THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
impracticable. The regular dragoons he had were quite sufficient for all needs.
I saw, of course, the utter uselessness of any attempt I might make further to argue the matter with such an authority. When I reported my conversation with General Scott to Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Cameron, they both agreed that the old gentleman was taking too narrow a view of present exigencies. I promptly received the desired authority for raising the regiment, and departed for the City of New York. I found the people of New York in the full blaze of the patriotic emotions excited by the firing upon Fort Sumter and the President's call for volunteers. There were recruiting stations in all parts of the town. The formation of regiments proceeded rapidly. Wealthy merchants were vying with each other in lavish contributions of money for the fitting out of troops, and numberless women of all classes of society were busy stitching garments or bandages for the soldiers, or embroidering standards. There was hardly anything else talked about in public places, in the clubs, and in family circles. The whole town constantly resounded with patriotic speeches and martial music. Party spirit seemed to be fairly lifted off its feet by the national enthusiasm. Men who but yesterday had cursed every Republican as a “rank abolitionist” and every abolitionist as an enemy of the country, and who had vociferously vowed that no armed body of men should be permitted to pass through the City of New York for the purpose of “making war upon a sovereign State,” now, like Daniel E. Sickles in the East, and John A. Logan in the West, rushed to arms themselves. There were, doubtless, not a few persons in the Northern States who harbored sentiments of bitter hostility to the new administration and to the cause it represented; but that hostility, which at a later period found vent in the so-called “Copperhead”
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