Quincy, November 26, 1861
I don’t know whether you will be surprised or disgusted or annoyed or distressed by the information that I have gone into the army, but such is the fact. Before this reaches you I shall be an officer of the 1st Mass. Cavalry and probably in Carlisle Barracks. You know it now and I am glad of it! You ask what has impelled me to this unadvised and sudden step. Many reasons, I answer; a few of which I will now give you. But in the first place let me say that I have not felt sure of my appointment until within the last five days and that I would have notified you of it before had not former false alarms made me timid of present ones. Now I feel reasonably sure and will give you the reasons of my actions. You will say, of course, that the arguments which were decisive against my going two months ago are decisive now in no less degree; but this is not so. I have all along felt that it was my place to represent our family in the army in this struggle, but a higher sense of public duty kept me at home while I was useful to you; and when that usefulness was gone, the argument which had justified my staying at home became one for my going away. I can be of little future use to you here. . . .
For going I have many reasons. I do not think myself a soldier by nature. I am not sure I am doing that which is best for myself; but I feel that, if I go, I shall be better satisfied with myself, and, as I said to you before, I do not think it right that our family, so prominent in this matter while it is a contest of words, should be wholly unrepresented when it has grown to be a conflict of blows. You say there is neither glory nor honor to be won in civil strife. I answer, that it cannot be otherwise than right for me to fight to maintain that which my ancestors passed their whole lives in establishing. These however are general arguments which I have advanced to you before, but there are others nearer home. I have completely failed in my profession and I long to cut myself clear of it. I have indeed derived an income this summer from my office, but not from the law, and that I have made up my mind to give up. This mortifies me and the army must cover my defeat. My future must be business and literature, and I do not see why the army should not educate me for both, for its routine is that of business and it will go hard if my pen is idle while history is to be written or events are to be described. Thus my decision not only closes one career in which I have failed, but it opens others in which experience teaches me I can succeed if at all. . . .
