SOLDIER 67 



was brought to the attention of Congress, and although it 

 was eloquently championed by the Hon. Henry Cabot 

 Lodge, the House of Representatives refused to make the 

 required appropriation on the ground that the men did 

 not make the charge. A man who is willing to engage in a 

 service of peculiar peril for his country in her hour of need, 

 and waits twenty days in hourly expectation of the call to 

 discharge that duty, it would seem, ought to have some 

 recognition of his willingness to serve; for in this case, it 

 was not his fault that he did not make the terrible exposure 

 of all that man holds dear in life. 



On July 4, Goodell wrote his last letter from Port Hud- 

 son. As will be seen, he had no idea of what was going on 

 two hundred and forty miles up the river at Vicksburg, 

 or fifteen hundred miles away at Gettysburg,, At Vicks- 

 burg General Grant was quietly smoking a cigar as he 

 wrote a dispatch to be sent to Cairo to be telegraphed to 

 the General in Chief at Washington: "The enemy surren- 

 dered this morning. The only terms allowed is their pa- 

 role as prisoners of war." The same dispatch was sent to 

 General Banks. At Gettysburg the Army of the Potomac 

 had inflicted a terrible defeat on the Army of Northern 

 Virginia. 



Port Hudson, July 4, 1863. 



I verily believe this is the quietest, most matter-of-fact 

 4th of July I ever spent; positively not as much powder 

 burnt as in New York or Boston; yea, verily, Hartford it- 

 self, with its swarms of ragged brats, can outstrip us. All 

 is supremely quiet along the lines. Every now and then a 

 boom, a bang and the bursting of a shell, for we must keep 



