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Col. J. Dimick, U. S. Army, Fort Warren, Boston:
'The Secretary of War directs that you release all the Maryland State prisoners, also any other prisoners that may be in your custody and report names to this office.
'Signed,'E. D. TOWNSEND.
"True copy.
"Fort Warren, November 27th, 1862.
We left our prison for our homes on the morning of the 27th.
There were, at the time of our release, no other prisoners in Fort Warren than those named, except one, who was a native of Massachusetts, and who had been arrested in that State, a few weeks previously. The gentlemen above named had, with a single exception, been my companions in Fort La Fayette, and of course in Fort Warren. All but one had been imprisoned over a year, and Mr. Gatchell, Col. Kane and my father for nearly eighteen months. Each of them had determined at the outset to resist, to the utter- most, the dictatorship of Abraham Lincoln, and having done so, each had the satisfaction of feeling, as he left Fort Warren, that he had faithfully, and not unsuccessfully, discharged a grave public duty. We came out of prison as we had gone in, holding in the same just scorn and detestation the despotism under which the country was prostrate, and with a stronger resolution than ever to oppose it by every means to which, as American freemen, we had the right to resort.
