Stilson celebrates the news of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring: "I never have been "Abolitionist" until lately, but I am now. There! If I've incurred your everlasting displeasure and aroused your wrath to the annihilating pitch,—I stand annihilated, but am Abolitionist (!) . . . . Thank God and Lincoln! Emancipation to the enslaved! "Unconstitutional" no longer! Liberty universal where there is victory." She discourages West's ambition to be an officer: "Don't aspire to be lieutenant very soon for these lieutenants in young regiments are picked off and killed as soon as they go upon the field." Includes a song of her own composition, entitled "Soldier's Lullaby."