Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. Gen. Butler's Record As A Soldier. THE booming of rebel cannon fired on Fort Sumter awoke not only the echoes of Charleston Harbor, but the slumbering patriotism of a nation of freemen. On the 15th of April, 1861, Gen. Butler was engaged upon a case in a Boston court. The hand on the dial of time pointed to a quarter to five, P.m., when Col. Jones of the Sixth Regiment of Massachusetts militia entered, and handed the general an order from the governor of the State, to muster his command forthwith on Boston Common. To read and indorse this order, was the work of a moment; and the brave colonel started for Lowell to call his men together. The general handed his briefs to an associate attorney, and followed on the 5.30 train. At eleven o'clock on the morning of the i6th, the regiment, the colonel, and the general were on Boston Common awaiting orders, though it had cost a whole night of active effort to collect the various companies from their different and widely separated homes. The first requisition of the Secretary of Warhad been for two regiments to defend Washington. On this day he telegraphed for a brigade of four full regiments, and a brigadier-general to command it. Gen. Pierce was the ranking brigadier in the State, and a political as well as personal friend of the governor ; yet the command was tendered to Gen. Butler, who at once accepted it. It was decided to send the Sixth forward at once ; and it left at four that afternoon, after hearing stirring words of patriotic cheer from Gov. Andrew and Gen. Butler. At midnight the general went to his home, awoke his family from their peaceful slumbers, only to embrace his wife and children, and bid them good-by. An early train from Lowell bore him to Boston in company with his brother Andrew J., then on a v...