion; a fierce, bloody, and dan gerous war waged against the Union, called an irregular opposition to the government of the country! Jefferson Davis, you are irregular! Beauregard, so are you! Floyd, Wigfall, Toombs, you are really acting improperly! You ought to be talked to! By your irregular opposition, you have called one million of soldiers into the field; slain over fifty thousand men in battle and in hospitals, and caused the very earth to reel and stagger with the fumes of the intoxicating draught which you have drained from the hearts. of heroes, and the great Fernando Wood meeting in the city of New York has the boldness to intimate that this is not quite regular! Young man, now is your time. Don't wait for your neighbor. They that be wise shall shine as the firmament. The impulse of your heart is right; act in obedience to it. This is not the business of another; it is your own; it is every man's. Who is equal to it? Who is ready for it? We make no sordid appeals. There is, to be sure, a generous bounty offered, but our appeal is to your pride, your manhood, your patriotism. Are you willing to see this government overthrown; to see all your interests sacrificed, to hear the fiendish shouts of conspirators over their successes, and to see, as you must, if this rebellion prevails, the utter disintegration of these States, and the swallowing up of the last vestige of a republican government in every part of the land? What able-bodied man, of proper age, who hopes to live fifty, thirty, or even ten years, will not, in after time, feel almost ashamed of himself if he stands aloof from this struggle? what one will not regret that he shared with others none of the dangers of this crisis, that he periled not his life in this great contest for the preservation of the country? The patriots of the Revolution earned a nation's gratitude by their heroic and unpurchased toils and their self-sacrificing spirit. They nobly did their duty, and they received the homage of grateful hearts to the end of their lives. How much more worthy of the highest acclaim of a trembling country will all those men be who voluntarily come forward to save from ruin the magnificent structure which those honored fathers so faithfully erected. Young men, no such occasion for valiant deeds will ever again present itself in your day. If life is to be anything but a barren waste, if men have duties to do, if men have something to live for except personal ease, then, now is the day and now the hour. "Once to every man and nation Comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood Parts the goats upon the left hand, And the sheep upon the right, And the choice goes by forever 'Twixt that darkness and that light." GOES TO THE WAR. CHAPTER X. MARCHING TO FREDERICKSBURG. 1862. In the early morning of Thursday, September 11, 1862, the Eleventh Regiment broke camp.1 With its colonel at its head, it marched across the Merrimack, the first stage of transition to the Rappahannock, and along the main street of Concord, to the stirring strains of "Marching Along" from its band, and amid the solemn enthusiasm of the thronging people who witnessed its departure. Leaving the Concord station at 9 A. M., the regiment proceeded via Nashua, Worcester, Stonington, Jersey City, Philadel phia, and Baltimore, to Washington, arriving there on Sunday morning (September 14). It had orders to report to General Casey, and went into camp on East Capitol Hill. Remaining there two days, it was ordered to Camp Chase, near Arlington Heights, where, having been placed in brigade with the Twenty-first Connecticut and the Thirty-seventh Massachusetts, it spent two weeks in drill, inspections, and reviews. On Tuesday morning (September 30) the regiment, without tents or knapsacks, returned to Washington. It was to have gone directly by railroad to Frederick, Md.; but finding no conveyance in readiness, it retired to an open field in rear of the city, and there the colonel and his men had their first experience of sleeping unsheltered in the open air. Conveyance was found the next day, and the regiment, after being upon the road all day and night, reached Frederick; whence, after a short stay, it pro 1 That morning, in the hurry of departure, the marriage of Lieutenant Joseph B. Clark came off under the dewy pines, being duly solemnized by the colonel, who had not forgotten how to tie the nuptial knot. ceeded by rail to the little town of Sandy Hook, on the Maryland side of the Potomac, near Harper's Ferry, under orders to report to General McClellan. For, having checked, at Antietam, on the 17th of September, Lee's northward march, and compelled his retreat across the Potomac, out of Maryland into Virginia, McClellan tarried in the vicinity of Harper's Ferry, while Lee lingered in the valley of the Shenandoah. Hence, the Union forces were mustering in that region, whence they were at length to march southward, with the Confederate army moving in the same direction. On the 6th of October the Eleventh marched back three miles northeasterly, and went into camp in Pleasant Valley, Md. Here it was brigaded under General E. Ferrero, with the Fifty-first Pennsylvania, the Fifty-first New York, and the Twenty-first and Thirty-fifth Massachusetts regiments; the Brigade being the second in the Second Division of the Ninth Army Corps. Four days later the brigade marched one mile farther up the valley and pitched camp, as part of the large army stationed there. Seventeen days later, on Monday, October 27th, the order came to advance. The Eleventh regiment broke camp that day at one o'clock in the afternoon and moved away, its division in advance, -upon McClellan and Burnside's march for Richmondthat march along the eastern base of the Blue Ridge, with the retreating enemy alongside, but beyond the mountains, passing on likewise towards the south. Colonel Harriman briefly but vividly sketches that march in his "Army Diary," upon the interesting entries of which frequent drafts will hereafter be made. He writes: "Monday, October 27th, we crossed the Potomac, on a ponton bridge, at Berlin, and went on three miles, the first day, into Virginia, to near Lovettsville, where, arriving after dark, we went into camp. Slept that night without tents, though it was cold and windy. Next morning, pitched our tents in a chestnut forest, and remained there till Wednesday afternoon, October 29th, when we took up the line of march and made five miles. After dark, halted, and bivouacked in an open field. Next morning (October 30th), at |