By Elaine Grublin

The following excerpt is from the diary of Stephen Greenleaf Bulfinch.

June 18^th, 1863

So too let me feel in regard to my suffering, bleeding country. We have heard within a few days, of the sudden aggressive movement of the rebel army, & its inroad into Pennsylvania. May the Ruler of nations grant that the pressure of each immediate danger may arouse a spirit that shall not slumber till it brings conquest and peace! The fine, calm eradication by President Lincoln of his course in making arrests, is worth noting at this time. God be thanked for our firm, honest chief magistrate!

By Susan Martin, Collection Services

A few weeks ago, I introduced you to Moses Hill of the 1^st Massachusetts Sharpshooters, whose letters form part of the Frank Irving Howe, Jr. family papers. When we left Moses, in January 1862, his company was traveling along the C&O Canal. Unfortunately, weather and camp conditions were very poor, and illness became a major problem. Moses wrote to his wife Eliza: “I do not dred a Battle so much as I do sickness.” And with good reason: many soldiers died from typhoid and other diseases that winter.

However, each Union victory renewed Moses’ hope that the war would end soon and he would be home with his family by spring. His two children were growing fast. 13-year-old Lucina was now 5 feet and 1 inch tall, and Moses was impressed with the letters he received from her. The proud father bragged:

I think Lucina must of improved very much at school for she wrote me the best letter that she ever wrote before. I could not of believed she wrote so well as she wrote in that letter. I must say it was the best wrote letter that I have received since I left home.

His son George, or “Bub,” had been just two years old when his father left for the war, and Moses longed to see “the little fellow.” He drew pictures for Bub at the bottom of his letters, mostly rabbits, roosters, and other animals. In March 1862, Eliza sent him a photograph of their son, which he cherished:

I found a letter here when I got back to Camp. I found a great preasant in it. I found bubs picture. It is every thing to me. I shall kiss it every time I get a chance.

Moses’ homesickness is palpable. The separation from his family was both an emotional and a physical pain. And although the collection contains very few of the letters they sent to him, it’s clear the feeling was mutual. He assured his wife:

Dear Eliza you wrote that you dremped that I come home and I did not take any notice of you. Your Dream will never come to pass for if I come home or live to come home, and do not take notice of you and family I am mistaken. I think of home as much as you do of me and I think more. Why should I not out here in virginia. I think I ought to….You do not know what war is.

Moses had begun his military service, if not with enthusiasm, at least with optimism. But by March 1862, he had already taken part in many battles, and the war was taking its toll. He wrote: “I am sick of it. I want to come home I asure you but here we are.” On 27 Mar. 1862, the 1^st Massachusetts Sharpshooters left for Yorktown, Va., where they would play a pivotal role in the month-long siege that spring. Please check back at the Beehive for the next installment of Moses Hill’s story.

By Elaine Grublin

The following excerpt is from the diary of Stephen Greenleaf Bulfinch.

Saturday, Jan 11^th, 1863

The close of the year ’62 brought to mind its course, as one of great public trials, and of some—though tempered with great mercies—in my private relation. The entrance of ’63 was marked by an event which is sublime in the hopes it yields, though not without its great perils, – the definite Proclamation of freedom to the slaves. Who dared to hope for such rapid progress in public sentiment as now to authorize this step, two years ago?

Military events of late, of chief interest, have been the gallant but unfortunate battle of Fredericksburg, the victory at Manfreesboro, and a partial repulse at Vicksburg, – with the landing of Banks’ expedition at New Orleans. At Fredericksburg fell in battle my former neighbor & friend, Rev. Arthur B. Fuller. He was among the volunteers to force a landing. I question the propriety of a clergyman taking the place of the common soldier; but I believe he acted not only by the impulse of his brave heart, but with the feeling that he ought to set an example to others in all things which he encouraged them to do. In the same battle died my young parishioner, John. H. Blackswain, – a good and affectionate boy. W. Edward Blake, another young volunteer from my parish, died in a hospital near the same place, shortly after. His remains were brought on, & his funeral numerously attended, at my church.

By Amanda A. Mathews, Adams Papers

Recent viewers of Steven Spielberg’s film Lincoln may be wondering whether an Adams-Lincoln connection exists as the Adamses always seem connected to the major figures of American history. John Quincy Adams and Abraham Lincoln indeed served together in the 30th Congress for three months before John Quincy Adams died on February 23, 1848. Lincoln served on the Committee of Arrangements for Adams’s funeral, but that is the only conclusive connection between the two. They shared similar political outlooks, particularly on slavery, but what Adams thought about the young Lincoln, history does not record.

We do know, however, what John Quincy Adams’s son Charles Francis Adams, minister to Great Britain during the Civil War, thought of President Lincoln. “Mr Lincoln is a tall, illformed man,” Adams wrote in his diary after their first meeting in February 1861, “with little grace of manner or polish of appearance, but with a plain, goodnatured, frank expression which rather attracts one to him.” Adams, part of the Boston elite, had little respect for his ability as a social host or leader. Shaking hands with Lincoln at his inauguration ball on March 4, Lincoln appeared to have forgotten him. “Were it any body but a Western man I should have construed it as an intentional slight,” Adams wrote.

Lincoln’s handling of the Civil War only partially softened Adams’s impression. “Mr Lincoln has certainly in some respects acquitted himself with honor,” Adams wrote on March 30, 1865, “But nothing could ever make him a gentleman, or a sagacious administrator in the selection of agents.”

Upon hearing of Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, Adams’s final assessment is in true Adams style, accurately recognizing Lincoln’s larger place in history as well as the questions left unanswered:

To the country, the loss of Lincoln is hardly reparable. There was a grandeur about the national movement under his direction which even he might not have been able fully to sustain, but which his successor will not attempt to continue. For his own fame, the President could not have selected a more happy close. The just doubts about his capacity for reconstruction are scattered to the winds in the solemnity of the termination. From that moment his fame becomes like that of Washington the priceless treasure of the Nation.

Images: Top, John Quincy Adams (17 -1848), carte de visite of daguerrotype (1847) by Brady’s National Photographic Portrait Galleries, [Matthew B. Brady], after 1860; Middle, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), photomechanical, from Portraits of American Abolitionists, MHS photograph #81.410; Bottom, Charles Francis Adams (1807-1886), photogravure, from Portraits of American Abolitionists, MHS photograph #81.2