Charles Francis Adams, Jr., To His Father
Quincy, May 27, 1861.—I got out here last Saturday evening, having that day been relieved at Fort Independence by the 4th Battalion of rifles. We would like to have stayed there longer, and were certainly arriving at a state of very considerable proficiency in drill, but our being kept there was beginning to create some hard feeling and the Governor was obliged to yield to the pressure. What will be done with us now, if any thing, no one seems to know. I hardly think they will leave such an efficient body of men alone just now, and yet I do not see how we can be profitably employed. That we shall not be sent out of the State is certain; but the rumors seem to tend towards our being sent to the State camp to serve as a model and to furnish instructors, and ultimately to be used as a supply of officers. Meanwhile I find that I have not returned a day too early, and that my presence is necessary in Boston for some time to come. To me things look pretty bad. Money is plenty, but lenders are very timid. Business is wholly dead and the business community seems to be calculating as to whether they can live out the war or had better go down now. For myself, I see little to change the views I have entertained all along. We are going into this war too heavily to have it last long, but it will be an awful drag while it does last, and all who are not under short sail must go down. I do not believe in getting alarmed or in the eternal ruin of the country; but a great deal of money has got to be lost and all who have, have got to lose some, be it more or less. . . .
Of course all this does not at all add to the pleasure of a reluctant return. I have become fond of military life and I feel ashamed that I am here at home when so many of my friends have already gone, and gone in such a way. I do not wish to boast of what I should do under other circumstances, but I feel, as I look at these tedious and repulsive details [of business], that I should tonight sleep perfectly happy if tomorrow I could hand them all over to anyone who would take them, and for myself go and join my friends in camp. I could get a commission and a good one, for only today Dana evidently wanted to advise me to go and told me I ought to have a majority if I wished it. . . .