So. Groton June 10^th

 

            My Dear Friend Cook.

                                    I have an opportunity of sending a communication to you by Mr Fessenden & feel that I cannot let it pass without communicating with you & thro. you with all who care to hear a word from me. And now that I have taken pen in hand emotions come to my heart thick & fast. Seldom has my soul been so stirred as it was the morning you left us. To see the young men of our village, known & beloved, armed with instruments of death, not in the mimicry but the stern reality of war stirred our hearts to their lowest depths. As you well / remember tears flowed like rain from summer clouds & emotion choked utterance. But sorrow was not all we felt for the war for which you had enlisted was not for conquest not to settle a diplomatic quarrel. But such a war as man has seldom engaged in. You marched to defend not one but every principle of religious & civil liberty from the violence of the most vilainous hands that ever desecrated the temple of truth.

 

            Our Fathers fought for liberty but when they had conquered a foreign foe like Israel of old they left the work undone. They allowed the Philistines to remain in their borders. Slavery the cursed source of our present calamities was suffered to continue for a / time. But our Fathers took a pledge, yes in all honor it was a pledge from the men of the south that slavery sh'd be banished from the land. But the perfidious south keeps no pledges. Oaths & promises have disappeared before their ambitious purposes as their valor before your good steel. Like the first Charles Stuart compromises & treaties had but one purpose for them, to hold their enemies, (for the friends of freedom & the nation have always been counted their enemies.) at bay till they were prepared for further aggression.

 

            But at last they made their meaning plain. When they trampled on the flag & in return for forbearance offered / violence. then the nation awoke. The old war horse flashed his eye to the North. The hero of the west, the peoples king saw the glance & spoke. "I Abraham Lincoln. Your battalions into line, To the rescue forward!" & old Massachusetts leaped from the quiet of peace, trembling in every muscle with eagerness for the fray. Yes you men of Middlesex, men of Groton, sprang from your homes & your loved ones tho dear to you as life, to stand foremost in defence of your country's honor. There was something dearer to you than home & friends. Some- / thing for which you c'd die. I thank you for saving the nation. I thank you for maintaining the as yet untarnished honor of our Commonwealth. Yours shall be the thanks of every survivor of treason while this land shall be the home of the free. Till your latest day men will honor you as the men who outran all other patriots, bearing the banners of the old Bay state & the outermost battlements of freedom.

 

            Remember this when you meet the foe. Remember that you who have written your names highest on the roll of fame must write them higher at every step. Remember too that we are not / merely proud of you we love you we pray for you. When the work is done & you step once more upon your native soil, we will give you a welcome which shall resound thro the whole earth.

 

            You may believe that we watch your movements with the deepest interest. "The Mass. 6^th" sends a thrill of interest thro our hearts as does no other name or sound. We have mourned at the unnecessary sufferings you have undergone. Ah! How the whole State groaned as if with pent up fires of wrath when the cowardly traitors of Baltimore assaulted you. Through Baltimore was the watchword in every mouth. Nor is that work atoned for yet.

 

            But my letter is becoming / long. I will not write the news for you get that from brothers, sisters, wives & sweethearts. I w'd call you all by name but I know more of you than I can call by name. I remember you all with interest. I hope to see you all again. Here I might close but there is one thing more of which I must speak. "I beseech you all, in Christ's stead be ye reconciled with God". Remember that if it is a sin so vast to rebel against a good government like ours how much greater must it be to rebel against the government of Heaven. Be not found then among those who take the powers God has entrusted to us which are his still, & use them for themselves in defiance / of his laws. Let not the tongues he has given you to speak his praises be desecrated with the profanation of his name. Let not the ears he has given you as the channels thro which his truth shall flow unto your souls be filled with the foul things of this earth. But let all your powers be consecrated to his service. Worship him in spirit & in truth, in the adoration of willing spirits & the obedience to his truth. Be not ashamed to pray to him, to talk with him as a Father. Be not ashamed to trust in Jesus for salvation or to own him as a Master. Be not found rebelling against God.

 

            This letter addressed to you & written for you at least bears my high esteem & friendship to you & to all your compatriots in arms. G. B. Gow

           

John Cook, M.V.M.

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