Note 15 — Chapter X · LOWELL AND THE WAR FOR THE UNION 1858-1865 (continued 2)

Letters of James Russell Lowell, i. 345, 346. Copyrighted 1893, by Harper & Brothers. Mrs. S. B. Herrick, whose friendship with Lowell will be referred to later, writes: “I was speaking to Mrs. Lowell of my strong admiration for its fire and eloquence, and she told me that after Mr. Lowell had agreed to deliver the poem on that occasion, he had tried in vain to write it. The last evening before the date fixed, he said to her: ‘I must write this poem to-night. Go to bed and do not let me feel that I am keeping you up, and I shall be more at ease.’ He began it at ten o’clock. At four in the morning he came to her door and said: ‘It is done and I am going to sleep now.’ She opened her eyes to see him standing haggard, actually wasted by the stress of labor and the excitement which had carried him through a poem full of passion and fire, of 523 lines in the space of six hours.”