All Minds Were Turned To The War, At Dixon As Elsewhere.
In
Illinois the men boasted that, as regards the war, they were the
leading State of the union.
But the same boast was made in
Indiana, and also in Massachusetts, and probably in half the States
of the North and West. They, the Illinoisians, call their country
the war-nest of the West. The population of the State is
1,700,000, and it had undertaken to furnish sixty volunteer
regiments of 1000 men each. And let it be borne in mind that these
regiments, when furnished, are really full - absolutely containing
the thousand men when they are sent away from the parent States.
The number of souls above named will give 420,000 working men, and
if, out of these, 60,000 are sent to the war, the State, which is
almost purely agricultural, will have given more than one man in
eight. When I was in Illinois, over forty regiments had already
been sent - forty-six, if I remember rightly - and there existed no
doubt whatever as to the remaining number. From the next State,
Indiana, with a population of 1,350,000, giving something less than
350,000 working men, thirty-six regiments had been sent. I fear
that I am mentioning these numbers usque ad nauseam; but I wish to
impress upon English readers the magnitude of the effort made by
the States in mustering and equipping an army within six or seven
months of the first acknowledgment that such an army would be
necessary.
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