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He thought he did not "hit Mary's fancy"; and though that may sound a trivial every-day expression, yet the reality of it cut him to the heart. Wild visions of enlistment, of drinking himself into forgetfulness, of becoming desperate in some way or another, entered his mind; but then the thought of his mother stood like an angel with a drawn sword in the way to sin.
After all, Si was only a kid of a boy, like thousands of his comrades. True, he was past his majority a few months, but his environment from youth to his enlistment had so sheltered him that he was a boy at heart. "The like precurse of fierce events and prologue to the omen coming on" had as yet made small impression upon him. Grim visaged war had not frightened him much up to that time.
During the next few months, the President wrote several personal letters to General Dix, commanding at Fortress Monroe; to Andrew Johnson, military governor of Tennessee; to General Banks, commanding at New Orleans; and to General Hunter, in the Department of the South, urging their attention to promoting the new policy; and, what was yet more to the purpose, a bureau was created in the War Department having special charge of the duty, and the adjutant-general of the army was personally sent to the Union camps on the Mississippi River to superintend the recruitment and enlistment of the negroes, where, with the hearty coöperation of General Grant and other Union commanders, he met most encouraging and gratifying success.
As regards the medicine given us in the hospital at Helena, my recollection is that it was almost entirely quinine, and the doses were frequent and copious, which I suppose was all right. There was a boy in my company of about my age; a tall, lanky chap, named John Barton. He had lived in our neighborhood at home, and we were well acquainted prior to our enlistment.
And now, as it seemed to him, he could not, must not, make any such disclosure. The news of Jolly stood inexorably in the way. He was proud of this enlistment; proud of his boy for going off to fight for the country; for on Jolyon's pro-Boerism, too, Black Week had left its mark. And so the end was reached before the beginning! Well, luckily he had never made a sign!
In closing he said: "There is a time for preaching and praying; but there is also a time of fighting; now this time has come!" The service ended, he retired to the sacristy and came out the colonel. He made a speech from the front steps of his church and began the enlistment, 300 signing.
So came in New Year's day, 1863, and the final word was spoken, declaring freedom to all the slaves in Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and the greater portion of Virginia and Louisiana; enjoining good order on the freedmen; and opening the army and navy to their enlistment.
It is not clear how far the Southern people displayed their warlike temper by a sustained flow of voluntary enlistment; but their Congress showed the utmost promptitude in granting every necessary power to their President, and on April 16, 1862, a sweeping measure of compulsory service was passed.
One suggestion was that the Mormons be sent to construct a number of stockade posts along the overland route. But, finally, after President Little had had several conferences with President Polk, there came decision to accept enlistment of a Mormon military command, for dispatch to the Pacific Coast. The final orders cut down the enlistment from a proffered 2000 to 500 individuals.
In each of the wars fought by Great Britain the part to be taken by Canadian soldiers has received more and more formal recognition from the Dominion government, advancing from a mere permission to volunteer, through various stages to the actual enlistment, equipment and dispatch of a purely Canadian Contingent under Canadian officers and Canadian pay to the support of the British Empire.
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