"I esteem the mission of Mr. Merwin to this army a happy circumstance, and request all commanders to give him free access to all our camps and posts, and also to multiply occasions to enable him to address our officers and men.
"July 24, 1861. _Department of Virginia._"
"The mission of Mr. Merwin will be of great benefit to the troops, and I will furnish him with every facility to address the troops under my command. I hope the Gen'l commanding the army will give him such official position as Mr. Merwin may desire to carry out his object.
"August 8, 1861. B. F. BUTLER, _Maj-Gen. Com'd'g._"
The testimonial to the warm appreciation of Mr. Merwin's usefulness in the army as a temperance worker is signed by Isaac N. Arnold, O. H. Browning, Charles Sumner, Alexander W. Randall, W. A. Buckingham, Richard Yates, James Harlan, Alexander Ramsey, A. B. Palmer, John F. Potter, J. L. Scripps, Lyman Trumbull, Henry Wilson, J. R. Doolittle, Austin Blair, Thomas Drummond, James W. Grimes, Samuel J. Kirkwood, Timothy O. Howe, David Wilmot, and more than one hundred others. They comprise those of governors, senators, congressmen, and postmasters.
In 1862, President Lincoln again wrote a special order to facilitate his work at the front, as follows, the original still being in Mr. Merwin's possession:
"Surgeon General will send Mr. Merwin wherever he may think the public service may require.
Throughout the war Mr. Merwin was in close personal touch with the nation's executive, and had a passport, given him by Mr. Lincoln, which admitted him to the White House at any time, day or night, except during the session of the cabinet. On the day of his assassination the President had Mr. Merwin to dine with him, and that afternoon sent him on an important mission to New York.
It will be a matter of interest to many to know that Mr. Lincoln looked very favorably upon a proposal that had been made for the excavation and completion of the Panama Canal by means of the labor of the freedmen. Those close to the President at the time were aware of the fact that he favored the plan, and it was for the purpose of securing the views of Horace Greeley, of the New York _Tribune_, and other molders of public thought, in regard to the plan, that he called Major Merwin to the White House on the fatal Friday, April 14, 1865, the day that he was shot. After the President had explained this business to Mr. Merwin, perhaps recalling again those stirring times ten years before, when he had campaigned with him, he said, "After reconstruction, the next great question will be the overthrow of the liquor traffic."