This feeling led to the movement, called the People's Party, which begun at a large public meeting in Cambridge, where my dear old friend and partner, ex-Governor Washburn, was one of the speakers.
That party called a State Convention and nominated Charles Devens for Governor.

Devens had been an old Whig.

He had become a Republican in 1856, and had been one of the earliest to enlist in the War, in which he became afterward the most famous Massachusetts soldier.

He was a man of spirit, very affectionate and generous, always ready to stand by his friends, especially if he suspected that anybody had treated them unjustly.
The People's Party sent a Committee to the seat of war in September, 1862.

The Committee found Devens in his tent, repeated to him the plans of his old Whig friends, and induced him to accept the nomination of the People's Party for Governor.
I was called to the battlefield of Antietam, where a near kinsman of mine had been mortally wounded, just about the same time.