Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 1

Next after McCook, Gouverneur K. Warren, my coinstructor in mathematics, accepted the lieutenant colonelcy of the New York Duryea Zouaves. There was social criticism enough, but the promotion of McCook and Warren seemed to the other lieutenants a wonderful advance. We had never met field officers who were not old and gray; yet, somehow, though the new rank was attractive, it did not look to us quite so much so when we had to give up our places in the regular army in order to join the volunteers. Our adjutant general at Washington, Lorenzo Thomas, for a time worked strenuously to prevent it. “They are needed in the army proper,” he averred, “more than ever; we cannot spare them!” That idea was natural. Most regulars of advanced age so believed. As waters of different temperature put into a vessel soon reach a medium degree, so did people of various feelings and sentiments in the old army arrive at a moderate conservatism. “We belong to the whole nation, we do not want it divided; we propose to stand by it forever, but we do hate this civil strife; we will not be eager to enter the lists in such a conflict; certainly not merely for the sake of promotion. We do hope and pray that the differences will be settled without bloodshed.”

Quite early in the spring I wrote to Governor Washburn, of Maine, and offered my services. His reply was unfavorable. Commissioned officers of regiments were all to be elected by the men. He, himself, had no power to choose. But the fact of the offer became known at Augusta. Not long afterwards, about the middle of May, a dispatch came to me from the Hon. James G. Blaine, then the youthful Speaker of