In the year 1861 a chubby, curly-headed little man took the executive chair as governor of Massachusetts. His name was John Albion Andrew.

With neither the personal presence of Charles Sumner, the commanding grace of Wendell Phillips, nor he magnetic eloquence of either, he had ever been as earnest a worker in behalf of freedom, and had shown himself the friend of the broken, the dispirited, and the oppressed, and an intense lover of the Union, "one and indivisible," but free.

In face and form he did not suggest the hero; he was more like Pickwick than like Pericles; and when he vas elected governor of that commonwealth whose long array of chief magistrates, from John Hancock and Samuel Adams to Edward Everett and Nathaniel Prentiss Banks, had been men of dignity, force, and ability, hose who had voted for him with hesitation feared lest he prove unsafe as a radical reformer or wanting in executive ability.

They speedily discovered their mistake. That little man in the governor’s chair towered over all his predecessors as a giant in ability, "the safest pilot that ever weathered a storm."

Of the sixteen famous and remarkable American "war governors" who upheld the hands of the general government through those four terrible years of civil war, none is more famous or was more remarkable than John Albion Andrew, the twenty-first governor of Massachusetts.

The bursting of the storm found him preparing. He was inaugurated on the 5th of January, i86i, and that very day he sent confidential messengers to the governors of the other New England States, prophesying war, and urging united and immediate military preparations. On the 16th of January he ordered that the ranks of the State militia be filled with able-bodied men, "prepared for any emergency which may arise," and on the 1st of February the State legislature, compelled by the governor’s urgency, voted an "emergency fund" of one hundred thousand dollars, and authorized him to organize and equip as many military companies and regiments "as the public exigency may require."

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scouted his idea of war, that exigency was not far off. It came, at last, with the attack on Fort Sumter on the 15th of April, for seventy-five thousand volunteers to defend the Union.

The volunteers of Massachusetts were ready. During the months of uncertainty, while others were waiting, Governor Andrew was acting. The militia was strengthened; defenses were investigated; blankets; cartridges, and knapsacks for two thousand troops were secured; overcoats were purchased (and for a long time these infantry overcoats were called "Andrew’s overcoats"); correspondence was kept up; a secret message cipher was arranged; and quick routes to Washington were studied and selected,

regiments were telegraphed for from Washington, four, on the 16th, were ordered to muster on Boston Common.

"It was these militia regiments, and such as these," says Colonel Higginson, "that saved the nation during that first period of peril."

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where, on the 19th of April, 1861—a day historic in the Bay State’s Revolutionary story,—four Massachusetts soldiers were killed and thirty-six wounded by the mob of the Baltimore streets. It was the first blood of’ the Civil War, and well did Massachusetts avenge it. But when, thirty-seven years after, that same Sixth Regiment of Massachusetts volunteers again marched through Baltimore to join the soldiers of the South on the mission of liberty and redemption for Cuba, the streets of the beautiful city resounded with cheers of welcome and cries of brotherhood. Much can happen in thirty-seven years, but no more significant happening was ever recorded than Baltimore’s shouts of welcome in 1898 to the regiment whom she had met with blows and curses in 1861.

In all those four years of woeful civil war the State of Massachusetts sent to the defense of the Union, as her contribution to the armies and navy of the United States, one hundred and sixty thousand men. Every, city and town in the State filled its quota whenever the President called for troops,—in fact; the returns stow that sixteen thousand more men than were called for were enlisted in Massachusetts.

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Under his direction and the inspiration of their cause, the soldiers fought, the people gave. Out of her State treasury Massachusetts contributed to the expenses of the war twenty-eight millions of dollars, not counting the expenditures of the cities and towns; she paid in gold all the interest of her debt incurred for war purposes; she kept her credit unimpaired, and her name high for honor, integrity, and loyalty, upholding by the patience, endurance, and desire of her citizens the hands of their great war governor, and of their sons and fathers who, on land and sea, were fighting the battles of the Union.

The chubby little war governor had done his duty nobly. He had become a great, an historic figure. Watchful ever, restless in his energy, tireless in his activity, putting forth all his powers for the great cause that was battling for its life, writing thousands of letters, meeting extraordinary expenses, and never sparing his own pocket, Governor John Andrew threw himself, heart and soul, into the task of strengthening the federal government and helping it on toward victory.

So ran the order of" his Excellency, John A. Andrew, governor and commander in chief."

The drums rolled, the bugles blew the salute to the flag, and the governor received the colors.

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"Ready," said Governor Roger Wolcott, when the word came for the Massachusetts quota. And so well filled, well drilled, and well equipped were the four regiments of the Massachusetts volunteers selected to answer the first call that, in the first advance on Cuba, largely composed of regular troops, the Second Regiment of Massachusetts volunteer militia was one of the two regiments assigned to a foremost place, simply because it was ready and in prime condition to take part in an active campaign.