The Daily Gate City

Seventh Street Hospital.

Editor of the Gate City:

Dear Sir--Somebody has said, "To be or not to be, that is the question;" and that is just the view the soldiers take of our national existence. Shall we preserve and build up and beautify this grand temple of our national liberty, bought with the price of so much blood and treasure? or shall we now supinely turn away from the conflict before us and thus bow submissively to the Slaveocracy of the South?

The time has come when every man should take a stand for the right. Every man should be willing in these perilous times to show his true colors. With this view of the subject, we at our Hospital took a vote upon the different candidates for the Presidency in the coming election. The result was that not one man voted for McClellan or Fremont while seventy noble-hearted soldiers held up their hands for Abraham Lincoln. We have about 85 men in Hospital as patients and on duty and a few declined to vote at all; but we can at least express a hope that they too will be all right by the second Tuesday in November.

In reading the Keokuk Copperhead organ of to-day's issue, I was surprised to see the following: "If the enthusiasm with which the announcement of McClellan is received among the wounded heroes in our Hospitals here be any indications of the feelings of the army, then Lincoln's cake is dough, &c., &c." I confess I should like to see a sample of the "wounded heroes" to whom allusion is made. I should like to see the soldier who is so weak-kneed as to throw his influence for those who are whining on every corner, "Peace, Peace!" when there is no peace. If there were nothing for us to do but to hold grand military reviews or remain in quietness on the Potomac, or take pleasure excursions in balloons, then I would say, vote for McClellan; but we have now and expect to have for a little while to come a different kind of work to do, and we want a different kind of a man to stand at the helm of State for us, and that man is Abraham Lincoln. He has struggled hard and earnestly for the last three years and that, too, under very discouraging circumstances. Amid his arduous duties he has shown himself a man worthy of our support and confidence.

I think the soldiers generally are willing to risk their fortunes for another four years to come "in Father Abraham's bosom." On this point their earnest prayer is, "Lord, keep us from the rule of this Peace Democracy."

H. MATHIES.