Yankee Morals.
Maj. W. L. Hubbard, Adjutant of the Seventh Regiment of Georgia Volunteers, has favored us with the following. It speaks for itself:
W. L. Hubbard, Esq., Adjutant 7th Georgia Regiment:
Dear Sir: Below I hand you copy of letter from Rev. Robt. Lowry, of Brooklyn, New York, to Rev. G. W. Dodge, Chaplain of Ellsworth’s Fire Zouaves. I wonder if the boys are “spilin’ for a fight” now. if so, as dick Swiveller* said, “plenty more at the same shop; a large assortment always on hand; such customers promptly supplied:”
Yours truly,
CRAWFORD CUSHING.**
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No. 63, Portland Avenue,
Brooklyn, July 12, 1861.
Dear Bro. Dodge: Your welcome letter reached me two weeks ago. I have been away a week, so have seemed neglectful of your epistle. I was very glad to hear from you, and have thought of you frequently since we parted on Broadway, after the purchase of that knife and revolver. If a bullet from the latter had been honored with a lodgment in the traitor Jackson’s vile carcass, it would have been a pleasant piece of information. I am very much afraid your boys are not to have a serious brush with the rebels within the unfortunate three months of their enlistment. It will be a dry rain with them, if they make a return march up Broadway without having had a real grand tug with the foe. It will be like running the machine to a fire, and finding the fire out. I hope, for their own sakes, they may have a chance to do a big thing with those infernal traitors, before they get home. It would be delightful to see the boys in fierce array, spilin for a fight, and no fight on hand.
We have great confidence in Gen. Scott up here, and we have confidence in prompt measures, also. There are some rebel batteries too close to Federal lines to make it particularly honorable or creditable. I think the boys would like to take those posts by the contract, and give good security for the prompt performance of all engagements, and assume all risks. I do not know but that wars, generally, could be more rapidly and completely disposed of by the contract system, than in the old fashioned way. All the munitions of war, as well as the Commissary Department, are under the contract system, and you get gloriously cheated and sold out generally. Suppose you were permitted to look for your own subsistence, and do up the rebellion at so much for the job. I think in that case, the rebel Congress would never meet in Richmond, and would not the Fire Zouaves be there “to see” and have a big finger in the pie? Methinks so. Do you think it would be worth while to correspond with Gen. Scott on the subject? I am anxious to have those Palm-Leaf Nabobs gloriously whipped; so thoroughly, that, for a generation to come, they will be glad to hold a Northerners horse for a sixpence. I wish you and the boys could be in at the death. Can’t you all hold on to the end? No doubt you have longings for the good things of Broadway restaurants and the better comforts of home. But it is not often that freeborn Americans have an opportunity to fight and die for such a country as this. Had you not all better stay till you wipe the thing clean, and then you can tell your children a tale that the angels themselves would love to listen to. I suppose if you could only put a bullet through some contractors and commisarys, you would be more happy than you are. Some of them, at least, ought to be sent over the Potomac astride a log. It is unpardonable, that when thousands of men have laid themselves on the altar of their country, a few graceless, soulless scoundrels should disaffect a whole army by this diabolical contract robbery.
A member of Duryea’s Regiment told me, the other day, he had not had 30 cents worth of provisions in a week, in the face of the fact the Government provides 30 cents worth per day for each man. The unmitigated wretches that cause such a state of things, are a thousand times worse than open traitors, fighting in the rebel army. I wish you could give them all a fair hanging, and hold a court martial in their cases afterwards.
What has become of Congress down your way. It looks like Old Abe was sound on the goose. $400,000,000 and 400,000 men ought to lay this little trouble on the shelf for all time to come. Part of the money ought to be expended in the erection of a continuous gallows around the Capitol grounds, to be thickly strung with seed rebels, from Jeff, the arch traitor, down to microscopic Twiggs, the most contemptible of them all. Tell the boys do hold on – a few more pork rations and hard crackers, and you will have the pleasure of opening the avenues through the ranks of the fighting rebels, and hearing prayers under the scaffold of traitors of “upper ten.”***
Give my best regards to Hosford****. He is a good fellow, with a mother and sisters who love Christ. I think he wants to be a christian. I hope the solemn surroundings of a soldier’s life have not failed to impress him with a need of a preparation for eternity.
I am comfortably fixed in Brooklyn – an advance in every respect over the old spot. Secession is an infection, you see.
Glad to hear from you at any time. May your braves return with many scalps.
Yours Fraternally,
ROBT. LOWERY
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This hopeful epistle from one who professes to be a disciple of Him who preached “peace upon earth and good will to man,” was picked up with the port folio of the Rev. Dodge, who lost it near my house in trying to Dodge our cavalry.*****
(Atlanta, Ga) Southern Confederacy, 9/10/1861
*A character from Charles Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop
** Unknown
***A 19th century term referring to the 10,000 wealthiest citizens of New York City.
****Pvt. Samuel E. Hosford of Co. E.
*****Rev. Dodge was captured at First Bull Run.
William L. Hubbard at Ancestry
George Webb Dodge at FindAGrave
Harry Smeltzer
Bull Runnings 
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