The Hutchinsons. The tuneful Hutchinsons, having the commendation of Secretary Cameron and the permit of Gen. McClellan, commenced what they hoped would be a series of concerts through the camps across the Potomac. They were audacious enough to sing Whittier’s noble song commencing, “We wait beneath the furnace blast.” A Dr. Oakley, of the 4th New Jersey, made so noisy an expression of his scorn for its Anti-Slavery spirit, that Gen. Franklin revoked the license of the choristers — a simple method of avoiding dangerous disorder. Gen. Kearney had the family ranged before him, and judicially informed them that he “thought as much of rebels as of Abolitionists.” Gen. Franklin also ventilated is opinion that the song was incendiary, and deserved to be suppressed. – Tribune
(Liberator, February 14, 1862, pg 3)
