Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts 2.djvu/49

 me more cold,—to feel less implicated in the war,—than the people of Massachusetts. However, I have dealt partly with those of Southern birth, and have seen but little way beneath the surface. I was glad to be told yesterday (June 25) that there was a good deal of weeping here at Red Wing when the volunteers stationed at Fort Snelling followed the regulars to the seat of war. They do not weep when their children go up the river to occupy the deserted forts, though they may have to fight the Indians there. It has chanced that about half the men whom I have spoken with in Minnesota, whether travellers or settlers, were from Massachusetts. It is apparent that Massachusetts, for one State at least, is doing much more than her share in carrying the war on.

This letter, written after a voyage up and down the Minnesota or St. Peter's River, of some six hundred miles going and coming, reviews and describes more fully in some respects his earlier trip up the Mississippi from Dunleith than his brief notes could do it; and may be quoted here. Thoreau said: