Year: 1863




TO THE SOLDIERS OF INDIANA,


As one of your fellow citizens, subject to
the same laws, possessing similar interests
and bound to the same common destiny,
desire to say to you directly few calm and
honest words As soldiers are brave they
are also just and generous, and willing to
read, and hear both sides of all questions
before forming final conclusions. If | have
in any capacity been untrue to you while
engaged in the perilous service of your
country. your resentment, however severe
would be just But if in every act, public
ly and privately, l have kept in view the
true interests and happiness of the soldier
I know by every impulse of the human
heart that will be sustained by your un-
biased judgment.


Within the last three or four weeks a
most wicked malignant and cruel attempt
has been made by my political opponents
to create a deep and settled hostility in
your minds against me- To attain this OBJ
ject system of the most astonishing and
unparalleled falsehood ever known in this
or any other country has been adopted. |
confess myself almost at a loss how to mce
| it. A falsehood once started continues its
endless journey regardless of all contra
dctions.


The newspaper which starts it will never
publish or notice denial, and thus the
false and injurious impression which ii
makes remains forever. do not even know
| that this brief statement to you will be al
| lowed to reach and counteract the atrocious
calumnics which have been poured into
your ears by my enemies.


You have been told by such newspaper
as the Indiana journal, the Wabash Ex-
press, Evansville Journal, and other bitter
partisan papers that in a late speech in
Sullivan County I spoke very disrespectful-
ly and unkindly of you-that | called you
Lincoln hirelings," "Lincoln dogs and
other opprobious epithets. No-more infa-
NOUS lie was ever told. l appeal to the
Searchcr of all hearts for the evidence of
its truth, when l tell you that | never
spoke disrcspectful word of the soldiers
or of our armies in my life. There were
at least five thousand people within the
hearing of my voice at the town of Suili-
van. on the occasion alluded to, and no one
friend or foe, can in truth assert that he
heard NE apply such language to the sol
diers. On the contrary. as | can prove by
candid men of all parties in that very
speech passed a high eulogy on the cour-
age and patriotism of the soldier and an
nounccd repeatedly the necessity and duty
of sustaining him in the field. did, H.
deed speak of "hrelings and dogs but |
expressly applied those terms to that class
of lying editors and thieving politicians
who are being supported by Government
plunder, and who have devoted themselves
to the business of manufacturing false
hoods against their political opponents.
But the best evidence of my feeling,
and my treatment Of the soldier consists in
what | have done, more than in what
now say. challenge my enemies; who
now wish you to take my life to record
which | have made in Congress. Take
the first speech made in Congress. Feb
Goth. 1862, and you will there find my
opinion of Indiana soldiers as taken down
at the time by official reports, and not as
reported by men who have no motive ex-
cept the destruction of a political adverse
ry. I think will not be charged with
vanity when / say that in that speech is
expressed as high an appreciation of the
gallantry and devotion of the Ind ana sold
iers as you can find in any speech made by
the Indiana delegation during the 37th
Congress. speak not of its merits as a
speech, but simply of the sentiments to-
wards you which it contains. You may
search every speech which have made
since that date in Congress or out, which
has been reported, and believe that in
every one of them, to the best of my REQ
objection now, you will find some compli
mentarv allusion to the soldiers of the
proud and great State of Indiana. Would
have taken this course through all my
career up to the day | spoke at Sullivan
and then in the face of thousands of peo-
pie of both parties belle my whole record