Note 29 — Chapter XIV · THE VIGOROUS PROSECUTION OF THE WAR.
Reading edition
This tribute comes from a well-known officer of the Michigan volunteer regiments:
Detroit, February 3, 1880.
Could all the acts of kindness and aid rendered by Senator Chandler to the soldiers of Michigan, their families and friends, during the war, and especially to those who filled the ranks, be gathered together and written out, the volumes that contained them would be large and numerous. No soldier, however humble, ever applied to him, when in distress or trouble, that he did not receive a patient hearing and, if possible, speedy aid. No soldier's wife, father, mother, or other kin ever wrote him a letter that was not answered. To these facts there are thousands who can testify to-day, and many thousands more who could do so were they not in their graves.
In those dark days he was always sanguine of the final triumph of our armies, and he always assured the soldiers of his positive convictions that in the end they would be victorious. None except those who had experience can ever know what cheerful assurances and hopeful words from those high in authority did to nerve men for the work of severe campaigns.
The trials and fatigues of army life, and the uncertainty of the final results, were lessened vastly by the assuring words of brave, indomitable men like Zachariah Chandler. All honor to his memory, as also to the memory of his great associates in high places during those memorable days!
R. A. ALGER.