;iW?if?«(*«*^»S*«»t»tK?l?*?*Wi Im fiAfffiuaaia^m^t^ Mb ^gJH Mr^ i/4^'^^<.i'. ; BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Henrg W. Sage 189Z hmpk is-Mif^ Cornell University Library E467 .S53 The fallen brave: olin 3 1924 030 944 41 1 Overs '^ Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030944411 THE FALLEN BRAVE: (gUjJ» OF THE AMERICAN OFFICERS WHO HAVE GIVEN THEIK LIVES FOK THE PRESEEVATION OF THE UNION. EDITED BY JOHN a I L M A R Y SHEA mii\ (&W iortraits m BM, BY J. A. O'NEILL. NEW YORK: CHARLES B. RICHARDSOlSr & CO. 1861. o A^ \\%Y>ic Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by - JOHN GILMARY SHEA, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. RENNIE, SHEA A LINDSAY. SlEHBOTYi'EUS AND ELEOTKOHYi'KHS, 81, P3, and 85 Centre-fitreet, New York. C. A. AT-VORD, PKIKTBB, 15 Vftnde water- street, New York. PREFACE. While our land was teeming with plenty, busy with the hum of industry, and looking hopefully forward to the glorious future before it, a chasm suddenly yawned in its midst, threatening destruction to our Republic. Curtius-like, many a brave man has plunged in, glad to offer his life, his arms, and his courage, if the sacrifice could close the abyss, and restore union to the land. Rome embalmed in eternal benediction the memory of her Curtius, — shall we be less grateful to a Ward, a Lyon, a Baker, an Ellsworth, a Winthrop, a Lowe, a Cameron, a Haggerty, or the other noble officers who have reckoned their lives as naught in the hour of our country's peril ? Ingratitude is not a trait in our national character. Their names and their features will be ever dear to us, and we shall make them familiar to our children. The veteran of the regular service, the officer of the militia prompt at his country's call, the noble volunteer — all rallied around the assaulted flag of the free, and with united hands upheld the Star-spangled Banner. A memorial of these martyrs of patriotism is here presented. Every effort has been employed to make it worthy by pen and pencil of the illustrious dead; that it may be a precious volume — a tribute fitting now, a beautiful monument hereafter. PREFACE. The memoirs, when not furnished by friends and relatives of the fallen officers, have been compiled from information collected at those sources, and from the official reports of the military movements and engagements, — the intention and desire being to give in their true colors the lives of these noble men. To all who have contributed to his work, both those whose names here appear, and those who have other- wise aided him, the editor returns his sincere thanks ; and especially to the Hon. John R. Bartlett, for the sketches of the officers of his State, and to Messrs. Ticknor and Fields, for their kindly accorded permission to use Mr. Curtis's sketch of Winthrop. It would have been most desirable to present portraits of all the officers, but this was not in all cases feasible, and would in fact have made the work beyond the reach of most. Those we have given are not mere crude, hasty affairs, or old plates altered, but portraits accu- rately and carefully engraved by a competent hand, from models fur- nished by those most competent to judge of the likeness. If the present volume meets the public approval, which it honestly seeks, it will be followed in time by a second, embracing sketches of future martyrs to the cause of constitutional freedom, and of some whose biographies could not be prepared in season for this. When the darkened mind of rebellion seeks to cover its crime by aspersing the loyal, by affixing odious nicknames, by every imputation of moral worthlessness, it is not unwise for America to hold up the lives of her Fallen Brave! There is none of whose life she need blush, whose death she may not at once deplore and admire. To their fellow-soldiers still facing the foe, they are a justification, a pattern, and a watchword. CON-TEI^TS PAGE Colonel Ephbaim E. Ellsworth, Eleventh N. Y. V By the Editor. 11 Major Theodore Winthrop, U. S. A By George W. Curtis. 25 Lieutenant John T. Greblb, U. S. A By the Editor. 43 Captain James H. Ward, U. S. N By the Editor. 55 Colonel Noah L. Farnham, Eleventh N. Y. V By the Editor. 65 Colonel James Cameron, Seventy-ninth N. Y. M By the Editor. 1 1 Colonel John S. Slocum, Second R. I. V By the Editor. 81 Major Sullivan Ballou, Second E. I. V. 89 Captain Levi Tower, Second R. L V 95 Lieutenant-colonel James Haggerty, Sixty-ninth N. Y. M By the Editor. 101 Captain E. W. Jones, Maine V By Rev. A. J. Bates. 109 Captain Otis H. Tillinghast, U. S. A By John S. Tillinyhast. 115 Lieutenant Presley O. Craig, U. S. A By John JV. Craig. 123 Captain Charles M. McCook, Second Ohio V By Daniel McCook. 135 Brigadier-general Nathaniel Lyon, U. S. A By the Editor. 141 Lieutenants L. L. Jones and C. S. Pratt, First Kansas V By the Editor. 159 Colonel John W. Lowe, Twelfth Ohio V By T. 0. Lowe. 165 Colonel E. D. Baker, U. S. S., N. Y. V By Qemge Wilkes. Ill Lieutenant W. L. Putnam, Mass. V By Rev. J. F. Clarke. 187 Lieutenant John W. Grout, Mass. V By Rev. E. Cutler. 197 Lieutenant William Shipley, III. V By the Editor. 205 Captain Henuy H. Alden, Forty-second N. Y. V By the Editor. 211 Major John S. Gavitt, Ind. V By the Editor. 219 T ILLUSTRATIONS. •* « > MAJOR THEODORE WIKTHROP To face Title. COLONEL E. E. ELLSWORTH " page 13 LIEUTENANT J. T. GREBLE " " 45 CAPTAIN J. H. WARD ' " " 57 MAJOR SULLIVAN BALLOU " " 91 BRIGADIER-GENERAL N. LYON " - 143 COLONEL J. W. LOWE " '• ler COLONEL E. D. BAKER " " 179 ELLSWORTH. COL. FIRE ZOUAVES, N . Y. V. COLONEL EPHRAII ELMER ELLSWORTH, OF THE NEW YORK FIRE ZOUAVES. " PooE Ellsworth! a fellow of genius and initiative!" wrote one soon to fall himself gloriously in the right cause. The real genius, the chivah'ic spirit of Ellsworth, had, during his short career, made him known and prized throughout the land, and few men ever fell followed by more sincere regret. Born at Mechanicsville, a small town in Saratoga County, on the banks of the Hudson, on the 23d of April, 183T, his early years were shadowed by the total wreck of his father's fortunes in the financial troubles which, about the period of his birth, swept over the land. His father never was able to retrieve his ruined fortunes ; disaster followed disaster, and Elmer was thrown on his own resources. De- prived of opportunities for advancement, after various employments in Troy and New York, and ineffectual efforts to enter West Point, for which the studies he had ardently and at great sacrifices pursued admirably fitted him, but from which the want of political patronage excluded him, he sought the West, and at Chicago, before he came to. man's estate, was successfully engaged in business as a patent agent. Energetic and attentive to his affairs, he was soon building up his COLONEL EPHRAIM ELMER ELLSWORTH. fortune, but, like many a noble-hearted man, beheld the fruit of his toil swept from him by the fraud of one whom he had trusted. He did not sink under this reverse, but resolving to enter the legal profession, began his studies, earning the means of sustaining life by the drudgery of copying, in the hours given by others to re- laxation or rest. But though he had thus chosen a profession, and devoted himself with all his energy and intellect to acquire it, the career of arms was that for which he had the greatest predilection. .True of eye and hand, a perfect adept in all gymnastic exercises, he soon rendered himself an unequalled swordsman and marksman. Yet it was not to give himself the skill of a duellist that he practised the use of weapons : he had great and noble plans in view, — ^plans which must ultimately be adopted, at least in part. Our militia system now is little better than a farce. To make it a real arm in the defence of the country against foes from abroad, or in the suppression of rebel- lion at home, was Ellsworth's ambition. One means to effect this was to popularize the system of military training, and to adapt the system in use to actual requirements. The light infantry corps of France, which, under the name of Zouave, had been so efficient in Africa, Russia, and Italy, seemed to him a model for the American militia; and he devoted himself to a thorough study of the French manual translated under the direction of Hardee, developing and arranging the various movements till he had made them meet every test which he applied. Having perfectly mastered it himself, he gathered around him a set of fine, temperate, athletic young men, who entered with spirit into his system, and on the 4th of May, 1859, he organized the United States Zouave Cadets of Chicago, the first Zouave company ever seen in the country. In their attire, he flung aside the last relics of the COLONEL EPHRAIM ELMER ELLSWORTH. old awkward dress, and adopted one that left the limbs and joints at liberty : but his regime was as strict as the garb was loose. Total abstinence from intoxicating liquors and from tobacco, was a strict law, the violation of which blotted the name of the offender from the roll. This corps he trained, as opportunity offered, for about a year, until he was himself satisfied with their efficiency: and he gave his attention likewise to similar organizations in Springfield and Rockford. At the United States Agricultural Pair, Ellsworth's Zouaves won the colors, and won it only to hold it as a prize to be contended for, the property of any company who could exhibit a superior efficiency. The novelty of the dress, and the exactness and celerity of their evolutions, soon made the Chicago Zouaves known far and wide ; and in July, 1860, they made a tour to the East, inviting any of the militia companies to compete with them for the colors. Their exercises were visited by crowds, — officers anxious to see and study, fair ladies to won- der, young men to be inspired with military zeal. In the city of New York, the Academy of Music was the scene of an exhibition which filled a house as densely as the most popular singer ever did. Ellsworth was now known and appreciated. He felt that a great step had been made in the reform of our militia, and on his return formed a volunteer regiment, which he tendered to the newly-elected governor, as if conscious that the elements of discord in the country would soon, very soon, make war inevitable. In the presidential canvass he was a warm supporter of Mr. Lincoln, and advanced his cause by his eloquent and stirring appeals, speaking in various parts, and always to great crowds, whom his popularity drew around him. During the session of the Legislature he actively exerted himself to obtain the passage of a military bill which would put Illinois in a COLONEL EPHRAIM ELMER ELLSWORTH. state of preparation ; but this step was defeated through that stubborn disbelief in danger which so generally blinded the North. The presidential election, mainly by that division in the democratic party which the Southern politicians had caused, resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln. To him Ellsworth was by no means unknown ; on the contrary, he regarded him with the warmest friendship, and looked upon him as one destined to be of immense service to his country. At his request Ellsworth accompanied him to Washington, and received a lieutenant's commission, as a preliminary to his entrance into the War Department, where he hoped to create the Militia Bureau, of which he had long been preparing the plan. But at Washington he was soon heartily disgusted with the selfish, unpatriotic throng of office-seekers, who, regardless of the weal or woe of the country, grasp at place to dishonor it. But their machinations were soon to cease. The most terrible war that has ever shaken the continent of Amer- ica, had already begun ; a wicked, unjust war ; a war waged against a government and a flag, to which its enemies can impute no crime. Before the close of the administration of James Buchanan, the four- teenth successor of George Washington, and immediately upon the close of the election of a new president. South Carolina assumed the right of destroying the Union, and reducing the States to the isolated con- dition in which thirteen of them stood prior to 1775. She Holdly seized all property belonging to the United States within her reach, and raising an army menaced Port Moultrie, the only strong-place where the flag of the United States still floated. Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, followed the course of South Caro- lina, and, on the 9th of February, with her adopted a Constitution under the name of the Confederate States of America, and elected Jefferson COLONEL EPHRAIM ELMER ELLSWORTH. Davis president. The President of the United States, whose authority was thus set at naught, had received Commissioners from South Caro- lina, with the simple answer, that he had no power to recognize them or the action of their State : but no step was taken to meet the coming storm. Like a Roman emperor sunk in apathy or voluptuousness in his gorgeous capital, while some popular general in a distant province had declared himself emperor, and securing possession of provinces was marching on the Eternal City, that emperor there, he might be ruler of the whole Roman world, — so the government at Washington lay with its petty army disorganized by treason, with an exhausted treasury, making no effort to strike a single blow for existence, while armies were gathering in the South, and force and wile were both em- ployed to draw new States into the conspiracy. The same apathy overspread the Northern States, and the fabric reared with the blood of the noblest heroes would have fallen without a blow, had not the commander of Port Moultrie, placed there in the hope that he would prove recreant to his trust, suddenly transferred his petty force to the advantageous Fort Sumter. That strong post concentrated the atten- tion of the South : they resolved that no troops, no provisions should reach it. A vessel sent to it was fired upon ; and when, on the 4th of March, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated President of the United States, and avowed his intention to relieve Fort Sumter, the war began in earnest in the fearful bombardment of that fort from Fort Moultrie and the numerous batteries which the enemy had been suffered to plant around it. How gallantly Anderson stood that siege will ever be remembered: he capitulated only when the fort was wrapped in flames, and all further effort unavailing. This unjustifiable attack on the flag of the country roused the loyal IT COLONEL EPHRAIM ELMER ELLSWORTH. States to action : yet their exertion was not proportioned to the crisis. The arming of one State, in open violation of the Constitution, should have been followed by the instantaneous - arming of the nation: as it was, one side armed to destroy the government, none armed to save. The president, on the 15th of April, acting under a law passed in 1795, called forth, by a memorable proclamation, 75,000 men of the militia of the several States. Then the North moved. Massachusetts sent on her troops to the capital of the Union, already menaced by the army of the rebellion. New York, by an act of her Legislature on the 16th, empowered her governor to call out 30,000 men, and appropriated money to meet the expense necessary. Two days after, Governor Morgan, of New York, issued his proclamation calling for men to de- fend the menaced Union. The State responded to the call : the organ- ized militia were all eager to march to the field. New corps were at once projected. And Ellsworth appeared in the van. When Sumter fell, he sprang to action. Disgusted with the chicanery and corruption of Washington, he threw up his newly-acquired commission, and has- tened to New York to raise a regiment among the hardy and adven- turous firemen of that city, whom he knew so well, and in whom he beheld such excellent material for soldiers. A short interview with John Decker, the chief of the Fire Department, settled all to his satis- faction. That officer issued a requisition appealing to the department for volunteers. Never was an appeal so promptly met. In two days twelve hundred recruits had enrolled their names. Ten companies were accepted, and proceeded to Fort Hamilton to drill. The jaded look now disappeared, — Ellsworth was at work, and at the work he loved. His face was radiant with his wonted happy smile, and his tread, elastic as of old, gave his whole figure that graceful and com- 13 COLONEL EPHRAIM ELMER ELLSWORTH. manding attitude which were so peculiar and so well known. To bring his new regiment into discipline was, however, no easy task. Yet he labored night and day, winning his way to their hearts and acquiring perfect control over them. New York was enthusiastic over her Fire Zouaves ; and three stands of colors were presented to them. The first, a magnificent set, the gift of the city and of the Fire De- partment, was presented at their temporary barracks, in Canal-street, Colonel Ellsworth responding in a few modest and characteristic re- marks. The Hon. John A. Dix presented a second on behalf of Mrs. Augusta Astor, and the regiment then marched through the most im- portant streets, escorted by nearly five thousand of their fellow-firemen; — first to the Astor House, where a third set of colors was presented by Mr. Stetson, in the name of the ladies of the house ; then to the Baltic, at the foot of Canal-street, where, after being drawn up to receive an address from the Hon. Cassius M. Clay, they embarked and steamed away to Annapolis. Reaching that city, they pushed on at once to Washington, which Ellsworth entered at the head of his. regiment on the 2d of May, amid an ovation equalling that which had attended his departure from New York. The man of energy, action, discipline, had performed a great task. Less than three weeks 'before he stood beneath the shadow of the Capitol, about to start alone, without com- mission, authority, or reliance, but his own resolute will ; and now he stood there again at the head of a splendid regiment, which he had raised and organized and brought to the field of danger. Alas ! how few then comprehended the danger as he did, or took such active steps to meet it! A hundred Ellsworths had saved the land! Ellsworth and his regiment were at first quartered in the Capitol, — the Hall of the Representatives of the nation was filled with these first COLONEL EPHRAIM ELMER ELLSWORTH. v^olunteers. The young colonel worked on, steadily drilling and organ- izing his men, endeavoring to bring into discipline men brave to a fault, but least of all susceptible of control. Most to their taste was the command he gave on the 9th of May, to a hundred to aid in extin- guishing a fire which had broken out in a small hotel adjoining Willard's, and kindled by some hostile hand in hopes of destroying valuable government stores. Before the alarm had spread, they had burst into the engine-house, and were, in the fashion of their city, pouring their streams of water on the flaming building. This act in- creased the popularity of the regiment at Washington, and won them good opinions. The time for action at last came. On the 22d of May, orders came to prepare to march to Alexandria. In the temporary camp of the regiment, Ellsworth prepared for the actual advance of his regiment. A presentiment of his coming fate was upon him. He wrote a parting letter to the betrothed of his heart, and to his parents these words: Hbad-quaktees, FiEST Zouaves, Camp Lincoln, ) WAsriiNGTON, May 23. ) My dear Father and Mother: The regiment is ordered to move across the river to-night. We have no means of knowing what reception we are to meet with. I am in- clined to the opinion that our entrance into Alexandria will be hotly contested, as I am just informed a large force have arrived there to-day. Should that happen, my dear parents, it may be my lot to be injured in some manner. Whatever may happen, cherish the consolation that I was engaged in the performance of a sacred duty ; and to-night, thinking over the 20 COLONEL EPHRAIM ELMER ELLSWORTH. probabilities of the morrow and the occurrences of the past, I am per- fectly content to accept whatever my fortune may be, confident that He who noteth even the fall of a sparrow, will have some purpose even in the fate of one like me. My darling and ever loved parents, good-by. God bless, pro- tect, and care for you. Elmer. While some regiments, the New York Sixty-Ninth, Twenty-Eighth, Fifth, Twelfth, and Twenty-Fifth, Michigan First, New Jersey Fourth, and parts of others, were to cross the Long Bridge and Chain Bridge and march down, Ellsworth's regiment was to cross in steamboats. These came up at two o'clock in the morning, under Captain Dahlgren, and in two hours all were on board, leaving their camp in charge of a small guard. As the steamers approached the wharf at Alexandria, the rebel sentinels fired their guns and disappeared, running up into the town. The Pawnee, lying in the stream, had already proposed terms of submission to the town, which the rebels had accepted, agree- ing to vacate the place. Learning this, and satisfied that no resistance would be offered, Ellsworth gave the necessary directions to interrupt railroad communication; and proceeded in person, with a detachment of the first company, to seize the telegraph, and prevent any use of it detrimental to the cause. On his way thither he caught sight of the secession flag floating from the Marshall House, an inferior inn. Acting on the impulse of the moment, he entered with his party, and meeting a man in his shirt and pantaloons, asked what flag it was. The man, really James T. Jackson, the proprietor, a violent partisan of the rebel- lion notorious for acts of cruelty and oppression, professed to know COLONEL EPIIKAIM ELMER ELLSWORTH. nothing about it, saying that he was only a lodger. Ellsworth imme- diately ran up to the roof, cut down the flag, and was descending the stairs when Jackson sprang forward from a corner where he had been lurking, and aimed a double-barrelled fowling-piece at Ellsworth's breast. Private Brownell, who was in front of the colonel, endeavored to strike up the weapon, but the grasp was too firm, the assassin dis- charged his piece, and a slug entered Ellsworth's side, between the fourth and fifth ribs, driving into his very heart a gold circlet with the legend: "Non nobis sed pro patria." And so, in the prime of his youth, in the outset of his long-desired military career, he died in a struggle entered into not from private feelings, but from devotion to his country. His murderer died almost as soon ; Brownell, failing to thrust aside the piece, drew back and sent his rifle-ball through the forehead of Jackson, and with a single impulse thrust him through. The party in the house awaiting the arrival of the company, raised their beloved colonel and laid him on a bed. Life was extinct. When their com- rades came, they made a litter of their muskets and bore him to the steamer. Silently and sadly she now stemmed the current. On reach- ing the Navy Yard, his remains were conveyed to the engine-house, which was suitably decorated with insignia of mourning : but the pres- ident, who regarded Ellsworth with all the affection of a brother, re- moved him to the East Room of the President's House. There the funeral ceremonies took place on the 25 th of May, and his remains, amid the tolling of bells and the grief of thousands, were borne to the depot, followed by the president and his cabinet. The progress of his lifeless remains attested the popularity of Ellsworth, and the hopes the country had built upon his zeal, activity, and skill. At New York COLONEL EPHRAIM ELMER ELLSWORTH. he lay in state in the Governor's Room; and a funeral procession of immense length threaded its way through crowds that almost defied computation, to the steamer that was to bear him on to the home of his childhood, where, amid the fury of a storm, he was committed to the earth before his weeping parents. His portrait, taken in New York before he left it for the last time, was singularly like him, and has been adopted here. One who knew him well and intimately, thus describes his personal appearance : " His person was strikingly prepossessing. His form, though slight, was very compact and commanding ; the head statuesquely poised, and crowned with a luxuriance of curling black hair; a hazel eye, bright though serene, — the eye of a gentleman as well as a soldier ; a nose such as you see on Roman medals; a light mustache just shading the lips, that were continually curving into the sunniest smiles. His voice, deep and musical, instantly attracted attention ; and his address, though not without soldierly brusqueness, was sincere and courteous." 28 WINTHROP. MAJOR THEODORE WINTHROP, U.S.A. KILLED AT GREAT BETHEL, June 10, 1861. Theodore Winthrop's life, like a fire long smouldering, suddenly blazed up into a clear, bright flame, and vanished. Those of us who were his friends and neighbors, by whose firesides he sat familiarly, and of whose life upon the pleasant Staten Island, where he lived, he was so important a part, were so impressed by his intense vitality, that his death strikes us with peculiar strangeness, like sudden winter- silence falling upon these humming fields of June. T look along the wooded brook-side by which he used to come, I should not be surprised, if I saw that knit, wiry, light figure moving with quick, firm, leopard tread over the grass, — -the keen gray eye, the clustering fair hair, the kind, serious smile, the mien of undaunted patience. If you did not know him, you would have found his greet- ing a little constrained, — not from shyness, but from genuine modesty and the habit of society. You would have remarked that he was silent and observant rather than talkative ; and whatever he said, how- ever gay or grave, would have had the reserve of sadness upon which his whole character was drawn. If it were a woman who saw him for the first time, she would inevitably see him through a slight cloud MAJOR THEODORE WINTHROP- of misapprehension ; for the man and his manner were a little at vari- ance. The chance is, that at the end of five minutes she would have thought him conceited. At the end of five months she would have known him as one of the simplest and most truly modest of men. And he had the heroic sincerity which belongs to such modesty. Of a noble ambition, and sensitive to applause, — as every delicate nature veined with genius always is, — he would not provoke the ap- plause by doing any thing which, although it lay easily within his power, was yet not wholly approved by him as worthy. Many men are ambitious and full of talent, and when the prize does not fairly come they snatch at it unfairly. This was precisely what he could not do. He would strive and deserve; but if the crown were not laid upon his head in the clear light of day and by confession of absolute merit, he could ride to his place again and wait, looking with no envy, but in patient wonder and with critical curiosity upon the victors. It is this which he expresses in the paper in the July number of the Atlantic Monthly Magazine " "Washington as a Camp," when he says, — " I have heretofore been proud of my individuality, and resisted, so far as one may, all the world's attempts to merge me in the mass." It was this which made many who knew him much, but not truly, feel that he was purposeless and restless. They knew his talent, his opportunities. Why does he not concentrate ? Why does he not bring himself to bear? He did not plead his ill-health; nor would they have allowed the plea. The diflBculty was deeper. He felt that he had shown his credentials, and they were not accepted. " I can wait, I can wait," was the answer his life made to the impatience of his friends. We are all fond of saying that a man of real gifts will fit himself MAJOR THEODORE WINTHROP. to the work of any time ; and so he will. But it is not necessarily to the first thing that offers. There is always latent in civilized society a certain amount of what may be called Sir Philip Sidney genius, which will seem elegant and listless and aimless enough until the congenial chance appears. A plant may grow in a cellar; but it will flourish only under the due sun and warmth. Sir Philip Sidney was but a lovely possibility, until he went to be governor of Flushing. What else was our friend, until he went to the war? The age of Elizabeth did not monopolize the heroes, and they are always essentially the same. When, for instance, I read in a letter of Hubert Languet's to Sidney, "You are not over-cheerful by nature," or when, in another, he speaks of the portrait that Paul Veronese painted of Sidney, and says, " The painter has represented you sad and thoughtful," I can believe that he is speaking of my neighbor. Or when I remember what Sidney wrote to his younger brother, — " Being a gentleman born, you purpose to furnish yourself with the knowledge of such things as may be serviceable to your country and calling," or what he wrote to Languet, — " Our princes are enjoying too deep a slumber : I cannot think there is any man possessed of com- mon understanding who does not see to what these rough storms are driving by which all Christendom has been agitated now these many years," — I seem to hear my friend, as he used to talk on the Sunday evenings when he sat in this huge cane-chair at my side, in which I saw him last, and in which I shall henceforth always see him. Nor is it unfair to remember just here that he bore one of the few really historic names in this country. He never spoke of it ; but we should all have been sorry not to feel that he was glad to have sprung straight from that second John Winthrop who was the first MAJOR THEODORE WINTHROP. governor of Connecticut, the younger sister colony of Massachusetts Bay, — the John Winthrop who . obtained the charter of privileges for his colony. How clearly the quality of the man has been transmitted ! How brightly the old name shines out again ! He was born in New Haven on the 22d of September, 1828, and was a grave, delicate, rather precocious child. He was at school only in New Haven, and entered Yale College just as he was sixteen. The pure, manly morality which was the substance of his character, and his brilliant exploits of scholarship, made him the idol of his college friends, who saw in him the promise of the splendid career which the fond faith of students allots to the favorite classmate. He studied for the Clark scholarship, and gained it; and his name, in the order of time, is first upon the roll of that foundation. For the Berkeleian scholar- ship he and another were judged equal, and drawing lots, the othei gained the scholarship; but they divided the honor. In college his favorite studies were Greek and mental philosophy. He never lost the scholarly taste and habit. A wide reader, he re- tained knowledge with little effort, and often surprised his friends by the variety of his information. Yet it was not strange, for he was born a scholar. His mother was the great-granddaughter of old President Edwards; and among his relations upon the maternal side, Winthrop counted six presidents of colleges. Perhaps also in this learned descent we may find the secret of his early seriousness. Thoughtful and self- criticising, he was peculiarly sensible to religious influences, under which his criticism easily became self-accusation, and his sensitive seriousness grew sometimes morbid. He would have studied for the ministry or a professorship, upon leaving college, except for his failing health. so MAJOR THEODORE WINTHROP. In the later days, when I knew him, the feverish ardor of the first religious impulse was past. It had giyen place to a faith much too deep and sacred to talk about, yet holding him always with serene, steady poise in the purest region of life and feeling. There was no franker or more sympathetic companion for young men of his own age than he; but his conversation fell from his lips as unsullied as his soul. He graduated in 1848, when he was twenty years old; and for the sake ©f his health, which was seriously shattered, — an ill-health that colored all his life, — he set out upon his travels. He went first to England, spending much time at Oxford, where he made pleasant acquaintances, and walking through Scotland. He then crossed over to France and Germany, exploring Switzerland very thoroughly upon foot, — once or twice escaping great dangers among the mountains, — and pushed on to Italy and Greece, still walking much of the way. In Italy he made the acquaintance of Mr. W. H. Aspinwall, of New York, and upon his return became tutor to Mr. Aspinwall's son. He presently accompanied his pupil and a nephew of Mr. Aspinwall, who were going to a school in Switzerland ; and after a second short tour of six months in Europe he returned to New York, and entered Mr. Aspinwall's counting-house. In the employ of the Pacific Steamship Company he went to Panama and resided for about two years, — travel- ling, and often ill of the fevers of the country. Before his return he travelled through California and Oregon, — went to Vancouver's Island, Puget Sound, and the Hudson Bay Company's station there. At the Dalles he was smitten with the small-pox, and lay ill for six weeks. He often spoke with the warmest gratitude of the kind care that was taken of him there. But when only partially recovered he plunged MAJOR THEODORE WINTHROP. off again into the wilderness. At another time he fell very ill upon the plains, and lay down, as he supposed, to die ; but after some time struggled up and on again. He I'eturned to the counting-room, but, unsated with adventure, I'oined the disastrous expedition of Lieutenant Strain, during which his health was still more weakened, and he came home again in 1854. In the following year he studied law, and was admitted to the bar. In 1856 he entered heartily into the Fremont campaign, and from the strongest conviction. He went into some of the dark districts of Penn- sylvania and spoke incessantly. The roving life and its picturesque episodes, with the earnest conviction which inspired him, made the summer and autumn exciting and pleasant. The following year he went to St. Louis the practise law. The climate was unkind to him, and he returned and began to practice in New York. But he could not be a lawyer. His health was too uncertain, and his tastes and ambition allured him elsewhere. His mind was brimming with the results of observation. His fancy was alert and inventive, and he wrote tales and novels. At the same time he delighted to haunt the studio of his friend Church, the painter, and watch day by day the progress of his picture, the Heart of the Andes. It so fired his imagination that he wrote a description of it ; in which, as if rivalling the tropical and tangled richness of the picture, he threw together such heaps and masses of gorgeous words that the reader was dazzled and be- wildered. I'he wild campaigning life was always a secret passion with him. His stories of travel were so graphic and warm, that I remember one evening, after we had been tracing upon the map a route he had taken, and he had touched the whole region into life with his de- 8'2 MAJOR THEODORE WINTHROP. scription, my younger brother, who had sat by and listened with wide eyes all the evening, exclaimed with a sigh of regretful satisfaction, as the door closed upon our story-teller, " It's as good as Robinson Crusoe!" Yet, with all his fondness and fitness for that kind of life, or indeed any active administrative function, his literary ambition seemed to be the deepest and strongest. He had always been writing. In college and upon his travels he kept diaries ; and he has left behind him several novels, tales, sketches of travel, and journals. The first published writing of his which is well known, is his description, in the June number of the Atlantic Monthly, of the March of the Seventh Regiment of New York to Washington. It was charming by its graceful, sparkling, crisp, off-hand dash and ease. But it is only the practised hand that can " dash off" effectively. Let any other clever member of the clever regiment, who has never written, try to dash off the story of a day or a week in the life of the regiment, and he will see that the writer did that little thing well because he had done large things carefully. Yet, amid all the hurry and brilliant bustle of the articles, the author is, as he was in the most bustling moment of the life they described, a spectator, an artist. He looks on at himself and the scene of which he is part. He is willing to merge his individuality ; but he does not merge it, for he could not. So, wandering, hoping, trying, waiting, thirty-two years of his life went by, and they left him true, sympathetic, patient. The sharp private griefs that sting the heart so deeply, and leave a little poison behind, did not spare him. But he bore every thing so bravely, so silently, — often silent for a whole evening in the midst of pleasant talkers, but not impertinently sad, nor ever sullen, — that we all loved him a little more at such times. The ill-health from which he always MAJOR THEODORE WINTHROP. suiFered, and a flower-like delicacy of temperament, the yearning desire to be of some service in the world, coupled with the curious, critical introspection which marks every sensitive and refined nature and par- alyzes action, overcast his life and manner to the common eye with pensiveness and even sternness. He wrote verses in which his heart seems to exhale in a sigh of sadness. But he was not in the least a sentimentalist. The womanly grace of temperament merely enhanced the unusual manliness of his character and impression. It was like a delicate carnation upon the cheek of a robust man. For his humor was exuberant. He seldom laughed loud, but his smile was sweet and appreciative. Then the range of his sympathies was so large, that he enjoyed every kind of life and person, and was everywhere at home. In walking and riding, in skating and running, in games out of doors and in, no one of us all in the neighborhood was so expert, so agile as he. For, above all things, he had what we Yankees call faculty, — the knack of doing every thing. If he rode with a neighbor who was a good horseman, Theodore, who was a Centaur, when he mounted, would put any horse at any gate or fence ; for it did not occur to him that he could not do whatever was to be done. Often, after writing for a few hours in the morning, he stepped out of doors, and, from pure love of the fun, leaped and turned summersaults on the grass, before going up to town. In wa,Iking about the island, he constantly stopped by the roadside fences, and, grasping the highest rail, swung himself swiftly and neatly over and back again, resuming the walk and the talk without delay. I do not wish to make him too much a hero. " Death," says Bacon, " openeth the gate to good fame." When a neighbor dies, his form and quality appear clearly, as if he had been dead a thou- MAJOR THEODORE WINTHROP. sand years. Then we see what we only felt before. Heroes in history seem to us poetic because they are there. But if we should tell the simple truth of some of our neighbors, it would sound like poetry. Winthrop was one of the men who represent the manly and poetic qualities that always exist around us, — not great genius, which is ever salient, but the fine fibre of manhood that makes the worth of the race. Closely engaged with his literary employments, and more quiet than ever, he took less active part in the last election. But when the menace of treason became an aggressive act, he saw very clearly the inevitable necessity of arms. We all talked of it Constantly, — watching the news, — chafing at the sad necessity of delay, which was sure to confuse foreign opinion and alienate sympathy, as has proved to be the case. As matters advanced and the war-cloud rolled up thicker and blacker, he looked at it with the secret satisfaction that war for such a . cause opened his career both as thinker and actor. The ad- mirable coolness, the promptness, the cheerful patience, the heroic ardor, the intelligence, the tough experience of campaigning, the pro- found conviction that the cause was in truth " the good old cause," which was now to come to the death -grapple with its old enemy, Justice against Injustice, Order against Anarchy, — all these should now have their turn, and the wanderer and waiter "settle himself" at last. We took a long walk together on the Sunday that brought the news of the capture of Fort Sumter. He was thoroughly alive with a bright, earnest forecast of his part in the coming work. Returning home with me, he sat until late in the evening talking with an unwonted spirit, saying playfully, I remember, that, if his friends would only give him a horse, he would ride straight to victory. Especially he wished that some competent person would keep a careful record of events as they 85 MAJOR THEODORE WINTHROP. passed; "for we are making our history," he said, "hand over hand." He sat quietly in the great chair while he spoke, and at last rose to go. We went together to the door, and stood for a little while upon the piazza, where we had sat peacefully through so many golden summer-hours. The last hour for us had come, but we did not know it. We shook hands, and he left me, passing rapidly along the brook- side under the trees, and so in the soft spring starlight vanished from my sight forever. The next morning came the President's proclamation. Winthrop went immediately to town and enrolled himself in the artillery corps of the Seventh Regiment. During the two or three following days he was very busy and very happy. On Friday afternoon, the 19th of April, I stood at the corner of Courtlandt-street and saw the regiment as it marched away. Two days before, I had seen the Massachusetts troops going down the same street. During the day the news had come that they were already engaged, that some were already dead in Baltimore. And the Seventh, as they went, blessed and wept over by a great city, went, as we all believed, to terrible battle. The setting sun in a clear April sky shone full up the street. Mothers' eyes glistened at the windows upon the glistening bayonets of their boys below. I knew that Winthrop and other dear friends were there, but I did not Fee them. I saw only a thousand men marching like one hero. The music beat saxd rang and clashed in the air. Marching to death or victory or defeat, it mattered not. They marched for Justice, and God was their captain. From that moment he has told his own story, until he went to Fortress Monroe, and was made acting military secretary and aid by General Buller. Before he went, he wrote the most copious and 86 MAJOR THEODORE AVINTHROP. gayest letters from the camp. He was thoroughly aroused, and all his powers happily at play. In a letter to me soon after his arrival in Washington, he says, — "I see no present end of this business. We must conquer the South. Afterwards we must be prepared to do its police in its own behalf, and in behalf of its black population, whom this war must, with- out precipitation, emancipate. We must hold the South as the Metro- politan Police holds New York. All this is inevitable. Now I wish to enroll myself at once in the Police of the Nation^ and for life, if the nation will take me. I do not see that I can put myself — experience and character — to any more useful use My experience in this short campaign with the Seventh assures me that volunteers are for one purpose and regular soldiers entirely another. We want regular soldiers for the cause of order in these anarchical countries, and we want men in command who, though they may be valuable as temporary satraps or proconsuls to make liberty possible where it is now impos- sible, will never under any circumstances be disloyal to Liberty^ will always oppose any scheme of any one to constitute a military govern- ment, and will be ready, when the time comes, to imitate Washington. We must think of these things, and prepare for them Love to all the dear friends This trip has been all a lark to an old tramper. like myself." Later he writes, — "It is the loveliest day of fullest spring. An aspen under the window whispers to me in a chorus of all its leaves, and when I look out, every leaf turns a sunbeam at me. I am writing in Yiele's quar- ters in the villa of Somebody Stone, upon whose place or farm we are encamped. The man who built and set down these four great 87 MAJOR THEODORE WINTHROP. granite pillars in front of his house, for a carriage-porch, had an eye or two for a fine site. This seems to be the finest possible about Washington. It is a terrace called Meridian Hill, two miles north of Pennsylvania Avenue. The house commands the vista of the Potomac, all the plain of the city, and a charming lawn of delicious green, with oaks of the first dignity just coming into leaf It is lovely Nature, and the spot has snatched a grace from Art. The grounds are laid out after a fashion, and planted with shrubbery. The snowballs are at their snowballiest Have you heard or — how many times have you used the simile of some one. Bad-muss or Cadmus, or another hero, who sowed the dragon's teeth, and they came up dragoons a hundred- fold and infantry a thousand-fold? Nil admirari is, of course, my frame of mind ; but I own astonishment at the crop of soldiers. They must ripen awhile, perhaps, before they are to be named quite soldiers. Ripening takes care of itself; and by the harvest-time they will be ready to cut down. " I find that the men best informed about the South do not antici- pate much severe fighting. Scott's Fabian policy will demoralize their armies. If the people do not bother the great Cunctator to death before he is ready to move to assured victory, he will make defeat impossible. Meanwhile there will be enough outwork going on, like those neat jobs in Missouri, to keep us all interested Know, comrade, that I am already a corporal, — an acting corporal, selected by our commanding officer for my general effect of pipe-clay, my rapid- ity of heel and toe, my present arms, etc., but liable to be ousted by suffrage any moment. Quod faustum sit, .... I had already been introduced to the Secretary of War I called at 's and saw, with two or three others, on the sofa. Him my prophetic soul MAJOR THEODORE WINTHROP. named my uncle to be But in my uncle's house are many nephews, and whether nepotism or my transcendent merit will prevail we shall see. I have fun, — I get experience, — I see much, — it pays. Ah, yes ! But in these fair days of May I miss my Staten Island. War stirs the pulse, but it wounds a little all the time. "Compliment for me Tib [a little dog] and the Wisterias, — also the mares and the billiard-table. Ask to give you t'other lump of sugar in my behalf. .... Should return, say that I regret not being present with an unpremeditated compliment, as thus, — ' Ah ! the fii'st rose of summer!' .... I will try to get an enemy's button for , should the enemy attack. If the Seventh returns presently, I am afraid I shall be obliged to return with them for a time. But I mean to see this job Jhrough, somehow." In such an airy, sportive vein he wrote, with the firm purpose and the distinct thought visible under the sparkle. Before the regi- ment left Washington, as he has recorded, he said good-by and went down the bay to Fortress Monroe. Of his unshrinking and sprightly industry, his good head, his warm heart, and cool hand, as a soldier, General Butler has given precious testimony to his family. " I loved him as a brother," the general writes of his young aid. The last days of his life at Fortress Monroe were doubtless also the happiest. His energy and enthusiasm, and kind, winning ways, and the deep satisfaction of feeling that all his gifts could now be used as he would have them, showed him and his friends that his day had at length dawned. He was especially interested in the con- dition and fate of the slaves who escaped from the neighboring region and sought refuge at the fort. He had never for an instant forgotten the secret root of the treason which was desolating the land with war ; MAJOR THEODORE WINTHROP. and in his view there wonld be no peace until that root was destroyed. In his letters written from the fort, he suggests plans of relief and comfort for the refugees; and one of his last requests was to a lady in New York, for clothes for these poor pensioners. They were promptly sent, but reached the fort too late. As I look over these last letters, which gush and throb with the fulness of his activity, and are so tenderly streaked with touches of constant affection and remembrance, yet are so calm and duly mindful of every detail, I do not think with an elder friend, in whom the wisdom of years has only deepened sympathy for all generous youthful impulse, of Virgil's Marcellus, "Heu, miserande puer!" but I recall rather, still haunted by Philip Sidney, what he wrote, just before his death, to his father-in-law, Walsingham, — " I think a wise and constant man ought never to grieve while he doth play, as a man may say, his own part truly." The sketches of the campaign in Virginia, which Winthrop had commenced in the Atlantic Monthly, would have been continued, and have formed an invaluable memoir of the places, the men, and the operations of which he was a witness and a part. As a piece of vivid pictorial description, which gives the spirit as well as the spectacle, his " Washington as a Camp" is masterly. He knew not only what to see and to describe, but what to think ; so that in his papers you are not at the mercy of a multitudinous mass of facts, but understand their value and relation. Inmiediately upon his arrival at Fort Monroe he had commenced a third article. The disastrous day of the 10th of June, at Great Bethel, need not be described here. It is already written with tears and vain regrets in our history. It is useless to prolong the debate as to where the 40 MAJOR THEODORE WINTHROP. blame of the defeat, if blame there were, should rest. But there is an impression somewhat prevalent that Winthrop planned the expe- dition, which is incorrect. As military secretary of the commanding general, he made a memorandum of the outline of the plan as it had been finally settled. Precisely what that memorandum (which has been published) was he explains in the last letter he wrote, a few hours before leaving the fort. He says, — " If I come back safe, I will send you my notes of the plan of attack, part made up from the General's hints, part my own fancies." This defines exactly his responsibility. His position as aid and military secretary, his admirable qualities as adviser under the circumstances, and his personal friendship for the General, brought him intimately into the council of war. He embarked in the plan all the int-erest of a brave soldier contemplating his first battle. He probably made suggestions, some of which were adopted. The expedition was the first move from Fort Monroe, to which the country had been long looking in expectation. These were the reasons why he felt so peculiar a responsibility for its success ; and after the melancholy events of the earlier part of the day, he saw that its fortunes could be retrieved only by a dash of heroic enthusiasm. Fired him- self, he sought to kindle others. For one moment that brave, inspiring form is plainly visible to his whole country, rapt and calm, standing upon the log nearest the enemy's battery, the mark of their sharp- shooters, the admiration of their leaders, waving his sword, cheering his fellow-soldiers with his bugle voice of victory, — young, brave, beautiful, for one moment erect and glowing in the wild whirl of battle, the next falling forward toward the • foe, dead, but triumphant. On the 19th of April he left the armory-door of the Seventh, with his hand upon a howitzer; — on the 21st of June his body lay upon MAJOR THEODORE WINTHROP. the same howitzer at the same door, wrapped in the flag for which he gladly died, as the symbol of human freedom. And so, drawn by the hands of young men lately strangers to him, but of whose bravery and loyalty he had been the laureate, and who fitly mourned him who had honored them, with long, pealing dirges and muffled drums, he moved forward. Yet such was the electric vitality of this friend of ours, that those of us who followed him could only think of him as approving the funeral pageant, not the object of it, but still the spectator and critic of every scene in which he was a part. We did not think of him as dead. We never shall. In the moist, warm midsummer morning, he was alert, alive, immortal. 42 G R E B L E •L-.-^^X^,^^ U. S. A. LIEUTENANT JOHI T. GREBLE, U.S.A. KILLED AT GREAT BETHEL, June 10, 1861 The regular service, on the fatal tenth of June, lost an officer enjoy- ing the highest credit, and one whom the city of Philadelphia will long remember with pride. John Trout Greble, first lieutenant in the Second Artillery, was descended both on the paternal and maternal side from the oldest of the families in the city. In the Revolutionary War, some of these families furnished brave hearts and ready hands to build up that noble government, to defend which from unnatural, because domes- tic, enemies their illustrious descendant ventured so boldly, and so glori- ously lost his life. The first of his ancestors, on the father's side, who came to America, Andrew Greble, was a native of Saxe Goburg Gotha, who settled in Philadelphia in 1742, and who, with his five sons, served in the army of the Revolution, sharing in the toils and the glories of Monmouth and Princeton. On his mother's side, he was descended from the Jones, a Welsh family which emigrated to Philadelphia from Barbadoes, as early as 1689, and this family, though members of the Society of Friends, sent to the army of freedom Abraham Jones, the great-grandfather of young Greble. 46 LIEUTENANT JOHN T. GREBLE. John Trout Greble was born in Philadelphia, on the 19th day of January, 1834. From boyhood John had been remarkable for the innocence and purity of life, an almost feminine character, blended, however, with great firmness and courage, not the result of a robust, physical constitution, but springing from the action of principle and honor. Corresponding to the early training in his family, he won the attachment of all with whom he came in contact. After passing with credit through the requisite preliminary studies at the Ringgold Gram- mar School, he, at the age of twelve, entered the Central High School, where he graduated four years later, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He had already decided on his career, and obtained, in 1850, his appointment as a cadet at West Point. Here his life was a fitting sequel to that spent under his father's roof He won alike the respect of his fellow-students and the approval of his professors, and on the 1st of July, 1854, graduated high in his class. As he had availed himself of the government school to serve his country and not his private ends, he entered the army at once, being commissioned brevet second lieuten- ant in the Second Artillery, then stationed at Newport Barracks. In September, he was made second lieutenant, and went to Tampa, Florida, where he served with his regiment for two years, taking an active part in the operations of the last Indian troubles caused by Billy Bowlegs, who, struck by the young lieutenant's merit, promised before the war to kill him himself in action, so that he should die nobly by the hand of a great chief. Lieutenant Greble escaped unhurt, however ; but the duties in which he was engaged at Fort Myers, and in the Hills- borough and Big Cypress Swamps, brought on a fever, from which he never completely recovered. In. consequence of this, he came to the North, on sick leave, but early in the year 1856 returned to Florida LIEUTENANT JOHN T. GKEBLE. with recruits, and resumed active service, discharging for a time the duties of quartermaster and commissary, till December, 1856. He was then appointed acting assistant professor of Ethics at the Military Acad- emy, and held that position till October, 1860, having in the mean time been promoted to a first lieutenancy on the 3d of March, 1857. The duties of a professor of Ethics might appear more nominal than real to those who are not informed that, in the Military Academy, the professors of Ethics give instruction in English Grammar, Geography, History, Rhetoric, Elocution, International and Constitutional Law, the Constitution of the United States, and Logic. Professor Greble pre- pared himself carefully for the instruction which he gave on Inter- national and Constitutional Law, and on that glorious Constitution in defence of which he was to lay down his life. In October, 1860, Lieutenant Greble, who had repeatedly solicited active service, was ordered to Fortress Monroe, and was one of the handful of gallant men who preserved that important post to the country, when, but for the respect inspired by Colonel Dimmick and his little band of three hundred, the rebels might at any moment have taken it. The force was totally inadequate to man a mile and a halt of ramparts; but they were loyal men, and the forts over which the rebel flag floats have been taken only by treachery or starvation. On the 26th of May, Lieutenant Greble was sent to Newport News, as master of ordnance, having under him, however, only twenty regu- lars, with a sergeant and corporal. The following letter, written from this post the day before his death, will give an insight into his char- acter, as well as show his duties there: a LIEUTENANT JOHN T. GREBLE. Oami' Buti.bk, Newport News, Virginia, \ Sunday, June 9, 1861. It is a delightful Sabbath morning — it has a Sabbath feeling about it. If you had lost the run of the week, such a day as to-day would tell you it was the Sabbath. The camp is unusually quiet, and its stillness broken by little except the organ tones of some of the Massa- chusetts men, who are on the beach singing devotional airs. Last Sabbath the men were at work in the trenches, to-day is their first day of rest. A great deal of work has been done, and during the last week under unfavorable circumstances — rainy days. With very little more labor our whole line of intrenchments will be finished. There is a little trimming off to be done, and a magazine to be built, a little earth to be thrown up in front of some heavy columbiads that have been mounted, and some storehouses to be built, but enough has been done to allow the rest to be completed by general details, and to give a chance for drilling. Colonel Phelps has appointed me ordnance officer of the post. We do not now fear any attack ; the position is too strong. I hear that Davis has given the Federal troops ten days' time in which to leave the soil of Virginia. The time is nearly up, but we are not quite ready to move away. I hope that I may be given courage and good judgment enough to do well my duty under any circumstances in which I may be placed. As far as I can see, there is not much danger to be incurred in this campaign. At present, both sides seem better inclined to talking than fighting. If talking could settle it, by giving the supremacy forever to the general government, I think it would be better than civil war ] but that talking can settle it, I do not believe. ****** John T. Greble. 48 LIEUTENANT JOHN T. GREBLE. His duties at Newport News, where he was the only regular officer, were highly important. To him the three thousand volunteers looked up for real guidance and direction. Besides the superintending of the works here mentioned, he was busily engaged in instructing the volun- teer officers and men in the management and handling of the artillery, a most essential point, as, in case of a sudden attack, there would other- wise have been none able to man the guns. As is evident from the last letter. Lieutenant Greble had no antici- pation of being immediately called into action. As ordnance officer of the post his position was at Newport News, and General Butler, in planning the expedition of which we are about to speak, did not intend that he should form a part of it. But, while Lieutenant Greble saw no reason for an advance, and naught to induce him to suppose any then projected, other counsels had prevailed at Fortress Monroe. An expe- dition had really been planned in which Lieutenant Greble was to bear an important part, and by sacrificing his life, save the American forces, in their retreat and confusion, from severe loss, a terrible rout, and, as officers of ability declare, not improbably almost total annihilation. After Lieutenant Greble had dispatched his last letter, orders reached his commander at Newport News requiring him to detail a portion of his forces to join a body of troops sent on from Portress Monroe, and to march at midnight to surprise the rebels who were stationed at Little Bethel, and then push on to Great Bethel Church, near County Creek, where they were supposed to be in force, and carry the works erected there. Colonel Phelps thus suddenly called upon, detailed Lieutenant Greble to command the artillery. He obeyed with the alacrity of a thorough soldier, and prepared to march, but the moment that he heard the plan. LIEUTENANT JOHN T. (IREBLE, his better judgment condemned it, and he remarked to a brother officer, — " This is an ill-advised and badly arranged movement. I am afraid no good will come of it ; and as for myself, I do not think I shall come off the field alive." At midnight Lieutenant Greble left Newport News with two pieces of artillery, small six-pounders; but so inadequate were the preparations, that no animals could be found to draw the guns, and after considerable difficulty, he secured two mules to draw one, and a hundred men were detailed to draw the other. At mid- night he started, with eleven artillerymen of the regular service, and was in the advance about two miles, with one gun, when he heard firing in the rear. Borrowing a horse, he galloped back, and to his grief and astonishment found his second gun firing on a Brooklyn regiment, which, from a neglect on the part of the commander to give the men from different points some means of recognizing each other. Colonel Bendix's men had mistaken for the enemy. Greble at once ordered the firing to cease, and as he saw the dead and wounded lying around, exclaimed that he would rather have laid down his own life than have such a disaster and disgrace befall our arms. The result of this fatal error is well known. The enemy were notified of the approach of the American troops, and hastily retiring from Little Bethel, which it was intended to surprise, prepared for a vigorous defence of their works at County Creek. As soon as order was restored. Lieutenant Greble returned to his gun, which was in ad- vance, with Duryea's Zouaves. On arriving in sight of the enemies' works, he planted his howit- zers in the road, and opened his fire, aiming the cannon himself, and remaining as cool as on parade. In this way he advanced till within one hundred yards of the works. The balls from the enemy's in- LIEUTENANT JOHN T. GREBLE. trenched battery poured around him, but he refused to dodge them, as others did. He was soon left on the road, with his command of eleven men, the volunteers having retreated from the exposed posi- tion, but he stood his ground till he silenced all their guns but one. For two hours he. kept up his fire, and when the enemy made a sortie, drove them back with a shower of grape. The officers near him begged him to dodge or retreat. He replied, "I never dodge; and when I hear the notes of the bugle calling a retreat, I shall retreat, and not before." Five of his men now alone remained; and as it was evident that no command existed on the field, he ordered Corporal Peoples to limber up the gun, and take it away. At that moment a shot struck him on the right temple, and he fell, exclaiming, " my God!" Thus, in an ill-managed expedition, the country lost Lieutenant Greble. As an officer, he bore the highest character. He was every inch a thorough-bred American soldier, — skilled, brave, active, and efficient. In private life, a gifted and accomplished gentleman, a Christian by profession, and still more by practice, living up to the truth he saw, and the duties it inculcated, thus affording a beautiful examiple to young officers, who are too often deluded by the mistaken idea that there is something incompatible between honest manly piety and religion, and the character of a soldier. Greble was a type of cool bravery, of exact discipline, of mild and gentle manners, and of practical religion. In his pocket was found a paper scrawled evidently on the field, and bearing these words, addressed to his wife, the daughter of his senior professor at West Point, the Rev. John W. French : " May God bless you, my darling, and grant you a happy and peace- LIEUTENANT JOHN T. GREBLE. ful life. May the good Father protect you and me, and grant that we may live happily together long lives. God give me strength, wisdom, and courage. If I die, let me die as a brave and honorable man; let no stain of dishonor hang over me or you. Devotedly, and with my whole heart, your husband." His body was borne from the field by Duryea's Zouaves, and con- veyed to his native city, with every military honor. In Philadel- phia, his body lay in state in Independence Hall, and on the 14th of June, after being visited by thousands, was borne through Chestnut, Seventh, and Walnut Streets, to his father's residence, escorted by Captain Starr's company of militia, and followed by officers of the army and navy, the city authorities, the pupils of the High School, and a large body of military. His body was conveyed to Woodland Cemetery, where his father-in-law. Rev. J. W. French, read the final service, and amid the rattle of musketry, his remains were committed to their repose. The city of Philadelphia is justly proud of her gallant son ; and a portrait, painted by Marchant, has been presented to the city author- ities, that his memory may be a stimulus and a guide to the rising young of the city and State. At his funeral, the Rev. Dr. Brainard, who had known him from childhood, thus summed up his character: " Few have passed to the grave whose whole life could better bear inspection, or who presented fewer defects over which we have need to throw the mantle of charity. In his family circle, in the Sabbath- school, in the High-school where he graduated, as a cadet at West Point, and as an officer in the service of his country, up to the very hour when he bravely fell, he has exhibited a life marked by the purest LIEUTENANT JOHN T. GREBLE. principles, and the most guarded and exemplary deportment. In his nature he was modest, retiring, gentle, of almost feminine delicacy, careful to avoid wounding the feelings of any, and considerate of every obligation to all around him. Indeed, such was his amiability, modesty, and delicacy of temperament, that we might almost have questioned the existence in him of the sterner virtues, had not his true and un- shrinking courage in the hour of danger stamped him with an heroic manliness. In this view of qualities, seemingly antithetical, we discover that beautiful symmetry in his character which marks him as a model man of his class." 6S WARD. ®®M1 ROAMKlre, QJoS.R?, JAMES HAMAN WARD, U.S.N. KILLED IN THE ATTACK ON MATHIAS POINT, June 27, 1861. It was a most severe loss to our service when an officer so superior in all the science and practice of his profession as Captain Ward, fell, not on the element where our navy rides, and where he was so com- petent to lead a fleet to battle, but on a petty steamer on a narrow river. A precious life was uselessly wasted: an arm of the service deprived of a man whose equal could only be made in years of expe- rience turned to profit by observation and study. James Harman Ward was born at Hartford, Connecticut, in 1806. His father, Colonel James Ward, a prominent citizen, was commissary- general of the State during the war of 1812, and during a long life enjoyed the highest esteem and respect. James Harman, his son, was educated at the Vermont Military Academy, an able institution founded at. Norwich, Vermont, in 1820, by Captain Alden Partridge, and since become the Norwich University. Here he received a good primary training for the service which he had chosen, — lectures on military subjects, especially gunnery, being frequent and copious; and this he always considered to have been an inestimable advantage, "because more familiar knowledge is talked into youths than they can acquire 57 CAPTAIN JAMES HARMAN WARD. in any other way. Study and recitation alone, without oral instruc- tion, are insufficient." From this academy, then justly a popular in- stitution with the more cultivated gentlemen of the country as a school of training for their sons, young Ward passed for a time to Trinity College, Hartford. On the 4th of March, 1823, he entered the navy as a midshipma.n, on board of the Constitution, then commanded by the modest, religious McDonough, the hero of Lake Champlain. To that great man he was ever devotedly attached, and in one of his treatises shows how keenly he felt the singular discourtesy shown to him by hauling down his broad pennant, in the Mediterranean, in 1825,— an affront to his revered com- mander which the young officer never forgot. From the moment Ward entered the navy, he made it his profession for life, and he devoted himself earnestly to acquire all knowledge necessary to fit him for advancement to its highest honors. He sought no laurels but those to be won in the Naval Service ; and his works, which give him high rank among professional writers, show how absolutely he renounced all that could wean him from it. He saw with regret many, devoting their talent to less severe and more remunerative study and work, at last leave the service, after having acquired a distaste for the sea and the navy. In his own person he united, as he in later days earnestly called upon the young officers to unite, intellectual cleverness with the practical accomplishments of the trained, prompt, bold, and confident seaman. He accepted all orders, shirked no duty, preserving true self- respect by rather suffering than practising injustice in the matter ot promotion. Passing through the regular steps, he was made a lieutenant on the 3d of March, 1831, and was attached to the Mediterranean squadron. 6S CAPTAIN JAMES HARMAN WARD. ■ From this time he was constantly in service of the most varied and laborious character, in every class of vessel. He was many years on the coast of Africa ; and while on that station, in command of a cor- vette, compiled his Manual of Naval Tactics, undertaken to furnish younger officers elementary aid to the great work of Father Paul Hoste, the standard author on the subject, whose difficulty, however, often makes him repulsive. This work was not published till 1858, and was then extremely well received by the naval authorities, as eminently suited to the purpose of an elementary manual. It will be of service no less to the historical scholar, from its examination of some of the naval battles and operations in our own annals, especially the battles of Lake Champlain and Lake Erie, in which, as a scientific man, he defended the plans of McDonough and Perry. He delivered in 1842 and 1843 a course of lectures on gunnery in Philodelphia, which attracted considerable attention. But his great object at this period was to in- duce the government to establish a Navy School, which should be for his arm of the service what West Point is for the army. He was inde- fatigable in impressing on all who could influence the result the advan- tages, and, in fact, necessity, of such an institution. Fortunately for the efficiency of our navy, now supplied with regular classes of well-edu- cated young officers, his labors were successful. When it opened, he was appointed one of the professors, and lectured on gunnery. Here his elementary turn, and his peculiar manner of explanation, rendered him of the utmost service to naval cadets. The subject of his lectures he subsequently published in 1845, under the title of "Elementary Instruction on Naval Ordnance and Gunnery." This work, one of the first scientific works written by any of our navy officers, led to beneficial changes, and exercised a happy influence on the service. After leaving CAPTAIN JAMES HARMAN WARD. the academy, he watched its progress with great interest, and his -views in regard to its efficiency seem most wise. He believed that officers drawn from active service should be connected with it, and not left too long, for fear of their losing the true spirit of the navy. During the Mexican war, which soon followed, he was attached to the Gulf fleet, and nearly lost his life in the operations at Tuspan. At an early period after the introduction of steam into the navy, he turned his attention to it, and with his habitual spirit studied the whole subject thoroughly. To present the knowledge he had thus acquired in a comprehensible form, he subsequently wrote his " Steam for the Million" (Van Nostrand, New York, 1860). In 1849, he com- manded the United States steamer Vixen, in the Gulf of Mexico, and then, and subsequently, was enabled to appreciate and examine the various problems presented by this new element in naval warfare, — thus far without any great operations from which to study its results. He was made a commander in 1853; and being in England at the close of the Crimean war, when the queen reviewed the Spithead fleet, he was gratified to have a most accomplished captain in the royal navy point out his vessel as a model of order, cleanliness, tone, discipline, and high training, which even British officers might study with profit. In 1857, he was appointed to the command of the receiving ship North Carolina, lying at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, — a command of a kind having its own peculiar difficulties, calling for such sufficient sway over men in large bodies as restrains them under the temptations special to a receiving-ship, — a talent to be cultivated, a science to be studied, as on it, anywhere, harmonious discipline and true military strength largely depend. His ability as a scientific naval officer was now recognized at home 60 CAPTAIN JAMES HARMAN WARD. and abroad. His correspondence with all engaged in similar studies was very extensive, and he was consulted with the utmost confidence. Sir Howard Douglas, like himself a master of the art of gunnery, was one of his warm friends and correspondents. When the treachery of the members of the late cabinet had fur- nished the secession conspirators with arms and all the material of war, and the Gulf States, confident in their power, openly set up an inde- pendent government, Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens alone escaped the grasp of treason. The relief of Fort Sumter became the great object of the new administration. The known ability and science of Captain Ward caused him to be at once summoned to Washington, to aid them by his counsels. He was retained at Washington, and organized the Potomac flotilla, to the command of which he was appointed on the 16th of May, 1861, the Freeborn being the vessel under his immediate charge. The rebels began throwing up batteries along the bank of the river, which was in their guilty hands. Ward at once formed a plan of operations, unfortunately not adopted by those in power. On the 20th of May he captured, about ten miles below Fort Washington, two schooners loaded with rebel soldiers, and actively proceeded to clear the river. Ten days after, he reconnoitred Mathias Point, landing in person with a small party, and satisfying himself that no fortifications had been begun there. On the 31st, with the Freeborn, supported by the Anacosta and Resolute, he cannonaded the rebel batteries at Acquia Creek, until he silenced the three batteries at the railroad terminus, and drew ojff only when his ammunition was exhausted, and shot poured like hail from batteries on the heights, above the reach of his guns. During the ensuing night the enemy repaired their works, and brought down CAPTAIN JAMES HARMAN WARD. the guns from the heights. In the morning Ward, aided by the Pawnee, again opened on them, and kept up a rapid fire till the railroad build- ings were destroyed, and the guns silenced. During the months of June and July, Captain Ward was constantly on the move, and on the 26th of July he discovered indications of a movement for the erection of a battery at Mathias Point by the rebels, and sent to the Pawnee for two boats' crews to land and throw up breastworks. Men were landed the next day, and a sand-bag breastwork thrown up before evening. When all was ready, the men returned to their boats to go on board for guns to mount on' the work, when the rebels, ambushed in the bushes that skirted the shore, suddenly poured in a destructive fire of musketry. The crews immediately made for the steamer, the Freeborn covering their retreat by an active fire, throwing shell with great pre- cision. Captain Ward stood coolly by his gun, directing its fire, and when his gunner was wounded took his place. As he was sighting the gun, a minie ball struck him, inflicting a mortal wound, of which he expired in about an hour. His body was carried to the Navy Yard at Washington, and on Saturday conveyed with due honor to the depot, on its way to New York. It was received and laid in state on the North Carolina, where he had been so recently the esteemed commander. Death had not changed his honest, open, yet determined look ; and his many friends came to pay the last visit of respect to a brave and accomplished friend. The funeral services of the Catholic rite were performed by the Bishop of Hartford. The body was then taken to the steamer Granite State, which bore it to Hartford. There the city prepared to honor its gal- lant son. On the day of the funeral, the stores were closed, the bells tolled, and after an imposing service in the cathedral, where the Rev. CAPTAIN JAMES HARMAN WARD. Bernard O'Reilly, of the Society of Jesus, a personal friend of the departed, made a most touching address, the body was borne through the silent streets, followed by the civic authorities and the military of the city, to his final resting-place, beside his parents. In addition to the works which we have had occasion to mention. Captain Ward drew up a set of rules and regulations for the govern- ment of a ship, which are deemed models, as succinct, clear, and intelli- gible. Many have adopted them without alteration, and they will prob- ably be printed. His order-book is also highly spoken of He also invented an improved gun-carriage, and projected other improvements, — his ever active mind studying deeply every branch of science or me- chanics having any bearing on his profession. In religion he examined as thoroughly ; and as a result of his investigations entered the Catholic Church, practising all its required duties with that manliness and true nobility which w;ere so strikingly characteristic of this noble son of Connecticut. That State, rich in historic glories of the past, may now point with pride to the honored graves of Lyon and Ward, her last noble victims on the, altar of nationality. i'lv:, i-'T nKy; ^^''f/A.Kv^' FARNHAM. COLOML NOAH L. FARNHAM, N.Y.V. MORTALLY WOUNDED AT THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN, July 21, 1861. Noah Lane Fabnham, the second colonel of the New York Fire Zouaves, elected after the murder of Ellsworth, his friend and associate, was not unworthy of the command, and by his intrepidity in his first engagement sacrificed his life. He was a native of Connecticut, having been born at Haddam, June 6, 1829, but was brought up in the city of New York, to which his family removed in 1833. His later studies were, however, pursued in New Haven ; and on returning to New York at the age of eighteen, he became a member of the City Guard, and was on active duty at the time of the Astor Place Riot, caused by the rivalry between Forrest and Macready. The militia did not, however, afford sufficient exercise for his adventurous spirit. He joined the Fire Department, being first associated with Fire Engine Company No. 42, and afterwards with Hook and Ladder Company No. 1, being for a time foreman of the latter. In 1856, he was elected assistant engineer of the Fire Department, and for three years discharged its duties in a most creditable manner, meeting with the approbation of the depart- ment and the public. His military taste had not, however, left him ; and, after acting as a volunteer private in the Seventh Regiment, he 6T COLONEL NOAH L. FAENHAM. entered it in 1857, and was elected second sergeant while still a recruit. When the summons came for troops to defend our " Eternal City" from the fierce southron hordes sweeping up for its destruction, he was first lieutenant in company B, commanded by Captain Shaler. As a member of the Seventh, he had made the acquaintance of Ellsworth, his company having escorted the Zouaves to West Point, where both companies were reviewed by Jefferson Davis and Colonel Hardee, neither supposing that the day was so near at hand when they should fall among the earliest victims to a civil war, roused by the fell ambition and treachery of the men who stood before them, with traitor hearts beating beneath the glorious uniform they disgraced. Parnham entered into all Ellsworth's plans, and even formed a project of another Zouave organization. When Ellsworth came to New York to form his regiment of Eire Zouaves, he earnestly pressed Parnham to accept the lieutenant- colonelcy, but Parnham was loth to leave the Seventh, and proceeded with it to the seat of war. The Seventh left its armory on the 19th of April, and proceeded amid the densely crowded streets of New York to the Jersey Citv Perry, a triumph in advance, and impressing on all that war was really begun, by the firm, thoughtful look of the men. Colonel Marshall Leff"erts, with his regiment, numbering nearly a thousand, including Winthrop, Parnham, Alden, already numbered with the glorious dead, proceeded to Philadelphia by rail ; but deeming it wiser to avoid Balti- more, and any delay they would certainly experience there, embarked on the steamer Boston, on the afternoon of the 20th, and, before his men were aware of their destination, came in sight of Annapolis, just in time to relieve the Eighth Massachusetts, which, taking the same COLONEL NOAH L. FARNHAM. route, had had their steamer Constitution run aground by a treacherous captain. After resting at Annapolis, repairing the locomotives which had been taken apart by the treachery of their enemies, the two American regiments began their march to Washington, on the railroad track, repairing, as they went along, the destruction which the frantic sons of Maryland committed on their public works. Their entry into the capital of the Union was a triumph. The Seventh Regiment was quartered in the Capitol, were sworn in, and soon began the active life of drill and exercise. Lieutenant Farnham was indefatigable in his duties ; but when Ellsworth arrived with his regiment, and again tendered him the rank of lieutenant-colonel, he at last yielded, to the great satisfaction of Ellsworth, and the delight of the men to whom he was so well and so favorably known. We have already followed the march of the regiment to Alexandria, where Colonel Ellsworth was murdered so basely. On that sad event, Farnham was elected colonel, and dis- charged its duties with great fidelity and untiring zeal. His health, though vigorous, became impaired, and when the regiment received its orders to move on Manassas, he was actually confined to his bed with illness. Yet he rose from his sick-bed to put himself at the head of his regiment, which left Fort Ellsworth, and forming part ot Heintzelman's Division, crossed Bull Run by the fords at Sudley Church. Here Rickett's battery, posted on a hill, was disabled by a heavy fire of musketry, and Heintzelman ordering the Zouaves forward to support it, led them on against an Alabama regiment, partly con- cealed in a clump of pines in an old field. They rushed forward gallantly, but being charged at the same time by cavalry in the rear, they were thrown into confusion, and fell back Colonel Farnham, 69 COLONEL NOAH L. FARNHAM. with Lieutenant-colonel Cregier and Major Loeser, were incessant in their exertions to rally the men, and received the unqualified praise of Colonel Ward, who commanded the brigade. In the confusion, however, few of the Zouaves remained together; most fought irreg- ularly, with other regiments. While endeavoring to bring them for- ward as a regiment, Farnham received a wound in the head, and his horse was shot under him, throwing him heavily to the ground. He was carried off the field by his men, but his previous illness, his wound and the bruises which he received, induced a brain fever, of which he died, on the 14th of August. His remains were brought to New York, and after appropriate funeral ceremonies, were carried to New Haven, where he lies interred. 70 CAMERON COLONEL JAMES CAMERON, N.Y.S.M. KILLED AT BULL RUN, July 21, 1861. Although falling in command of a regiment of New York militia which had volunteered for the war, Colonel Cameron was really, in birth and life, a son of Pennsylvania, who had found it impossible to decline the honor conferred on him by the city of New York, in proffer- ing him the command of one of its finest regiments. Born at Maytown, Lancaster county, on the 1st of March, 1801, he thus, on his forty-seventh birthday, summarily reviewed his life : " This day, forty -six years ago, a child was born in a beautiful, obscure town in the interior of Pennsylvania, whose Christian name was James. This child has passed through most of the thorny thickets of life. He was a cow-boy, a plough-boy, a collier, a blacksmith, a tanner, a tailor, a printer, a brewer, a contractor, an alderman, a superintendent of railroads, a lawyer, a prosecuting attorney, an aid to the governor, — in short, almost every thing but a Christian, and that I might even add this to my biography some day, would not be a bit more strange than some things I have accomplished." Such was the varied and peculiarly American life of one destined to fall in the service of his country. His father died at Lewisburg, in T8 COLONEL JAMES CAMERON. Union county, leaving his widow with no means of support, and noth- ing to aid her in rearing a large family of eight children. That, in spite of all these disadvantages, two of her friendless boys have linked their names so indissolubly with the history of their State and the Union redounds to her credit, and shows the depth and strength of the principles which she must have instilled into their minds. James chose the trade of a blacksmith, and worked steadily at it till he was nineteen years of age, when he entered the printing-office of his brother Simon, at Harrisburg. After acquiring a knowledge of the typographic art, he rambled, as many young printers do, in search of work ; walked to Pittsburg, and then made his way to Philadelphia. His position as a printer led him, by an easy transition, to the establishment and man- agement of a paper, for which he was well fitted, — a singularly clear and sagacious mind, great memory, and solid reading compensating for the want of schooling, which the position of his mother in his early days precluded, for he was under a teacher for less than a year. The first paper which he conducted was the "Lycoming Gazette,'' at Williamsport, which came to his hands a,bout 1824 ;, but in 1827 he accepted an invitation to remove to Lancaster, and assume the direction of the " Political Sentinel." Here he became acquainted with, and in February, 1829, married Mrs. Rebecca Galbraith, widow of Doctor Gal- braith, and daughter of Jacob Lemon, Esq., who, after living in happi- ness with him for over a quarter of a century, now mourns his loss. While conducting the "Sentinel," he studied law in the ofl&ce of the late President, James Buchanan, but when the anti-masonic excite- ment arose, he sold his paper, and leaving the field of politics for some years, employed his time in obtaining and carrying out contracts for the public works then in progress in Pennsylvania. 74 COLONEL JAMES CAMEKON. He readily, however, adapted himself to any business, as his brief summary of his career shows, turned his attention to several branches of trade and industry, and held public offices, which he discharged with fidelity, to the Satisfaction of his fellow-citizens. During the Mexican War, he accompanied the volunteers of his State, as sutler, in January, 1847, and thus saw something of real army service. He was heartily in favor of the war, believing that it would tend to elevate Mexico ; but, unfortunately, that unhappy country is still a prey to faction and fraud, and some of our own public men learned too aptly the lessons of treachery, revolt, and revolution which Mexican history presents on every page, and are now enacting on our soil such scenes as have always excited our sympathy for our sister Republic. His mind was thus turned to military affairs, to which he devoted con- siderable attention, and he was for many years colonel of a regiment in the Pennsylvania militia. Of late years his health, tried by an over- active life, began to decline, and he was living in retirement, at a beautiful estate on the banks of the Susquehanna, when the Seventy- Ninth, or Highland Regiment of New York State Militia, anxious to be led by one of so historic a name as Cameron, warmly urged him to accept the colonelcy. The regiment, after many delays and obstacles, at last received orders to proceed to the seat of war. Two elegant flags were bestowed upon them by General Ewen and Mr. Cameron, and on the 2d of June they marched from Palace Garden, under Lieutenant-colonel Samuel Mackenzie Elliott, to the boat. Their fine appearance had already excited general enthusiasm, not only among those of Scotch birth and origin, but among all classes. As many of the soldiers had served in the British armies, had borne the heats of the Indian campaigns and the arduous duties of the Crimean war, all felt T5 COLONEL JAMES CAMERON. confident that the Seventy-Ninth Highlanders of New York, in assuming the number and name of that noble corps in the British army, would not detract from its renown, but would, on the contrary, make the New York Seventy-Ninth as famous as its transatlantic predecessor. Pressing on through Baltimore, reeking with the first blood of the loyal soldiery of America, the Seventy-Ninth reached Washington, and encamped at Georgetown College. The regiment had come without a colonel, McLeay having resigned previous to its departure, and it was already proposed to elect Mr. Cameron to the position. On the 18th of June a banquet was given to the officers of the regiment by the St. Andrew's Society of Washington, and Cameron was toasted as colonel. In his response he corrected this, saying that he was not indeed then colonel, but having been notified of their willingness to confer that position on him, he intended to accept it. He referred to the evening of their meeting being the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo, where the British Seventy-Ninth played so distinguished a part. At Waterloo the Seventy-Ninth stood until almost the last man was cut down, and the bravery which animated these men in 1815, would be exhibited, he felt assured, by the Scotsmen of 1861, who had not degenerated one particle. Two days after, the officers, at an election held at headquarters, unanimously elected Cameron as colonel, Generals Ewen and Sanford, of the New York State Militia, being present. On accepting the command of the regiment. Colonel Cameron said that he did not come to fight against the South, but against the foes of the Union. He knew no North, no South, no East, no West. The regiment soon after removed to Camp Lochiel, whence, on the 7th of July, they marched over the aqueduct to the vicinity of Ball's COLONEL JAMES CAMERON. Cross Roads, where they encamped on a height approached by a road winding through a deep hollow. From his election, Colonel Cameron had devoted himself assiduously to the duties of his position, ably seconded by the capable and intelligent officers of his command. The American army were impatient to meet the enemy : the people murmured at the delay : the term of the regiments called out by the President's proclamation, for three months, had nearly expired. It was resolved to advance in force on the enemy's lines. The army under the command of Brigadier-general Irwin McDowell accordingly advanced, the Seventy-Ninth in the first, Tyler's, Division having been assigned, with other gallant troops, to the brigade of General Sherman. In the reconnoissance in force made by General Tyler, on the 18th, to ascertain the position and strength of the enemy, the Seventy-Ninth were for a time under the enemy's fire. The First Massachusetts, the New York Twelfth Volunteers, and Second and Third Michigan were the reconnoitring force; but as they were hard pressed, other regiments were ordered up, and among them Colonel Cameron's. Meagher marked him as he swept past the Sixty-Ninth, and thus describes his appearance : " There was Colonel Cameron at the head of his Highlanders, riding erect and resolute, with his broad-leafed hat, shadowed with a superb black ostrich-feather, softening the outline of the strong massive features, which the consciousness of his being on a noble service seemed to illuminate." A true soldier, he rode conspicuous at the head of his men, for he knew well the effect of the courage shown on men going into the fray, and was not one to go to battle disguised in a slouched hat or an old gray coat to hide his uniform. The reconnoissance showed the rebels to be in too strong force a.t TT COLONEL JAMES CAMERON. Blackburn's Ford to be easily dislodged from a position so well adapted for defence, by the natural formation of the ground and the works which they had thrown up. The plan of battle adopted was to make a feint there, a demonstration at the Stone Bridge, higher up the ravine threaded by the creek, and to send a considerable force across it, at Sudley Church, and take the enemies of freedom on the flank. When Hunter and Heintzelman had crossed and driven the enemy in till they were able to make a stand, Tyler ordered Sherman's Brigade to cross Bull Run and support ■ Colonel Hunter. The brigade crossed gallantly, the Sixty-Ninth leading till they reached Hunter's Division, when General McDowell ordered them to pursue the enemy, now rapidly retreating. The Second Wisconsin then led on, down the hill and up the ridge, under a galling fire of artillery, rifle, and musketry. Passing the crest, the Wisconsin men twice charged bravely on the batteries, but were repulsed with loss. Then Cameron — who, though sick and feeble, almost, indeed, dying, yet resolved to head his regiment — closed up, and, at the order of Sherman, dashed over the brow of the hill, across the irregular ground and clusters of pine, all alive with riflemen. No mortal men could stand the fearful storm that swept them; as they fell back, Cameron again and again led them up, his "Scots, follow me!" ringing above the din of battle, — till, at last, Wade Hampton, who had marked his gallant bearing, and fired rifle after rifle at him as his men handed them up, accomplished his mur- derous purpose. Cameron fell in the deadly charge, — his death the exact counterpart of that of Colonel Cameron, of the British 79th, who fell at the battle of Fuentes de Onoro, killed by a French colonel, who seized a musket from one of his men. His body was borne to a farmhouse not far distant; but when the COLONEL JAMES CAMERON. Sixty-Ninth too failed to drive back the enemy and the rout began, his remains were left on the battle-field, and interred, it is said, near the house of a Mr. Dogan. A soldier secured from his lifeless body the miniatures of the colonel and his wife ; but though an earnest appeal was made to General Beauregard to give up his remains to be buried by his family, that officer, with the want of humanity and of honor which has characterized him since he linked his fortunes with the unholy cause he advocates, refused to give up either the body or the miniature. Other efforts were made, but they were equally fruitless, and the noble leader of the brave Highland regiment lies in his noble but unhonored grave, waiting the moment when a more auspicious day shall rear above the rocky ravine the flag of freedom and of man's best hopes. 19 S LOCUM. COLONEL JOHI S. SLOCUM, R.I.Y. KILLED AT BULL RUN, July 21, 1861. John S. Slocum, whose gallantry in the service of the United States, attested in two wars, and crowned by a glorious death in Virginia, was born in the town of Richmond, Rhode Island, on the 1st of November, 1824. Not long after his birth his family removed to Bristol, where John spent most of his earlier life, receiving his edu- cation at the schools of the place, arid subsequently at the Fruit Hill and Marlborough Classical Schools, and at a Commercial Academy in Hartford. His mind was active, and he learned more than books. To manage a boat, to handle firearms, and to perform all the evolutions of the manual, were part of his self-acquired education. During the Dorr War, — one of those earlier manifestations of that destructive spirit which now seeks the utter annihilation of our national commonwealth, — young Slocum rallied, as he ever did through life, to the cause of gov- ernment. As a member of the National Cadets, he felt greater obli- gations to render himself in fact, as in name, a citizen soldier. His inclination for the career of arms was decided, and he but needed a field, to achieve fame, and render his country service. When the Mexicans sought to check the advance of the Americans, 88 COLONEL JOHN S. SLOCUM. on their territory along the Rio Grande and war began, Slocum has- tened to Washington, and without friends, influence, or position, by his own exertions at the door of the presidential mansion, made his way to the presence of the chief magistrate of the Union, -and by his honest, manly oifers of service, obtained what he alone desired, — a commission in the army. An act of Congress, passed on the 11th of February, 1847, authorized the raising of ten additional regiments of regular infantry, and in the first of these, the ninth on the army lists, Slocum was appointed first lieutenant on the 18th, a week after the passage of the act. His captain was Joseph S. Pitman ; the colonel, almost from its organization, was Truman B. Ransom, who left the classic halls of Norwich University, of which he was president, to fight the battles of his country ; while the major was Thomas H. Seymour, since gov- ernor of Connecticut, a personal friend of Slocum, and the one from whom perhaps more than any other he acquired his military tastes. The new regiment was soon raised, organized, and fitted for service. Its destination was the army of General Scott in Mexico, which it reached in time to share in the series of glorious victories that attended the American arms. At the battle of Contreras, on the 19th of August, 1847, the Ninth was one of the regiments ordered to attack the front of the enemy's works ; and in consequence of the accident to General Pierce, Colonel Ransom commanded the force which received the enemy's fire, while Brigadier-general Smith assailed their rear. At the moment agreed. Ransom pushing on with General Shields, each on a different side, they routed a superior force of Mexicans opposed to them. Ransom in twenty minutes dislodging them from a village where they were strongly posted and covered. In the brilliant actions of that and the following day. Lieutenant Slocum was eminent even 84 COLONEL JOHN S. SLOCUM. amid the gallant men around ; and his name is one of those to whose activity the success was attributed by the commanding officers. This gallant and meritorious conduct won him the brevet rank of captain. At Chapultepec, Ransom, leading the storming party up the heights in the face of a perfect sheet of fire, fell at the head of his gallant regiment, in which Lieutenant Slocum, since the promotion of his captain, commanded the company, and shared in all the glory of the day. They drove the enemy from his exterior intrenchments and positions, and held the counterscarp under the heaviest fire. The Ninth, led by Seymour on Ransom's fall, scaled the parapet, entered the cita- del, and struck the Mexican flag from the walls. The coolness and bravery of Slocum on that terrible day won him the commission of captain, but his well-earned rank was of short duration. The victories of the American arms extorted peace, and with peace came the reduc- tion of the army to its former scale. The Ninth was disbanded, and Captain Slocum again returned to private life. As an officer, he had endeared himself to his men not only by his skill and bravery, — quali- ties which always command the soldiers' admiration, — but by his sin- gular attention to their wants. The drooping soldier on the march was often relieved of his musket by Lieutenant Slocum; the soldier almost perishing with thirst, who lay down in despair, was restored and refreshed by a draught held to his lips by his lieutenant, who ventured through all hazards to get it. After the battle of Chapultepec, he had returned to the United States, having been detailed to the recruiting service, which was his last duty as an officer of the army. The experience which he had acquired was appreciated in his native State, and several corps of militia desired to avail themselves 86 COLONEL JOHN S. SLOCUM. of his able direction, but it was only by repeated urging that he took command of the Mechanic Rifles. His military taste led him to interest himself in James's new pro- jectile, which he sought to introduce into Europe, and in testing which he nearly lost his life. In 1860, he was one of the Examining Board at West Point, and as Secretary, made the Report of the Visitors. When the Rebellion began, he was deeply pained, and t6o grieved in heart at the prospect before him to rush madly forward. He had seen war in its reality. In arms he would meet as foes the men beside whom he had fought and bled for the glorious cause of their common country. Yet when Colonel Burnside and Lieutenant-colonel Pitman offered themselves to the governor of Rhode Island, that noble patriot dispatched a messenger late in the night to ask Slocum to call upon him. A com- mission of major in the First Rhode Island was offered and accepted without a moment's hesitation. On the 20th of April, the regiment marched to the relief of the threatened capital. As in the Mexican War, Major Slocum won the affection of his men, and by his skill and experience aided to make them effective soldiers. When a second regiment was required from the State, Grovernor Sprague made him colonel, and authorized him to raise it. Returning to Rhode Island, he soon recruited a regiment, saw it properly equipped, drilled it to a degree of efficiency, and again marched to the seat of war. When the commander-in-chief resolved upon a forward movement of the American army against the rebel forces, the Second Rhode Island Regiment was assigned to Hunter's Division, and left Washington on the afternoon of July 15th, and at night encamped with the rest of Burnside's Brigade at Annandale, proceeding the next day to Fair- 86 COLONEL JOHN S. SLOCUM. fax Court House, where they encamped. After occupying Centreville till the famous Sunday, July 21st, the whole army moved on towards the strong position occupied by the enemy, beyond the deep ravine, through which the small river known as Bull Run held its course. The Second Rhode Island Regiment, under Colonel Slocum, led the advance of the division which crossed Cob Run and reached Bull Run at Sudley's Ford on the extreme left of the enemy's line. From the heights the rebels could be seen moving rapidly forward, and, after a short rest. Colonel Slocum was ordered to throw out skirmishers upon the flanks and in front. These soon engaged the enemy, and Slocum bravely led on his regiment through the woods to the open ground, opening the terrible battle of Bull Run. Their steady advance was met by General Evans, but the enemy soon gave way under the steady, resolute charges of Colonel Slocum. But in the moment of his triumph, he fell mortally wounded, his dying eye cheered with the hope of victory, and his mind clouded by no foreboding of the disaster that ensued. Well had he done his part, the gallant leader of a gallant corps! In his oflBcial report. Colonel Burnside bears honorable testimony to his worth. " The death of Colonel Slocum is a loss, not only to his own State, which mourns the death of a most gallant and meritorious officer, who would have done credit to the service, while his prominent abilities as a soldier would have raised him high in the public estimation. He had served with me as Major of the First Regiment of Rhode Island Volunteers, and when he was transferred to a more responsible position, I was glad that his services had been thus secured for the benefit of his country." His monument will proudly bear the words: Contreras, Churubusco, Chapultepec, Sudley Ford. sj B ALLO U c/" r^ M AJ-29 B.I.V. MAJOE SULLIVAN BALLOU, E.I.Y. KILLED AT BULL RUN, July 21, 1861. Major Sullivan Ballou, of the Second Rhode Island Regiment of Volunteers, who lost his life at the disastrous battle of Bull Run, was one of the most prominent men of his native State, and one whose future seemed most likely to be honored with her dignities. Eloquent, able, honest, and fearless, he had always won distinction at the bar and in the council, before he laid aside the toga for the harness of war. He was born at Smithfield, Rhode Island, on the 28th day of March, 1829, and passed the years of early childhood in his native town. Like many other New England families, to whom the western parts offer attractions and more enticing hopes of advancement, his family ISfb Smithfield when he was quite young, and resided at Rochester during most of his youth. His education was pursued in the schools of that place, but in 1846 he entered Phillips Academy, at Andover, Massachusetts, where he spent two years, preparatory to entering Brown University. Of that honored institution he was a collegian for only two years, when, without waiting his graduation and the honors conferred by its faculty, he proceeded to the National Law School in MAJOR SULLIVAN BALLOU. Ballston, New York, to fit himself for the profession to which his inclination no less than his evident abilities fitted him. On the completion of his studies he was admitted to the Rhode Island Bar, in March, 1853, and beginning the practice of the law at Smithfield, continued to devote himself to his profession there and in Providence until he left with his regiment for the seat of war. Few men ever relinquished more flattering prospects of success in their chosen profession than Major Ballon. He was Clerk of the House of Representatives of Rhode Island during the years 1854, 1855, and 1856, and was elected a member of that House, as representative of his native town, in April, 1857. Upon the meeting of the Legislature, he was, by the unanimous voice of the members, chosen to preside over their deliberations as speaker ; and so acceptably did he fill the chair, that when his constituents, in the succeeding year, returned him again to the House, he was again proposed for the speakership, but declined the ofiQce. During the session, however, he discharged the responsible duties of chairman of the Committee on Corporations. He now, moreover, closed his career in a legislative capacity, declining a re-election, in order that he might devote himself exclu- sively to the duties of his profession ; and to avail himself of a more ample field for successful practice, removed at this time to ProvidencI, and became associated with Charles F. Brownell, Esq. During his short service in the House of Representatives, he was a prominent member, being possessed of unusual powers of debate and eloquence as an advocate, and his gifts were never used except for the cause of justice and right. In whatever position he was placed, he was always distinguished. 92 MAJOR SULLIVAN, BALLOU. In April, 1861, he was brought forward by the Republican party as their candidate for the office of Attorney-general, but as the whole ticket was defeated, even his popularity did not suffice to turn the tide in his instance. The only public office held by him at the time was that of Judge- advocate of the Rhode Island Militia. When the call came for troops, his eloquence and his influence were all given to the cause of our national existence ; and when Colonel Slocum returned from the seat of war to raise a second Rhode Island regiment, Sullivan Ballou, at two or three days' notice, accepted the rank of major, — a post assigned to him, not from his military experience, but from the gen- eral confidence felt, and most justly felt, in him. He ptoved before his death, as is attested by the unanimous testimony of his brother officers and the men, an unusual capacity for command and a great aptitude for the military art. He accepted rank from a patriotic sense of duty, knowing full well the danger to which he would be exposed, — feeling at the same time that terrible presentiment, that he should be one of the earliest victims. He could not remain at home : he had urged others to stand up for their common country, and when the call came to him, he could not even hesitate, though he almost knew he was rushing to a speedy death. When the regiment was formed, he accompanied it to Washington ; and when the grand army took up its line of march for the intricate series of works behind which the armed hordes of rebellion had in- trenched themselves, on being baffled in the seizure of the capital, which they had so craftily planned. Major Ballou was, with his regiment, ever on the alert, regardless of danger, eager, to learn and to do. He was the first to reach and plant the flag upon the first works of the enemy MAJOR SULLIVAN BALLOU. which they descried, but which proved to be deserted, abandoned by the enemy in their retrograde movement. On the day of the battle, his regiment opened the action, after crossing Bull Run at Sudley Church; and here, while leading on his men to the charge, he was struck by a cannon-ball, which killed his horse and shattered his leg. He was borne off the field to Sudley Church, which became the hospital, and there breathed his last, at the age of thirty -two years and five months. His remains were committed to the earth on the unfriendly soil of Virginia. He had married, in the summer of 1855, Miss Sarah Hart Shum- way, of Poughkeepsie, New York, who with their two children mourn his early loss. Of the many worthy sons of brave Rhode Island who fell on that fatal day, none was perhaps so well and so favorably known as Major Ballon, and his State could ill spare one who, so young, had shown so great an ability for its highest honors. 91 TOWER. CAPTAIN LEVI TOWER, R.I.V. KILLED AT BULL RUN, July 21, 1861. Captain Levi Tower, only son of Captain John C. and Sarah G. Tower, and grandson of the late Colonel Levi Tower, of Newport, Rhode Island, was born in the village of Blackstone, town of Mendon, Massachusetts, August 18, 1835, where his parents temporarily so- journed during their absence froni; Pawtucket, North Providence, Rhode Island. In 1843, when their son was eight years old, his parents re- turned to Pawtucket, where they still reside. In infancy he was given to God in baptism in St. Paul's Church, of which his father and mother were members. He was a son of vows, and was accordingly trained up. As soon as he was old enough, he was sent to the Sunday-school, which he constantly and punctually attended for several years. On the Lord's Day he was always in his place at church. His religious education was faithfully attended to, and nothing was left undone that parental love could do. At an early age, he displayed more than ordinary intellectual abilities, and no means were left unemployed to improve them. He attended for several years the public school in the district in which he lived, and received the instruction of com- petent teachers. At a later period of life, he went through a thorough 97 CAPTAIN LEVI TOWER. course of classical training under Messrs. Frieze and Lyon, in the University Grammar School in the city of Providence. In due time he entered Brown University, which he was subsequently compelled to leave in consequence of ill health. He then turned his attention to one department of practical mechanics, in which he made commend- able proficiency. He next became clerk to Jacob Dunnell, Esq., owner of an extensive calico-printing establishment in Pawtucket, Massachu- setts, where, by his faithfulness and devotion to business, he won the confidence of his employer, and by his gentlemanly deportment gained the strong, almost parental affection of him and family, Captain Tower was one of the original members of the Pawtucket Light Guard. He entered the company as a private, and rose rapidly from one gradation to another to a captaincy. Whatever he undertook, he did with all his might. He could not and would not remain stationary. His aim was always — Higher ! and he pressed onward and upward, and stopped not, till he reached it. This was true of him from childhood to man- hood. The boy was the father of the man. At the call of his country, he, with the Pawtucket Light Guard, of which he was then ensign, joined the First Regiment of Rhode Island Volunteers, and proceeded to Washington. This regiment was one of the first three regiments that reached our national capital for its defence. Here he had the confidence and regard of his superiors, and the respect and love of the common soldiers. A night service, secret, important, and perilous, was to be per- formed on the banks of the Potomac. Our young hero was selected from the whole regiment for this service. With a few soldiers under his command, he performed it successfully and safely. He shrunk from no service, however arduous or dangerous. Inspired by a sense of CAPTAIN LEVI TOWER. duty and feelings of the noblest patriotic devotion, where military obedience called, thither he went. He was soon recalled by the military authorities to his own town and State, to assume the captaincy of a company in the Second Rhode Island Regiment; which he did, and returned to Washington. On the 21st of July, 1861, he led his company to the battle-field, engaged in the fierce and terrible conflict, and fell a martyr to his country. A noble sacrifice, and worthy the cause ! The last words that fell from his lips were addressed to his fellow-soldiers — " Go in, boys!" The last days of his life were unusually serious, prayerful, and devout. In his letters to the loved ones at home, his earnest request was — " Pray for me." The evening previous to the battle in which he fell, he spent in a prayer-meeting, and took a part in the services. Wrapped in his military blanket, he was buried near the field of battle. A private, Joseph Barnes, a member of his company, moved by feelings of love to his commander, took of his small funds the sum of two dollars to have his body decently interred. Let his name be remembered in gratitude forever by the friends of Tower! .,9 ■■■?■ RJUG- JSJ. ^'.S'M HAGGERTY. LIEUT. COL. JAMES HAGGEUTY, N.Y.S.M. KILLED AT BULL RUN, July 21, 1861. The militia have never been regarded as a very reliable force for attack or defence, and the past experience of the country to some extent justified the impression. Still, there have always been corps in the country which, by their faithful drill and exercise, by the real military spirit which they cultivated, have been most reliable soldiers. The Seventh Regiment of the New York State militia is well known for its high state of discipline, and for the promptness with which it marched to the seat of war. Although never in action as a regiment, it has, since its return, sent many of its members to the field as officers of volunteer regiments, and some of these have already, in their life's blood, attested their courage and patriotic ardor. The Sixty-Ninth Regiment was not inferior to the Seventh in dis- cipline or zeal. Organized in 1851, it had under Colonel Roe been brought to a state of great proficiency. Colonel J. R. Ryan advanced it still more, and during the period of the military occupation of Staten Island, in consequence of the wanton destruction of public property by rioters there, won universal commendation for his regiment, by the perfect order which he maintained, and the strict adherence to all the 108 LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JAMES HAGGERTY. regulations of the service. A regiment of United States troops could not have surpassed them. When, in 1859, Captain Michael Corcoran was made colonel of the Sixty-Ninth, James Haggerty received his commission as captain of com- pany A. He was born at Glenswilly in the County of Donegal, Ireland, of a family whose martial turn led many of its members into the English service. James Haggerty was brought up a house-carpenter, and after starting in business for himself in his own country, proceeded to Scot- land in 1844, hoping to find a wider field for his energy; but as his expectations were not satisfied there, he emigrated to the United States in 1849, and, being an expert workman, found profitable employment in the large machine-shops of New York and Philadelphia, but soon resumed his original' calling as a builder, in which he was most success- ful, being a man of energy, determination, and watchfulness. During a period when hopes were entertained of an armed effort of Ireland to throw off the national subjugation forced upon her by England, Haggerty entered warmly into the organization of military associations here, and became, in 1853, Captain of the Wolfe Tone Vol- unteers, a division of the Republican Rifles. After a time, the men thus organized and drilled, formed a regiment of New York State militia, in which Haggerty held the commission of Lieutenant-colonel till the regiment was disbanded by the State. His ability as an officer was well known, and the command of a company in the Sixty-Ninth was urged upon him. He accepted it, and every inch a soldier himself, he sought to make all so, and was a most strict disciplinarian. When the regiment was ordered to the seat of war, he responded promptly to the call of his country, ready to lay down his life for its honor. Not as a hollow form of words had he 104 LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JAMES HAGGERTY. sworn to support the Constitution of the United States : but as a high and holy pledge to be executed at all hazards. All who knew his daring courage, felt that he would fall in his first battle; and he so infused his spirit into his men, that they were ever on the alert, bent on being the first in action. The Sixty-Ninth left New York on Tuesday, the 23rd of April ; their march to the steamer James Adger, through a crowd of friends, that drove every vehicle from Broadway, was like a triumph. Escorted by civic societies, and aided by the police, they at last reached the pier. The vessel was totally inadequate for the service. More than a thousand men were crowded into a steamer, able only to carry a few hundred. Much suffering, and at least the loss of one life resulted, but the regiment bore all, in its eagerness to reach the field. On the morning of the 26th, they reached Annapolis, and the next day marched to Annapolis Junc- tion, where for a week they remained guarding that important point, which organized bands of rebels stood ready to seize, as they had seized and destroyed other railroad communications. On being relieved by the Fifth New York, they marched on to Washington, and encamped at Georgetown College. From their landing. Captain Haggerty had been untiring in his attention to his men, and his care to bring them to the highest degree of discipline. He himself was all watchfulness, making the rounds at night, and taking scarcely any sleep. To the negligent and remiss, he was a terror, but he required of none what he did not fulfil himself On the 24th of May, while Ellsworth's Regiment was to go down in boats to Alexandria, the Sixty-Ninth and Twenty-Eighth New York, with Drummond's cavalry and a battery, crossed the Aqueduct Bridge, about one o'clock in the morning, seized the railroad, and captured a 105 LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JAMES HAGGERTY. party of rebels retreating from Alexandria. The regiment encamped on Arlington Heights, and soon threw up the strong works which, under the name of Fort Corcoran, perpetuate the memory of their services, sufferings, and blood, on Virginia soil. On the 12 th of July, the regiment received orders to hold them- selves in readiness to march at a moment's notice, and were soon all in light marching order, eager to advance. The order came on the even- ing of the 15th, and the next day the regiment, now attached to Colonel Sherman's brigade, with Captain Haggerty acting as Lieutenant- colonel, marched along the Fairfax turnpike to Fall's Church, and turning off, encamped in a marsh near Vienna. The next day, leading the van, they pressed on by Fairfax Court House to Germantown, the enemy falling back before them, and not appearing in force anywhere except at Fairfax. On the 18th, our army entered Centreville, and the advance attacked the batteries of the enemy on Bull Run. When, for five hours, the Twelfth "and Thirteenth New York, had stood their ground, the Sixty-Ninth was ordered up, and mistaking the retreating Thir- teenth for the foe, were about plunging upon them in a terrible bayonet charge, when Haggerty dashed along the line and struck the bayonets up with his sword, — his keen eye, which never ceased its watchful care, having detected the error of the men, and his clear head and stout arm, at the risk of his own life, checking a movement which would have been as fatal as the mistake at Little Bethel. They were then ordered to lie down in the wood overlooking the field of battle, exposed to the shot and shell and canister of the enemy's batteries, — Captain Haggerty standing erect on the right, marking with evident pleasure the steadi- ness of his men. General McDowell, at last satisfied by personal 106 LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JAMES HAGGERTY. observation of the uselessness of further attack, drew off the men to Centreville. On Su day, the 21st of July, a day never to be forgotten in American annals, the whole army moved forward to assail the enemy under Beauregard, in their intrenched position beyond the deep ravine through which Bull Run crept slowly along, with its diminished cur- rent. The American army, commanded by Brigadier-general Irwin McDowell, advanced in three divisions, — Hunter on the extreme right, crossing at Sudley's Mills, and followed by Heintzelman, so as to take the enemy in flank; while Tyler's Division, in which the Sixty -Ninth formed part of Sherman's Brigade, advanced upon the Stone Bridge. Another division made a demonstration on the left, at Blackburn's Ford. Beauregard soon discovered the plan, and rapidly moved troops across to his menaced left ; but Hunter for a time drove them steadily in, and when about noon they made a stand, Sherman's Brigade crossed the run, the Sixty-Ninth leading. As they advanced slowly, they came upon a party of the enemy retreating along a cluster of pines, and Lieutenant-colonel Haggerty, dashing at them, fell mortally wounded, — the first of his regiment to meet a glorious death on that day of gallant deeds. He died ready and devoted : as a patriot and as a Christian soldier, with his soul prepared to meet his Creator, with the blessings of his Church upon him. He died in the foremost of the fight, not spared to see those gallant charges of his regiment on the rebel batteries, or their masterly retreat in a hollow square, with General Sherman in the centre. "Strikingly noticeable by reason of his large iron frame, and the boldly-chiselled features, on which the impress of great strength of will and intellect was softened by a constant play of humor, and the lOT LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JAMES HAGGERTY. goodness and grand simplicity of his heart, — wrapped in his rough old overcoat, with his sword crossed upon his breast, his brow boldly uplifted as though he were still in command, and the consciousness of having done his duty sternly to the last animating the Roman face, — ^ there lies James Haggerty, a braver soldier than whom the land of Sarsfield and Shields has not produced." 108 JONES. CAPTAm ELISHA N. JONES, M.V. MORTALLY WOUNDED AT THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN, Jult 21, 1861. m I «^ > I Elisha N. Jones, the first Maine officer to give his life in this struggle, was born at Holden, Maine, on the 8th of September, 1819. His family had borne its part manfully in the military service of the country, his grandfather having been a soldier in the army of the Revolution, and his father, Luther Jones, a soldier in the last war with England. The spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion was no less manifest in their descendant. His early years were quietly spent: he learned his trade as a blacksmith, but finding the work too severe, removed to the town of Brewer and embarked in trade. He was soon afterwards elected captain of the Brewer Artillery, and continued to hold his commission till he departed for the seat, of war. About two years since he removed to Orrington, an adjoining town, but continued his connection with the place where he had so long resided. When the call was issued for volunteers for the defence of our gov- ernment, he immediately repaired to Brewer, opened a recruiting office, and raising a company, received a captain's commission, and was mustered, with his command, into the gallant Second Regiment of Maine Volunteers. This regiment was raised under the proclamation 111 CAPTAIN ELISHA N. JONES. calling for volunteers for three months; but, before it marched, the entire company re-enlisted for three years. The regiment left Bangor amid a general grief, borne up, however, by the patriotic feeling of self-devotion which prompted the sacrifice. But brave and patriotic as were the hearts of the spectators, they could not but feel how much it cost to give up dear friends even for the salvation of the commonwealth. The regiment reached New York on the 16th of May, and excited general admiration as they were drawn up in front of the City Hall to receive the American flag, which the men of Maine residing in that great city presented to the gallant sons of their State, whose vigorous, manly forms, and determined bearing, left no doubt but that the honor of the frontier State was safe in their hands. After spending a couple of weeks at Willett's Point, New York, awaiting orders, the regiment, on the 30th of May, left it for the seat of war. On reaching Washington, the regiment was stationed at Camp McDowell, beyond the Potomac, and began to prepare for the real service of the field. Captain Jones was unwearied in his attention to his men, and his endeavors to bring them to a state of perfect discipline and skill The day before the battle, the ladies of Maine in California presented to the regiment a flag, which made all but the more eager for an engagement. Hitherto they had seen none of the stern realities of war. In a letter to his wife, the day before the battle, the last that he ever addressed her, he said: "We have not fired a gun at an enemy yet, but we mean to if we can get near enough. Now don't worry ; if it is God's will that I should fall in battle in defending the flag of my country, it would 112 CAPTAIN ELISHA N. JONES. be wrong for you to repine. I could wish for no more honorable death, nor could you wish for a more honorable one for your husband. But I do not anticipate that such will be the case. I feel as if I should return to you again, and I believe I shall." The Second Maine, under Colonel Jameson, was assigned to Colonel Keyes' Brigade, of the first division. Early on the morning of the 21st July they left Centreville, and after marching towards the enemy's camp, halted to watch the road coming up from Manassas; but when Sher- man's Brigade had crossed Bull Bun, Keyes led his brigade over the stream, and formed it on the left of Sherman's. From ten o'clock, for four hours, they advanced steadily on the foe, who fought his ground inch by inch ; but about two o'clock General Tyler ordered the Second Maine and Third Connecticut to take a battery on a height in front, well posted and strongly supported by infantry and riflemen. They dashed gallantly on through a murderous fire, and drove the enemy back till they themselves came under the fire of new and intrenched foes, when they drew off to a wooded slope, in order to reform and renew the charge. Captain Jones' company led the advance, in charging up the hill on the enemy's artillery and infantry, with gallantry that could not be surpassed. In this desperate movement he was in front, cheering them on, — "Come on, boys! come on!" — when a rifle-ball passed into his side and back, seriously injuring his spine. He was immediately raised up by his men and borne to the hospital, but in the disastrous termination of the well-fought day, he fell into the hands of the enemy, and soon after expired a prisoner. In private life he was virtuous, industrious, and active ; a good hus- band, and a good citizen. Of a genial disposition and gentlemanly bearing, he was loved by all who knew him. As a commander, he was 118 CAPTAIN ELISHA N. JONES. mild, but firm and courageous. General Jameson, then colonel of the Second Maine, styles him " as brave a man as ever unsheathed a sword." On the field of battle he was calm and self-possessed, evincing every quality that becomes a soldier, and which would have insured his speedy promotion ; but the hopes that centred around him were blasted, and we can but revere his memory as that of a martyr to the cause of the republic founded by the blood and the sacrifices of our fathers. Captain Jones married, in 1842, Miss Susan T. Eldridge, of Holden, with whom he lived in the most perfect union, and none parted with more tenderness of feeling ; but she made the sacrifice which has proved to be a final one, and giving him, gave her all. 114 TILLINGHAST. CAPTAIN OTIS H. TILLINGHAST, U. S. A. KILLED AT BULL RUN, July 21, 1861. Among the distinguished officers whom she has sent forth to fight the battles of freedom in this war, New York can boast no worthier son than Captain Otis H. Tillinghast, of the regular army of the United States; a thorough soldier, an educated officer, trained to the career of arms, joyous, amiable, generous in disposition, self-denying and devoted, yet possessing great energy and decision of character, fitting him for the more arduous duties or commands. His parents were of the most respectable families of New England, his father, John Tillinghast, Esquire, being apparently of that old Rhode Island family, which has never been without a representative in the military service of the country from the days of the Revolution. He was, however, a native of Connecticut, but removed about 1820 to Homer, in the county of Cortland, in the State of New York. Here Otis was born, on the 6th of March, 1823. His early days were spent in Morrisville, and his early education was acquired in the village schools. His first choice of a profession for life, if we may judge by the manifestations of his inclinations, was for the practice of medicine, but a cadetship having been obtained for him by the Hon. A. L. Foster, m CAPTAIN OTIS H. TILLINGH AST. the member of Congress from the district in which the family resided, Otis entered the military academy, at West Point, in June, 1843, being then in his twenty-first year. He devoted his time earnestly to the acquisition of the knowledge of his profession, and graduated with honor on the 1st of July, 1847. He was immediately appointed Brevet Second Lieutenant in the Third Artillery, and joined Sherman's Battery under General Taylor at Saltillo, Mexico, in the fall of 1847 ; but as the operations of the army under his command virtually ended with the battle of Buena Vista, the young officer had no opportunity of distin- guishing himself in any general battle. He served, however, on that line, gaining experience, till the close of the war, when he came to New York, and was stationed for a time in the military posts in the harbor, having been meanwhile promoted to a first lieutenancy, and transferred from the Third to the First Artillery. In 1848, and the succeeding year, he was associated with the Mexican Boundary Commission, organized after the peace of Guadalupe Hidalgo, to run the boundary between the United States and Mexico, his acquaintance with the country rendering his aid extremely valuable. Difficulties of various kinds grew up between the members of the com- mission, and Captain Tillinghast, in the difficult position in which he Avas placed, acted in such a manner as to receive the approval of the War Department. When he closed his labors in the Commission, he was for a time stationed at Old Point Comfort, Virginia ; and in June, 1856, having been appointed Regimental Quartermaster, he proceeded to Florida with his regiment, — fresh Indian troubles having broken out in that State, which has never, since its purchase by the United States, enjoyed peace and repose. Fortunately, on this occasion, affairs were brought to an understanding without a repetition of the tedious war 118 CAPTAIN OTIS H. TILLINGHAST. in the everglades. Lieutenant Tillinghast remained on duty till Billy Bowlegs removed, and the difficulties with the Seminoles were finally closed. The young officer was then stationed in Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor, where he remained down almost to the commence- ment of the insurrection, but was recalled before Major Anderson trans- ferred his command from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, and underwent the siege that has rendered the latter fort so memorable. Lieutenant Tillinghast was next summoned to Baltimore, where, in addition to his duties as Quartermaster of the regiment, he acted as Adjutant until May, 1861, when he was promoted to a captaincy in the Quartermaster's Department, and attached to the staff of Major-general Mansfield's command, the military department of Washington. In July, however, he was assigned to duty as Chief Quartermaster to General McDowell's army, a position no less honorable than responsible. For the position, however, he possessed peculiar qualities, and his fitness for the office had been tested by his accurate and provident discharge of its duties on a less extended scale. So far as his important depart- ment was concerned, he labored assiduously for the successful issue of the campaign, and when the action came, displayed courage, coolness, and patriotism. His duties as quartermaster did not require him in the heat of the combat, but while the great drama of battle was enacting, he could not be a mere spectator. Every inch a soldier, he offered to his country the experience and skill which he had acquired at her hands ; and in her service, if need be, his life. Attaching himself to the first brigade of the second division, commanded by Colonel Porter, he was, to use the words of that officer, "ever present when his services were required, carrying orders, serving with the batteries, rallying the troops, and finally was mortally wounded" at the commencement of the retreat. CAPTAIN OTIS H. TILLINGHAST. He had done his duty nobly in the gallant advance of the army across Bull Run, and when the causeless panic ensued, used every effort to restore the presence of mind of men who were madly rushing in flight before an enemy who had never made a stand against them, unless with fearful odds of numbers or position on their side. While thus endeavoring to stem the tide, he was mortally wounded, an ounce ball passing directly through the lower part of his body. On receiving his wound, he rode up to Captain Butt, of the Fourteenth New York Vol- unteers, and asked for assistance as calmly and as cheerfully as though nothing had occurred. Dr. Wilson, after examining his wound, which he saw to be of a fatal character, assisted him into an ambulance, and ordered him to be immediately transported to Centreville. He was, at his own request, conveyed to the nearest house, occupied by a Mrs. Spindel, where he fell into the hands of the enemy, and received every attention from Doctors Allen, McGregor, and Swift, surgeons in the American army, then also prisoners. But his wound was mortal, and after lingering till ten o'clock on Wednesday morning, he expired without a murmur or a groan. On being removed to the house, he had asked that his wife should be sent for, but this was impossible, and he was deprived of that last consolation of his dying moments. Just before he died, he was recognized by an old classmate and friend. General Evans of the rebel army, who had his remains properly interred, and the spot marked so that his family might recover his body. His wife, thus deprived of ministering at his dying couch, was Miss Elizabeth P. Wyman, daughter of 0. C. Wyman, Esq., of Boston, and a woman of most estimable character. Captain Tillinghast was of dark complexion, medium size and height, of fine stature and personal appearance. All who knew him, bore testimony to his merit, and 120 CAPTAIN OTIS H. TILLINGHAST. wherever he went, he gained the. friendship of those with whom he came in contact. A classmate described him as being " gentle as a woman, but noble and brave when occasion demanded." He was a thorough soldier, loving his profession with glowing enthusiasm, and full of faithful devotedness to the government of the United States. His last letter to his wife foreshadowed his death, and seemed a solemn parting from one he loved. His conversations with fellow-officers, seemed to show that he anticipated meeting his death in the coming engagement, and when he received the fatal wound, he replied to an officer who asked him whether he was much hurt, — " Yes, but it is as I expected." m CRAIG. LIEUTENANT PRESLEY 0. CEAIG, U. S. A. KILLED AT BULL RUN, July 21, 1861. Presley Oldham Craig was the third son of Colonel Henry K. and Maria Bethune Craig, and was born at the Watertown Arsenal, in the State of Massachusetts, in December, a. d. 1834. The tie of nativity- was not the only one that bound him to that ancient and patriotic commonwealth, for to her he also owed one half his parentage, and traced his maternal descent from the Hunts of Watertown and the Bethunes and Faneuils of Boston. But the family whose name he owned and illustrated by a manly life and heroic death, has been, since the Revolutionary war, settled in Western Pennsylvania. His grand- father, Major Isaac Craig, and General John Neville, his great-grand- father, had both born conspicuous parts in the war of Independence, and were much distinguished for eminent services in the patriotic cause. At the termination of the contest, both officers, with other relatives and friends, fixed their future homes near the site of the present city of Pittsburg, where the State of Virginia then claimed territorial sway. In the troubles that followed the breaking out of the insurrection of the western Pennsylvanians, in 1794, the fidelity and soldiery spirit 125 LIEUTENANT PRESLEY O. CRAIG. of these revolutionary veterans was still further tested on the side of the government they had labored with unsparing sacrifices to establish. The historian of the American republic bears cordial testimony to the priceless services rendered by them, at every risk of life and with large loss of property, in support of the national cause during this trying period of Washington's administration, in stemming a rebellion, that, in the words of Marshall, "at one time threatened to shake the government of the United States to its foundation." The military spirit that had marked the character of the revolu- tionary ancestry of the subject of this sketch, was not wanting to the succeeding generation. Colonel Henry Knox Craig, his father, entered the army at the outset of the late war with Great Britain, and served with much credit during the campaign, taking part in many actions on the Canadian frontier. In the war with Mexico, the same officer, then a veteran of nearly forty years' service, joined General Taylor's army at Corpus Christi, and participating in the most arduous operations of the army of the Rio Grande, shared the dangers of all the battles fought on that frontier. By him of whose character and too brief life it is here sought to give some account, the soldierly qualities of his forefathers were inherited in their largest extent, and exhibited themselves as his strongest trait. Unusual personal beauty, united with an uncommonly gentle and docile disposition, had marked a childhood that, to eyes less partial than parental ones, gave most excellent promise for maturer life. Ripening years fulfilled every assurance ; and while the outward form developed into the exactest symmetry and mould, the inward nature and dispo- sition seemed to take upon itself the stronger and sterner qualities of the man, without parting with or lessening the gentler and more 126 LIEUTENANT PRESLEY O, CRAIG. engaging features that had lent so much attractiveness to early age In his character were singularly blended those mild and ingenuous traits that irresistibly win love and confidence from every sex and age, with those other qualities of mind and temper, that exacted the esteem and respect of all to whom he was known, or with whom he was brought in contact. It was, indeed, scarcely possible to imagine a combination of personal excellences more surely calculated to gain the universal popularity he enjoyed. Strikingly handsome in outward appearance, the expression of his features, constantly illumined by a sweet and gentle smile, bespoke a nature open, sincere, and affectionate ; and in every look and word was given the outspoken indication of a temper bold, ardent, and enthusiastic. If he inherited a strong predilection for the profession of arms, he likewise derived from an honorable and upright ancestiy, besides his distinguished traits of high chivalric courage, those other sentiments, which are wont to adorn the purest characters, of deep and unalterable conviction of the obligations of professional duty. Receiving his com- mission as Second Lieutenant in the Second Regiment of Artillery, in June, 1857, he was fully conscious that the position in which he was placed exacted all his energies to meet its requirements, and to the task imposed, he lent every exertion of which he was capable. Assiduous in the discharge of duty, he was untiring in his efforts to impart to the men of his company an ample amount of the military instruction he had received. The first years of service were passed at Port Hamilton, in New York harbor. Here the monotony of garrison life, with its attend- ant inactivity, weighed heavily on a naturally adventurous and enter- prising mind, and he vainly attempted to effect an exchange with a brother ofScer, which should place him in a company performing field 127 LIEUTENANT PEESLEY O. CRAIG. service on the frontier. Official routine withheld its sanction, and Lieutenant Craig remained at a seaboard station. In the latter part of the summer of 1860, he received a very severe sprain of the left foot, by being thrown from a vehicle in rapid motion. After vainly expecting, during some two months or more, the comple- tion of a cure that was proportionably slow from the unsuspected extent of the injury, he repaired to Washington, there to undergo the proper treatment, and await the tedious progress of restoration to strength, under the favorable auspices of home and the more assiduous care and attention there obtainable. At the end of the time designated in his leave of absence, a scarcely perceptible advancement in his condition had been made, and the leave was from time to time renewed, till the beginning of the summer of 1861 found him still in Washington, and unable to walk without the aid of crutches. In the midst of the scenes of warlike preparation which he witnessed, while being debarred from participation, his impatience at the prospect of enforced idleness on the occasions for military distinction that then seemed to be opening to immediate view, bore heavily on his spirits. Even with himself he would not admit a possibility but that a complete recovery of strength could not be long delayed ; and he was wont to declare positively that in two or three weeks' time he would be able to dispense with the use of any supporting aid in walking, and fully ready to take the field. But when General McDowell's army was organized for a forward movement, Lieutenant Craig was still unable to do service with his company, and his place was supplied by another officer. On the Wednesday preced- ing the Battle of Bull Run, the battery commanded by Major Hunt, his brother-in-law, arrived from Fort Pickens, whence it had been brought at the last moment to augment the artillery force of the projected expe- 128 LIEUTENANT PRESLEY O. CRAIG. dition. One of its officers was so disabled by sickness as to be unfit for service, and in his stead Lieutenant Craig, declaring himself fit for duty, volunteered to serve, though yet unable to walk without the assistance of a cane. There being a demand for well-instructed and experienced officers, his application for orders was favorably considered at head- quarters, and he was attached to Major Hunt's mounted battery on the day before it marched to Centreville, arriving there with it on the Saturday previous to the battle of July 21st. On Sunday morning, in the midst of preparations for marching to take position in the line of battle, and the opportunity for its transmission being offered, he hur- riedly pencilled and dispatched the following note, which only reached its destination after his lifeless body had been borne across the paternal threshold : 6 A.M., Sunday. Dear Father, — We are to have a grand battle this morning. The movement has been delayed by the troops not getting in position. I was out from before sundown till three this morning with a section, but feel all right. We have been put in the reserve, but will be called on soon. We are to turn the left, if we can. I have not time to write more. Love to all. Your affectionate son, Presley 0. Craig. When the evening of this eventful day had closed on its memorable scenes, the too brief earthly career of a brave, devoted, and patriotic soldier was already ended ; but that short and bright career was con- cluded in the not least glorious contest of the long-continued battle. LIEUTENANT PRESLEY U. CRAIG. The history of the few remaining hours of his life is to be had in that of the fortunes of the division of the army he was posted with. In the plan of battle which General McDowell carried out, the attacking columns of our forces were moved forward on the enemy's left flank by roads which diverged to the right from the direct and shortest route from Centreville to Bull Run, and this movement brought on the main action in front of the right wing of the federal army. At Centre- ville, and along the road that leads thence to Blackburn's Ford, were distributed the reserves under Colonel Miles, as a part of which Major Hunt's battery had been detailed. Two brigades of volunteers, com- manded by Colonels Davies and Richardson, with Major Hunt's twelve- pounders, and a section of a battery of rifled artillery under Lieutenant Edwards, guarded the approaches from this ford, on the extreme left ot General McDowell's line. At this point the rebel general designed making his attack in the morning, instead of awaiting the advance of the Union army; but being compelled by the unexpected and impetuous attack from the direction of Sudley's Ford, directed against his left flank, and by which it was successfully turned, to divert his attention wholly to that quarter, no demonstration was actually made at Blackburn's Ford till after McDowell's right wing and centre had fallen back in disorder. At this juncture, a heavy column of the rebels, supposed to be under the command of General Ewell, passed the stream below Blackburn's Ford, and advanced to storm the battery stationed in front of it. These forces had been led across Bull Run, at some distance from the point they were designed to attack, and advanced from a direction considerably in the rear of and towards the left flank of the Union troops, as they were drawn up fronting on the stream. This left flank rested on a deep and wide ravine, which the enemy must cross in making their charge. A ISO LIEUTENANT PRESLEY O. CRAIG. description of the action that ensued is taken from Major Hunt's report, as yet unpublished. " About four-and-a-half or five p. m., after the battle was apparently gained on the right, while large reinforcements of infantry and cavalry were observed hurrying up from the direction of Manassas, a strong force of infantry and some cavalry, variously estimated at from 2000 to 5000 men in all, appeared on our left, approaching parallel to our front by the lateral openings into the great ravine on our flank. The infantry only was first seen, and as they approached without any appar- ent attempt at concealment, preceded by our skirmishers, they were supposed to be our own troops. As the numbers increased, I rode down the ravine with my first sergeant to reconnoitre them. Some of our skirmishers stated that they had seen no troops ; others said they were the Thirty-Fourth New Yorkers coming in. They carried no colors, and their numbers increasing to an alarming extent, I hurried back and changed the front of the battery, so as to command all the openings into the ravine, and the approaches to our position. Colonel Davies, at the same time, detached a couple of companies into the ravine as skirmishers. The latter had scarcely deployed when a sharp rattle of musketry removed all doubts as to the character of the advan- cing troops. We had been surprised, and the enemy was close upon us in large force. Our infantry regiments had changed front with the battery, but unfortunately closed their intervals behind it. Precious time was now lost in getting them on our flanks. Had they remained in our rear, they would have been unnecessarily exposed to the fire directed on the battery : and in case of a determined charge for our capture, which I confidently expected, they would have been apt to fire through us, destroying men and horses, and crippling the guns. 181 LIEUTENANT PRESLEY O. CRAIG. At length they were moved to the right and left, and ordered to lie down and await the approach of the enemy, who by this time were closing up in apparently overwhelming numbers. I now directed the gunners to prepare shrapnel and canister-shot, and in case the enemy persisted in his advance, not to lose time in sponging the pieces — for minutes were now of more value than arms — but to aim low, and pour in a rapid fire wherever the men were thickest or were seen advancing. The enemy having by this time completed his preparations, and driven in our skirmishers, now rushed forward and opened a heavy musketry fire on the battery; but from the shortness of range, or from aiming upwards as they ascended the ravine, their shots mostly passed over us. The command was then given to the battery to fire. Under the directions of Lieutenants Piatt and Thompson, Second Artillery, and Edwards, Third Artillery, commanding sections, the most rapid, well- sustained, and destructive fire I have ever witnessed was now opened. The men took full advantage of the permission to omit sponging, yet no accident occurred from it. The guns were all of large calibre, two 20-pounder Parrott rifle guns, and four light 12-pounders, and they swept the field with a perfect storm of canister. No troops could stand it, and the enemy broke and fled in every direction, taking refuge in the woods and ravines, and in less than fifteen minutes not a living man could be seen on the ground, which so recently had swarmed with them. The infantry regiments had not found it necessary to fire a single shot." The object of the enemy's attack in force at this point was, after crushing General McDowell's reserves, to move on Centreville and intercept the retreat, and effect the capture of the disorganized army. Thus, the battery and brigade of volunteers stationed at Blackburn's Ford, were in reality acting as a rear-guard to our retreating forces, 188 LIEUTENANT PRESLEY O, CRAIG. and had the resistance so gallantly made by Major Hunt's battery been unsuccessful, scarcely a remnant of General McDowell's army would have escaped capture, and the going down of that day's sun would have seen the rebels complete masters of the field, without an obstacle between them and the undefended capital. The lately published report of General Beauregard tells us, that this was their expectation, but no one has yet told the world how and by whom it was foiled. While the preparations were being made to receive the enemy, and during the few minutes of suspense that preceded their expected onset, the observed demeanor of Lieutenant Craig was in a remarkable de- gree calm and self-possessed. It was related by an officer of volun- teers, who found himself placed near the battery, in speaking of his own emotions during the trying moments that preceded the action, that while inwardly contending against irrepressible sensations of nervous apprehension, his eyes caught sight of a mounted officer close by him, who was watching the approaching masses of the enemy with an expression of the calmest unconcern. The half-smiling face seemed only to bespeak expectation of the coming of a pleasurable event, and involuntarily contrasting his own sensations, with what the serene countenance and undaunted bearing of the unknown artillery officer betokened of undisturbed and even pleasurable emotion, he reflected within himself, how enviable was he who could feel so at such a time. The exposed position of Lieutenant Craig was observed by more than one officer, who approached him just before the action commenced and advised dismounting. Within a few minutes after the firing began, and just as he had turned his face towards the enemy, after giving an order about hastening the supplies of ammunition for the gunners, he 188 LIEUTENANT PRESLEY O. CKAIG. was struck in the forehead by a musket-ball, and falling from his horse, was carried, still breathing, to a temporary hospital in the rear of the position. In a few minutes more, the soul of one of the bravest, most generous, and tender-hearted of men, had passed from this world. The report of Major Hunt, before c[uoted from, concludes: " First Lieutenant Presley 0. Craig, Second Artillery, on sick leave, on account of a badly sprained foot, which prevented his marching with his own company, having heard of the sickness of my second lieutenant, volunteered for the performance of the duties, and joined the battery the day before it left Washington. He was constantly and actively employed during the night preceding, and on the day of the battle, and his services were very valuable. When the enemy appeared, he exerted himself in perfecting the preparations to receive him, and conducted hiriiself with the greatest gallantry when the onset was made. He fell early in the action, while in the active discharge of his duty, receiving a shot in his forehead, and dying in a few minutes afterwards. This was the only casualty in the battery." The care of his commanding officer and the attending surgeons, pro- vided for the carrying his body from the field, and its transportation to Alexandria during the night. Thence it was conveyed to Washington, and from the home he had left so short a time before in the pride of youth and manly beauty, was followed to a last resting-place by kindred and friends. Fortune had bestowed upon him many things that rendered his life pre-eminently a happy one. She also gave him a noble death, and, as if to mark a persistence of her favors, decreed that he alone, of the gallant officers who fell on that memorable field, should be borne from it to receive the last rites of a soldier's burial at friendly hands. 134 "^ MCCOOK. ci'i-'-' pp onjo voi^. CAPTAIN CHARLES M. MCCOOK, 0. Y. KILLED AT BULL RUN, July 21, 1861. The future annalist of America will find few names more nobly prom- inent in the military movements of the American army than that of McCook, whose services are already attested on every well-fought field, from the banks of the Potomac to the upper Missouri. The noble patriotism, the energy, skill, and bravery of the gallant father and his seven sons, will be remembered in many a form,?' and poetry lend her embalming power to keep them ever fresh in the minds of Americans. None can fail to read unmoved the following simple sketch of THE BOY HERO, OF BULL RUN. Charles Morriss McCook, was the eighth son of Hon. Daniel McCook of Illinois. He was born at CarroUton, Ohio, on the 17th day of November, a. d. 1843. While very young, his father moved to Illinois, where he obtained the first principles of an education. To complete it and fit himself for a useful and honorable life, he entered Kenyon Col- lege in Ohio, during the summer of 1860, and soon won the esteem alike of his professors and his fellow-pupils. The latter testified this by making him secretary of the Phi Delta Society. When the President issued his 187 CAPTAIN CHAKLES M. M COOK. proclamation, calling for volunteers, all of young McCook's elder brothers entered the army, and he could not resist the call his country made for his services. He left college, and joined the Second Regiment of Ohio volunteers, as Captain of Company H., Steuben ville Guard. He marched to the battle-field at Bull's Run with the rest of his regiment, the bri- gade to which he was attached leading the advance. His brother Alexander was Colonel of the First Ohio regiment, serving in the same brigade. His father, sixty-three years of age, and another brother, now commanding a company at Cairo, accompanied him to the field. Young McCook nobly bore himself during the brunt of the fight, and when it was supposed that the day was ours, his father, who had been busily employed all day carrying the wounded off the field, sent for him to come over to the hospital to partake of a lunch, which had been provided before leaving Washington. Fatigued, and worn out by the terrible experiences of that carnival of blood, he came, having eaten nothing since the evening of the day before. He had scarcely finished his lunch, when a detachment of rebel cavalry attacked his regiment. He hastened back, but while crossing a field, a large body of cavalry charged upon the officers and soldiers who had collected around the hospital. Seeing his danger, with the clear judgment of a veteran, he rushed forward to a fence, and began falling back. He soon attracted the enemy's attention, and a trooper advanced to make him prisoner, but with true eye, and steady nerve, he shot the rebel through the head. This deadly shot drew upon him the wrath of the leader of the attacking force, who rushed at him with drawn pistol, demanding his surrender. But the brave boy, with flashing eye and undaunted heart, exclaimed, ^^ I will never surrender to a traitor T and still kept retiring along the fence. At this critical juncture, his 13S CAPTAIN CHARLES M. M COOK. father, seeing him surrounded by the enemy, called upon him to surren- der; but the brave boy again replied, "Father, I never can surrender to a rebel!" At this moment, the trooper circled around and shot him in the back; he demanded his surrender again, but the hero still refused, when the trooper began to strike him over the back with the flat of his sabre, threatening to pierce him through, if he would not surrender. His father rushed to his rescue, and succeeded in bringing him back to the hospital. The wound, upon examination, was not at first pronounced fatal. His father (who was impressed that some evil- tide would befall him that day) had provided a couch in his carriage. On this he laid his wounded son, and started to Washington city. Through all the horrors of the passage of Cub Run, amid terror- stricken men, overthrown wagons, dashing caissons, the father care- fully picked his way, until he reached Fairfax Court House; here he secured the services of a surgeon. The ball was immediately extracted, the operation being borne by the noble boy with all the manly firmness and resolution of a hero ; and when it was pronounced fatal, no shadow overclouded his pale cheek, no cloud marked the serenity of his boyish brow, but there — surrounded by the wounded and dying, whose piteous groans would fill the room, with his aged father near, to soothe and comfort him — the white-robed herald claimed him, and without a murmur or reproach, his spirit winged its flight to eternity. The surgeons and attendants having deserted their post, the aged parent was left alone to close the eyes of his dead son ; and procuring the lid of a musket-box, he placed on it his remains, with the assistance of a negro boy, who was found in the streets of Fairfax. He then put them in a carriage, and drove to Washington. The report of young McCook's heroism reached the city before his remains, and a company 189 CAPTAIN CHARLES M. MCCOOK. of Fire Zouaves awaited them at the Long Bridge, as a guard of honor, to escort them to his father's residence. The day following, they were attended to their last resting-place, in the Congressional burying-ground, by a large concourse of citizens, many members of Congress, and two regimental bands, with the proper military escort for one of his rank. Thus, in the bloom of youth, at the early age of seventeen, perished a hero, the dawn of whose life gave glorious promise of a bright meridian. Five of his brothers still remain in the army to avenge his death, while his white-haired father never permits an occasion to pass without being seen in the van of the fight, with his death-dealing rifle. 140 LYON. BRIGADIER GEIN. U.S.A. GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON, U. S. A. KILLED AT THE BATTLE OF WILSON'S CREEK, August 10, 1861. Nathaniel Lyon, whose brief but brilliant career in Missouri has placed his name in the highest rank among our military commanders, was a native of Connecticut, born, as he himself gayly remarked, the night before his death, between two rocks, — his father's house standing between two . rocky hills, — in a secluded spot, at Ashford, in Windham county, on the road to Hampton, out of the general route of travel, and far from all the busy stir and excitement of the cities and towns. He was born on the 14th day of July, 1819, being the seventh child, — his father, Amasa Lyon, a worthy farmer, respected by all his neighbors. His mother, Kezia, was a daughter of Lieutenant Daniel Knowlton, a noble veteran, who served through the old French war and the Revolu- tion, and lived till 1825, — long enough to see his grandson evince the qualities most essential for the profession in which his family had won renown. Not only had his grandfather so long worn the harness of war, but young Lyon could claim with ancestral pride his close relation- ship to one of the names which stand in brightest colors in our revolu- tionary history ; for Colonel Thomas Knowltou, who so gallantly held his own at the rail fence on Bunker's Hill, and afterwards redeeming 143 GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON. the honor of his State, clouded for the time by the inglorious retreat of her militia at Kip's Bay, planned and won the battle of Harlem Plains, was a brother of his grandfather. What wonder, then, that, even though brought up in a retired, rural district, a mild, dutiful boy, remembered for his filial respect to his mother, he early evinced a desire to enter the army, where the family was yet represented by the accomplished Captain Minor Knowlton. In 1837, Nathaniel entered the Military Academy, and he devoted himself to the preparatory studies for his professional career with that energy, singleness of purpose, and method, which characterized him through life. He graduated in July, 1841, eleventh in his class, and at once received his commission as second lieutenant in the Second Infantry. His first field of service was Florida, and in that school, where so many of our military men were formed, he soon distinguished himself as an able, energetic officer. The war closed actively in April, 1842, but the arduous services of the army long continued, and Lieutenant Lyon found ample scope for the exercise of his zeal, especially in perfecting himself in all the branches which his professional advancement would require. A foreign war came at last, affording to our army what it had not seen for a quarter of a century, — a civilized enemy, with a disciplined and well-commanded army. The annexation to the United States of Texas, a State which had seceded from the Mexican Republic, was looked upon by that government as a national insult; and when the American Union avowed their determination to occupy by force all the territory to which the Texan government had extended its extravagant claims, Mexico prepared to resist force by force. All know how the war began, in 1846, by the advance of General Taylor, and the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. 144 GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON. Lyon was appointed first lieutenant in 1847, and his regiment formed part of the army which General Scott was to land on the Mexican coast, at Vera Cruz. At the siege of that place, his regiment, the Second Infantry, formed part of General Twiggs's Brigade, and lost an officer, the gallant Captain Alburtis. As Scott advanced towards the capital, Lyon and his regiment formed part of Colonel Riley's Brigade, in Twiggs's Division. The Mexican army had taken post in force at Cerro Gordo, and to advance on Mexico, it became necessary to attack them in their strong position. The American army did not hesitate to meet them on the ground they had selected. While an assault was made by another division on the hill El Telegrafo, in front, Riley, on the morning of the 18th of April, 1847, led his brigade around the northern base of the hill, to gain the enemy's rear, by the Jalapa road, and the Second Infantry gallantly stormed the reverse of the Cerro Gordo, driving the enemy from before them with great loss, — Lieutenant Lyon leading his company to the crest of the hill in time to share gallantly in the action, and then dashing down in pursuit of the retreating foe, capturing a battery of three pieces thart had been playing upon them. Captain Morris, who that day commanded the regiment, and Colonel Riley, both made especial mention of Lyon, already singled out by experienced eyes as an officer destined to fill a conspicuous place in the military annals of the country. Wiry, active in person, possessed of great energy and endurance, almost insensible to fatigue, of undaunted courage, enthusiastically attached to his profession, and anxious to excel in it, and to add new wreaths to the family glory, he was mentally and physically a perfect soldier. The brilliant victory of Cerro Gordo, in which he had just distin- guished himself, opened the way to Mexico. Perote fell without a blow. 145 GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON'. Puebla, where it was expected that a stand would be made, was occu- pied without an action. The army arrived almost in sight of Mexico, to find the enemy in a most secure position, determined, in spite of defeat, to make one more struggle for their national honor. On the march, Twiggs's Division led the van, till the 15th of August, when it halted at Ayotla, to threaten the Penon and Mexicalcingo, and deceive the enemy, while Worth advanced. The next day, however, Twiggs moved on Chalco, and in a brief, decisive struggle routed a far superior force of Mexicans at Oka Lake. General Valencia's army at Contreras was the next point of attack, and in the brilliant victory which has made that name so familiar, Lyon and his regiment bore the palm amid the brave. In that action, Riley's Brigade was detached to pass through San Geronimo, and take the enemy in the rear, but in doing so they were exposed to a severe fire, and the Second Infantry, forming a hollow square, Lyon commanding the interior reserve, stood manfully a charge of lancers, and repulsed them so severely, that a large body of infantry and cavalry, advancing to renew the attack, lost heart, and drew back without assailing them. At three the next morning, the Second and Seventh Infantry again advanced amid the darkness and the rain, and the former leading on quickly, drove the enemy into their intrench- ments, and following them up, in seventeen minutes carried the works at Contreras, while Captain Wessels and Lieutenant Lyon, after vainly endeavoring to turn their cannon on them, pressed on the flying enemy's rear, and took two hundred prisoners and two pieces of artillery. After routing the enemy from the fieldwork at Contreras, the Second Infantry pressed on in pursuit to Cuyaron, where it was ordered to join in the attack on the Convent of San Pablo, at Churubusco. Here a fierce struggle took place, in a dense corn-field, the Mexicans sallying forth U6 GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON. ■with gallantry to gain the American flank ; but the charge was not to be checked, the victorious troops swept all before them, and soon planted their flag on the works. For his gallantry on these well-fought fields, Lyon was commended to the special notice of Colonel Riley. In the battle of Molino del Rey, Lyon took no active part, his regiment, ordered up at the close of the engagement, arriving too late to share in the victory ; but they were for two hours actively skirmish- ing on the slope of the hill in front of Chapultepec, and when volunteers were asked to form a storming party, so many responded, that it had to be decided by lot. On the 13th of September, theregiment marched to the garita Saa Cosm6, and the next day entered the city, sustaining a rapid fire from the houses, and dislodging the assailing forces in a long and tedious fight. In this service, Lyon, commanding his company D., was slightly wounded by a spent ball, having passed almost un- harmed through the war, though ever at the post of danger. After the close of the war, he received the brevet rank of Captain, and was ordered with his company to Missouri, to proceed overland to California, but, instead of that course, embarked and reached his desti- nation by sea. He remained several years on active service in Cali- fornia, receiving his captain's commission in June, 1851, the slow reward of faithful duty. In the management of the Indians, whom he had here to deal with, he showed his usual energy and tact, and on one occasion owed his life to his steady courage, being assailed by three Indians, one of whom grasped his sword to disarm him, but he wrested it from him, ran him through, and put the others to flight. A year or two after his appointment as captain, his regiment was ordered to Kansas Territory, and he was stationed at Fort Riley. The future historians of our troubles will be, doubtless, embarrassed to 14T GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON. explain a change which took place in Northern sentiment from about this time. The North had been almost uniformly democratic, which was long synonymous with pro-slavery ; but the Kansas question, in which the democrats could view with no approving eye the action of the Free State party, and had to condemn, without qualification, much that they did, convinced them of the insincerity, violence, and faithless- ness of the Southern leaders. A party arose among the democratic party, who insisted on some reasonable limit to the exorbitant demands of the South, which, almost doubly represented in the popular branch of the National Legislature, had so long controlled the destinies of the nation. Captain Lyon was one of these democrats, and soon became an earnest republican. He foresaw the result. He saw the South bent on power or destruction. He had learned to know their spirit, and when, as he foresaw, the South destroyed the democratic party, he warmly advocated the republican cause as the cause of free labor, immigration, and every element of national prosperity. His contribu- tions to the "Manhattan Express" have been published, and show his view of the difficulties which beset us. The Upas-tree, which too many of us believed an innoxious plant, reached its full growth; its venom began to distil on the whole land, poisoning it to its very core ; but the axe is laid to the root. Let it be cut down and cast into the fire. Early in the year, Captain Lyon had been placed in command of the United States arsenal at St. Louis. Sumter had fallen, and the posses- sion of Missouri depended on the energy, self-possession, and, rarest of all qualities it would almost seem, moral honesty of the officer in com- mand of the United States troops in St. Louis. Lyon possessed all the qualities that the moment required. His arsenal became a stronghold. 148 GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON. The police commissioners of St. Louis, petty officials of a municipal corporation, suddenly supposed themselves a government, and that the United States could send its troops through or post them in the city limits, only by their kind consent. They demanded that Lyon should confine himself to the arsenal. To their insolent summons, he made no reply. The United States, in his eye, is not a sort of millionaire, owning a few chateaux scattered around the country, where he keeps a body-guard for show, but a government, having at least a right to self-existence, even as against a State government, or a police com- missioner. At the very moment when these municipal officials pre- sented their demand, a camp lay without the city, upheld by the moral support of these very men, with its Davis and Beauregard streets, with its Confederate flag flying, with arms and munitions stolen from United States arsenals, and in open communication with the avowed enemies of the government of the United States. So little did Lyon think of withdrawing, that he was planning the capture of this whole force of enemies of the country, and of all human liberty. On the 10th of May, he suddenly marched out of St. Louis with a large force of infantry and about twenty pieces of artillery, and occupying the grounds commanding the camp on all sides, before the amazed enemies of America could form any plan of action, sent to General D. M. Frost, a summons for an unconditional surrender of the whole force, giving them half an hour for a reply. His summons is a remarkable paper, carrying conviction on its face. Frost surrendered without a blow. The flag of rebellion was hauled down, and Lyon, after dismissing those who were willing to take the oath of allegiance, and swear not to take up arms against the United States, returned with his prisoners and trophies. An assault by a mob on his troops met its just punishment — a volley 149 GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON. which, as ever happens in riots, reached the innocent as ■well as the guilty. General Harney, who soon arrived to take command of the depart- ment, could not but fully indorse the action of Lyon. " No government in the world," says he, "would be entitled to respect, that would tolerate for a moment such openly treasonable preparations." Made Brigadier-general of Missouri volunteers, Lyon was alive to every exi- gency. He broke up a rebel force at Potosi, seized lead-works that were supplying the Southern army, and captured at Harlow's landing the steamer J. C. Swan, that brought the arms from Louisiana to the enemy at Camp Jackson. By the recall of General Harney, the command of the department devolved upon Lyon. Governor Jackson and General Price sought an interview with him, in which they insisted that no United States troops should march through or quarter in Missouri, although at the very time they had invited Confederate troops to march into and quarter in the State. Lyon's reply settled the point absolutely. The troops of the United States should march peaceably everywhere through the United States, offering insult to none, but would oppose every attack and crush every attempt to molest them. Seeing that the mask must be thrown aside, Jackson fled from St. Louis and prepared for war. When Lyon found that Governor Jackson was actually raising forces, and endeavoring to use the civil power of the State for the destruction of the National Government, he took the field to prevent his nefarious designs. Many weak men who believed, against all evi- dence, that Jackson was not in league with the rebels, complained of Lyon, but it is clear that had his resources been greater, Missouri would have been spared the misery and destruction that Jackson has brought on her. Before taking the field, Lyon issued, on the 17th of June, a ISO GENERAX, NATHANIEL LYON. manly proclamation to the citizens of Missouri, in which, after rehears- ing the various acts of Jackson, he concludes : " If in suppressing these treasonable projects, carrying out the policy of the government, and maintaining its dignity, hostilities should unfortunately occur, and un- happy consequences should follow, I would hope that all aggravation of those events may be avoided, and that they may be diverted from the innocent, and may fall only on the heads of those by whom they have been provoked. In the discharge of these plain but onerous duties, I shall look for the countenance and active co-operation of all good citizens, and I shall expect them to discountenance all illegal combinations or organizations, and support and uphold, by every lawful means, the Federal government, upon the maintenance of which depend their liberties and the perfect enjoyment of all their rights." Jackson and Price, who had outwitted General Harney, fled on his removal, and began the work of destruction. Lyon followed to Jeffer- son City with a small force, and resolved to entrap their troops. On the I7th of June, General Lyon embarked with a small force at Jeffer- son City, atid ascended the river towards Booneville. After lying by for the night, he proceeded again in the morning, and at seven o'clock landed his troops on the south shore, near Rochefort, and began the march along the river road. After marching a mile and a half, he came on the enemy's pickets and drove them in. Then ascending a rising ground for half a mile more, he came in full view of the rebels, who consisted of nearly three thousand men, infantry and cavalry, under the command of Colonel J. S. Marmaduke, of Arrow Point, well posted in a lane running from the road to the river. Lyon at once formed his line, and Captain Totten began a brisk cannonade, while the infantry filed. Lieutenant-colonel Schaeffer to the right, and Blair with Lyon's 161 GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON. regulars to the left, pouring in a steady volley of musketry. On this, the enemy fell back to a height in the rear, and taking a strong posi- tion, advanced to meet the Americans, but Lyon, by a stratagem, drew them to a disadvantageous ground, and, by a -well-sustained charge, broke them irrevocably. For a moment, the report spread that Lyon had fallen, but he had, in fact, been thrown by a frightened horse. The enemy's camp was well situated, but a few volleys dispersed them there, and all their tents, ammunition, and supplies, fell into Lyon's hands. In two hours not an enemy was to be seen, so complete had been the rout. Even the cannon, posted on the shore to assail the steamers, were captured before they could fire a shot. So complete a victory seemed to crush the hopes of secession in Missouri, and secure the State to the national cause. General Lyon immediately entered Booneville, and at once issued a proclamation, in which, after reviewing the proceedings which the bad faith of Governor Jackson had compelled him to take, he said, — " This devolved upon me the necessity of meeting this issue to the best of my ability, and accord- ingly I moved to this point with a portion of the force under my com- mand, attacked and dispersed the hostile forces gathered here by the governor, and took possession of the camp equipage left, and a consider- able number of prisoners, most of them young and of immature age, and who represent that they have been misled by frauds, ingeniously devised and industriously inculcated by designing leaders, who seek to devolve upon unreflecting and deluded followers the task of securing the object of their own false ambition. Out of compassion for these misguided youths, and to correct the impressions created by unscrupulous calum- niators, I liberated them, upon the condition that they will not serve in the impending hostilities against the United States government."- 152 GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON. The policy of this step was unquestionable. It gained many in Missouri whom severity would have driven to desperation, and Lyon's force was entirely inadequate to the work before him. The first rebel army had indeed been routed, but many bands were still in the field, and Governor Jackson had retreated towards Arkansas, to be reinforced by Ben McCuUoch, already at the head of an army in that State, and eager to invade Missouri. Some trifling reinforcements reached Lyon, but he urgently called for force sufficient to crush the enemy at once; yet time ran on, and on the 3d of July he could march from Booneville with not much more than two thousand, and not even these properly fitted for the field. On his way, other bodies joined him, among the rest the troops under Major Sturgis, who met him near Clinton ; but while his numbers increased in this way, they lost both in numbers and. effectiveness by the disbanding of those who had enlisted only for three months, and whose terms of service had expired. At Springfield, he formed a junction with Siegel, whose men were flushed with their victory at Carthage, and with Brown, so that he was able to advance against the enemy with about fifty-five hundred men. On the 2d of August, hearing of McCuUoch's approach and intention to assail him from Cassville and Sarcoxie, with two col- umns of far superior strength, he pressed forward, with only three thousand, and found the rebels drawn up for battle in the ravine of Dug Spring, and in numbers five times his superior. They would not, however, advance, and Lyon had to fall back in order to draw them out. When the enemy, at last, opened the action, a dash of a small body of Lyon's American troops routed them, with a heavy loss, and when the enemy's cavalry endeavored to retrieve the fortunes of the day, Totten's battery, by a few shells, scattered them also in confusion and dismay. 16S GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON. The enemy retreated, leaving on the field forty killed, forty-four wounded, eighty stand of arms, with many horses and wagons. General Lyon, the next day, pursued the enemy, but on reaching Curran, held a council of war, and it was determined to retire to Spring- field. Meanwhile, he wrote urgently for reinforcements, and even tele- graphed to General Fremont at New York. His victory at Dug Spring was a barren one; the enemy's force daily increased; Lyon's appeals were unheeded by the government at Washington and by General Fre- mont, the new commander of the dep9,rtment. A council of war was convened, and it was resolved that Springfield should be evacuated. Against this General Sweeny remonstrated, fearing that any further retrograde movement would be fatal to the cause, and the evacuation was consequently abandoned. The only alternative was, consequently, to attack McCulloch and Price in their camp, on Wilson's Creek, nine miles south of Springfield. Lyon's force was but five thousand five hundred ; that of the enemy twenty-three thousand. Yet he resolved to attack and, if possible, surprise them. On the night of the 9th of August, he moved on Wilson's Creek, sending Colonel Siegel to take them on the flank and rear, while he himself, with the Missouri First and Second in part, the Kansas First and Second, the Iowa, and an Illinois regiment, eight hundred regulars, and some of the Home Guard, attacked in front. After resting at midnight on the march, Lyon's troops pushed on in the morning. As they advanced rapidly, the enemy's pickets fired and retreated. On reaching a point overlooking the valley, the enemy could be seen preparing for action, and Lyon opened upon them with his artillery, Totten pouring in his shell with great rapidity. The enemy replied with equal celerity, and moved forward to assail the Americans on the right flank. But the Missouri 1K4 GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON. volunteers, and the regulars under Plummer and Gilbert, held their ground manfully. When they were finally forced back by fresh troops, the Kansas regiments advanced, and drove the enemy down the slope, holding the ground under a heavy and destructive fire, till the Iowa troops came up, when they again dashed forward. Meanwhile Totten, with his well-served artillery, had dispersed a party assailing the flank, and a large cavalry body charging on the rear. On this the enemy made another desperate charge in front, hoping to crush the wearied Americans, but, with all their superiority of number, they were no match for our gallant troops, with such a general. As a fresh body came rapidly on, General Lyon, already thrice wounded in the action, but refusing to retire and have his wounds dressed, rode up, cool and undisturbed, encouraging the noble troops to meet them as they had done, but to follow up with the bayonet. " Give us a leader," they cried, "and we will follow to death!" His reply was prompt: "I will lead you. Come on, brave men!" — and they gave a volley which scat- tered the enemy, without requiring the charge of American bayonets. But in the onset Lyon fell dead, pierced through the stomach by a fatal ball, exclaiming to his body-servant, "Lehman, I am killed; take care of my body." But he fell in the arms of victory. The day was won. General Sturgis, succeeding to the command, repulsed their last charge, on the centre and left ; while Siegel, on the east, attacked the enemy in the rear, took his tents, and drove him in confusion for a consider- able distance, till, mistaking a body of the enemy for an Iowa regiment, he was, in turn, severely cut up, and lost several pieces of artillery. But, even with this, the advantage to the Union cause was incalculable. The loss of Lyon was severely felt. He had been the soul of the movement in Missouri ; and the crime of* having left him so poorly sup- 165 GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON, ported, all seek to shun. Had he received a few regiments even, his life would have been spared, and the enemy hopelessly defeated. But the man of energy, method, activity, and courage was gone ; a reign of incompetency succeeded, and the real advantage, and as real prestige gained by Lyon, were lost. The body of General Lyon was buried on the farm of the Hon. J. S. Phelps, but was subsequently taken up and conveyed to Connecticut, where it reposes by the remains of his parents. On its way through the country, it was received everywhere with the greatest respect. Military honors were paid to it at Cincinnati, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, Jersey City, and New York; and his final obsequies, on the 5th ot September, drew to the retired spot thousands from all parts of the country, anxious to do honor to the memory of so great a man. The funeral oration was delivered by the Hon. Galusha A. Grow, Speaker of of the House of Representatives ; and statesmen from various parts ad- dressed the assembled multitude on the merits of the illustrious dead. But every tongue delivered the eulogy of Lyon. Even when the fast-crowding events of the war seemed to hide for a time the memory of his services, a Missouri writer paid this noble tribute : " The heroic Lyon, distinguished among our military leaders for having struck the earliest decisive blows, and won the first distinguished successes against the great rebellion, — more mournfully distinguished by his last act of devotedness and heroism, which couples his name with that of the Spartan Leonidas, pouring out his life-blood on the soil of Missouri, — was not only mourned by the nation, but had kindred and friends who claimed the privilege of conveying his remains to the place of his fathers, in his native Connecticut. With suitable military escort, the body of the dead hero was borne across the continent, receiving 156 GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON. distinguished honors all along the way; and the grave which has re- ceived it will be visited ages hence by natives of Missouri, who will thus evince the respect they cherish for Missouri's brave defender against the enemies of that Union to which Missouri owes all she is." The great historian of our country, whose characters of the great men of the past have been so admirably drawn, says of General Lyon : "His military services were beyond all praise; his character, as described to me, was beautifully earnest; and his sad death reflects infinite honor on his own memory, and, I fear, shame on those who let him fall a martyr to his duty, his patriotism, his zeal, and the dis- interested, natural self-sacrificing element of his character." 1ST JONES AND PRATT. LIEUTS. L. L. JONES AND CALEB S. PRATT, K. V. KILLED AT WILSON'S CREEK, August 10, 1861. The first scenes of the war now desolating the Union were enacted in Kansas, and outrage and oppression perpetrated there, showed a design to use the power of the federal government to carry out sectional ends; or, when this proved no longer possible, to destroy it. The attempted destruction of the government of the United States was a crime so dark, that few could credit it ; many at the South, and most men at the North, believed that the attitude assumed by the leaders of the secession movement was merely designed to force the Republican party, which had just triumphed in the constitutional contest of the ballot-box, to concede to the Southern interest privileges which they sought. When, however, the people became really conscious of the danger, and the immense army raised by the rebels had to be met in the field, the call of the president for volunteers met no heartier response than th^ given by Kansas, already so well aware of the char- acter, audacity, and strength of the enemy. If others believed the war a mere parade, to pass ofi" harmlessly, such thoughts could not prevail in Kansas. There, all men felt that it was to be a death-struggle, and 101 LIEUTS. L. L, JONES AND CALEB S. PRATT. that victory could be won only after terrible carnage and sufferings, by unshrinking courage, patience, and devotedness. The call for volunteei's reaching Kansas City, men at once began to organize for the field, leaving all business and private ' concerns. The law firm of Lowman, Jones & Dyke were a noble example. All the three partners joined the army, ready to do battle under the flag of Washington, against those who had dared to insult and degrade it. L. L. Jones was a native of New York, who, after completing his pre- paratory studies, entered the Law School at Ballston, and graduating there, removed to the West, where his natural parts, his great quickness of perception, retentive memory, and accurate mind, gave him many advantages, and opened before him a vista of professional success. He was very active in raising the first regiment of Kansas volunteers, and accepted the post of lieutenant in company F. His partner, H. M. Dyke, recruited a company, but would not accept a commission, and marched as a private. He was, however, a superior man, a native of Vermont, a graduate of Dartmouth College, and a classical scholar of no ordinary merit. He had, while studying law, taught for two years in Kentucky before removing to Kansas, and continuing his legal studies with Messrs. Lowman and Jones, was admitted and associated with them prior to the war. Lieutenant Caleb S. Pratt of company D., in the same regiment, was a son of the heroic State of Massachusetts, where he was born, in the year 1835. He removed to Kansas, now the youngest of the States, immediately after its territorial organization, and had borne an active part in all the struggles which arose there between the two antagonistic elements, when free labor and serfdom each sought to occupy the un- tilled wilderness. He was a man of culture and refinement, and had so 162 LIEUTS. L. L. JONES AND CALEB S. PRATT. won the confidence of his fellow-citizens, that he was always the incum- bent of some honorable office. On the breaking out of the war, he was clerk of Douglas county, and also clerk of Kansas City. The first Kansas regiment, in which these three were enlisted, was organized at Port Leavenworth, oh the 3d of June, under Colonel Deitz- ler, and on the 13th was ordered to Wyandot, Kansas. Thence they marched on the same day to Kansas City, in the State of Missouri, with the other troops of Major Sturgis' command. They were destined to form part of the army which General Lyon so promptly raised ; and to effect a junction with him, they kept on their march through Jackson, Cass, Bates, Vernon, St. Lawrence, Phelps, Henry, Green, Benton, and Dade counties to Grand River, near the toWn of Clinton, where they reached the army of General Lyon. With him the regiment marched on to Springfield, doing service in several expeditions on the way. When Lyon found it necessary to attack the enemy on Wilson's Creek with such troops as he had, inferior as they were to the forces of the enemy, the First Kansas eagerly moved forward, and on* reaching the rebels were ordered forward by their general. They advanced till a terrible fire opened on them from a foe ambuscaded in the brushwood, not over ten rods in front of them. Colonel Deitzler, to husband the lives of his force, ordered them to lie down and wait till they could see the enemy : and a severe fire was kept up for some time, but as the rebels would not come out, he drew back his force to a battery on the hill, and reforming, again advanced. The enemy, believing them routed, had sallieS, and a severe fire of musketry now began. The Kansas First, although outnumbered, and fighting at every disadvan- tage, held the ground from seven to twelve, when they finally fell back from the bloody field. 168 LIEUTS. L. L. JONES AND CALEB S. PRATT, In this action, the regiment suffered severely. Lieutenant Pratt was shot through the heart, while leading on his men ; Lieutenant Jones was also killed, and his partner, Mr. Dyke, mortally wounded. The news of the losses of the regiment were mournfully received at Kansas City ; and, as several officers and privates were members of the bar or connected with the courts, a meeting of the bar was held on the 2d of September, at which the Hon. Josiah Miller presided, and reso- lutions were adopted, expressing the regret of the profession, for the loss of Lieutenants Jones and Pratt, and of Lewig L. Litchfield the deputy sheriff of the county, who also lost his life on the glorious field of Wilson's Creek. 164 LOWE. COLONEL JOHN W. LOWE, 0. Y. KILLED AT CARNIFEX FERRY, September 9, 1861. John Williamson Lowe, son of James B. Lowe and Katherine Keenon, was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on the 15th of November, 1809. They were a Scotch family, and were at one time in comfortable circumstances ; but financial disasters, and long-continued ill health, reduced them to poverty. In 1817, they removed to Rah- way, where John began the labors of life in the woollen factory of a Mr. Cohue. Three years after they removed to New York, and the next year his father died, leaving a widow — for he had married a second time — and five children with no earthly support. Mrs. Lowe struggled with her heavy charge, finding her greatest resource in her stepson, who resolutely went to work, saying, — " Mother, I will work for you and these children as long as I can stand. We are not beggars yet." He found employment in the printing-ofiice of the Bible House, and for some years he worked hard learning his trade, and studying dili- gently at night by the light of their solitary candle, watching over the other children, and filling, as well as he could, his dead father's place to them. He took care of them until they wore able to take care of them- 167 COLONEL JOHN W. LOWE. selves, denying himself every thing until they were beyond the reach of want. About the only pleasures of his life at this time, to which he in later years referred, grew out of his connection with a Thespian Society, and with the New York Cadets, a military company at that time the pride of the city, commanded by Captain James Kiley. His love of theatricals was a youthful passion, which soon died away ; but his love of every thing connected with military life, grew with his growth. ' In 1833, he came West to seek his fortune, and settled in the town of Batavia, Clermont county, Ohio. Here, while supporting himself at his trade, he pursued with energy and steadfastness of purpose the study of the law. In due time he was admitted to practice. Difficulties innumerable presented themselves in his pathway, but he pushed on through or over them all. Invincible determination and obstinate pei-- severance, joined with the purest honor and high-toned courage, brought him through, and gained him the respect of every man that knew him. The Mexican War broke out, and although he had opposed heartily the party whose policy brought it upon us, — though his wife, his boys, his business, gave him every reason to wish to ' remain at home, and a sufficient excuse, — yet he said he knew something of military life and military duties, his country needed his services, and he must go. A company was raised in the county, the command of it offered to him ; he accepted it, and went, serving till his regiment, the Fourth Ohio, was disbanded, in 1848. When peace was declared, he returned to his home, and again devoted himself to the practice of his profession. A year or two after, the cholera raged with extraordinary violence in Batavia and the sur- rounding country. The care of the sick and the burial of the dead 168 COLONEL JOHN W. LOWE. devolved upon the few to whom neither disease nor death was a terror. The wife, the mother, with two or three other devoted men and women, met the emergency, with him, in the true spirit of heroism and philan- thropy. "It is just like a battle," he would say to his faint-hearted fellow-citizens, " and we are like a regiment under a terrible fire. Our friends are falling all around us, and it may be our turn next ; but let us meet the enemy boldly. It is no more dangerous to stand than it is to run." In 1855, he removed to Xenia, Ohio, where he resided at the time of the beginning of this present war. The citizens came to him then and said, — " Our young men are volunteering, and you are the only man in our county who knows what war is, and how to take care of them, and make them soldiers. You must lead them." He was no longer young, and the sedentary life he had been leading had destroyed almost all of the elasticity of his frame. He felt that he could not bear the hardships of a campaign ; but he heard the call of duty, and her call he had never learned to disobey. As he went, he said — " I will never return alive." Two days after the bombardment of Fort Sumter he led over a hundred young men into the camp at Columbus, and expected to go the next day east, to the defence of Washington. The Twelfth regiment was organized, and he chosen unanimously its colonel. The election was declared informal, and a new one ordered, and he was again chosen to the position, without opposition. The capital of our country was no longer in immediate danger, and the regiments at Columbus were removed to Camp Dennison, near Cincinnati, for instruction in the duties of soldiers. Early in the following month the Twelfth was attached to General COLONEL JOHN W. LOWE. Cox's Brigade, and made a part of his force in the advance up the Kanawha river. The general complimented it as the best regiment at that time under his command, and gave it always the position of honor and danger. The only battle that it was necessary to fight to clear the rebels out of the valley of the Kanawha was fought by the Twelfth, with detachments from other regiments, all under the command of Colonel Lowe. The following account of the movements and operations of that day, the most momentous of his life, was written by the officers of the Twelfth, and was found upon his person when he fell. " Many remarks having been made in regard to the affair at Scarey Creek, and the conduct of the officers and men of the Twelfth Regiment having undergone some criticism in the newspapers of the day, we deem it a duty to ourselves and our regiment, before the statements of imper- fectly informed correspondents pass into and become history, to give an impartial and accurate description of that fight. " Oil the morning of the 17th of July, Colonel Lowe was ordered by General Cox to take his regiment, with a detachment of the Twenty-first Ohio, Captain Cotter's battery of two pieces of artillery, and a few dragoons, to explore the country about Scarey, ascertain the position and strength of the enemy, carry the point, if possible, and extend the line of our operations to Coles Mouth, four miles further up the river. The whole command did not number over one thousand men. Colonel Norton, commanding the detachment from his reginaent, the Twenty- first, was assigned an advanced position, worthy of his gallantry and experience. "A strong force of skirmishers, under Major Hines of the Twelfth, preceded the column, feeling the way cautiously along, until within a quarter of a mile of Scarey, when they came upon the picket guards of no COLONEL JOHN W. LOWE. the enemy, who fired their muskets and hastily retired. Knowing nothing of the ground, or the position or the force of the enemy, the column advanced slowly and carefully, the cavalry being sent on to examine some buildings which stood on the brow of the hill in front of us. They had scarcely shown themselves, when the rebels opened upon us from two or three pieces of artillery, muskets, and rifles. Their fire was severe, and the ground being entirely unknown to the com- mander of the expedition, he was compelled to make the necessary observations, and arrange the plan of attack in front of the rebel bat- teries, before our forces could reply. The enemy was found to be strongly posted on the brow of an almost inaccessible hill on the oppo- site side of Scarey Creek, about four hundred and fifty yards from the point at which the road by which we approached comes around another hill into view. They had breastworks, and ample shelter for their troops. Their right rested on the Kanawha river ; their left on a high and well-wooded mountain. The bridge at the mouth of Scarey had been burned ; and a row of houses and a fence extending out from the river along the creek, furnished an excellent position for their riflemen. " The disposition of our forces was promptly made. Captain Cotter advanced his artillery to the brow of the hill on our side, and opened fire in gallant style on the enemy's battery on the hill opposite. Major Hines, with three companies, plunged into the valley on our right, and attempted to scale the mountain and turn the left flank of the rebels. Colonel Norton, with his detachment of the Twenty-First, and Lieuten- ant-colonel White, with four companies of the Twelfth, were sent to the left at a double-quick step down a steep hill, and under a galling fire, to attack the right of the enemy on the river. The other three com- panies of the Twelfth remained on the hill, to support the artillery, and in COLONEL JOHN W. LOWE. draw the fire of the enemy to the front, while our movements were being made against each flank. " So steady and accurate was our fire, especially that of Captain Cot- ter's artillery, that in about twenty minutes, the enemy's cannon were dismounted and silenced, his ammunition-wagon blown up, the rifle- men in the mountain were in full run to their rear, and the day seemed to be clearly our own. The movements on both flanks were pushed forward with vigor. On our left, the riflemen were rapidly cleared out of the houses and from behind the fence along the creek, but our men encountered great difficulty in crossing the creek, which was nearly waist deep in mud and water, and in ascending the steep bank on the other side. Here was much of our hardest fighting, and here we suf- fered our greatest loss. Colonel Norton fell severely wounded before crossing the creek, and the command under Lieutenant-colonel White pressed on in the face of a galling fire, climbed the steep bank, pene- trated the enemy's lines — gradually, but surely gaining his rear. The fight continued with every prospect of success, and without the least indication of a reverse, until it was ascertained that our ammunition was nearly expended. Entertaining no idea of a protracted fight, we had brought with us but thirty rounds. About the time also that this heart-sickening discovery was made, the glad shouts of the enemy, and the long lines of men that were approaching in the distance, showed us that strong reinforcements for them, both of infantry and artillery, were at hand. They soon came up, and opened on us a heavy fire from their artillery along the river-bank. Our whole force being already engaged, and having no reserve to call into action, the colonel was compelled to send the artillery to the rear, and our forces gradually withdrew, un- pursued, and bearing off all our wounded not inside the enemy's lines. 112 COLONEL JOHN W. LOWE. The companies whose position had been on the right, though much exhausted by their hard work on the mountain, suffered less than the others, and came off in good order, forming our rear-guard. "Judging from what we could see, and the ground occupied and covered by the enemy, his force was originally about fifteen hundred men, and his reinforcements were from four to six hundred, with artillery. It is evident, also, from the testimony, of deserters, and others who had excellent means of knowing, that their loss was very heavy — not less than sixty-five killed, and wounded in proportion." In the latter part of August, Colonel Lowe went with his regiment down the Kanawha and up the Ohio to Parkersburg ; thence, to join the army of General Rosecrans at Clarksburg. As soon as this general had collected the force he considered necessary, and completed his preparations, he started upon a long and weary march south through Weston, BuUtown, Sutton, and Summerville, to open communication with General Cox, at Gauley Bridge. Weak and borne down by dis- ease as he was, the colonel kept his place at the head of his regiment, sustained alone by his indomitable will. Prom Sutton he wrote to his wife: "We are marched almost to death. We have met with one un- ending succession of hills. They roll like the billows of the ocean, or, rather, seem as though they were waves of a great ocean, which, at the moment of their greatest agitation, had suddenly become solid." And again : " I feel as though my life's journey was nearly ended. The chances of war render it very probable that this is so ; but still, you must not despond. God has given us many, very many happy hours together, and if it be his will that we meet no more on this earth, you must thank him, as I do, for the happiness he has already granted us, and submit with resignation to his holy will." 1T8 COLONEL JOHN W. LOWE. In his last letter to his wife, written four days before his death, and which reached her the morning after the intelligence of his fall, he said : " The clouds of war are gathering thickly about us, and I know not what my condition will be when they lift above the scenes. I find myself hoping, and it is now about my only hope, that I will soon be at home a maimed soldier, to receive your care for a little time, and then lay me down to my long rest. Wait yet a little longer, dearest, a week, a day may relieve our suspense, and bring my fate upon me. God rules over all things, and disposes of us as he thinks best. . . . And now, dearest, good-night. May angels guard you and keep you. If I am taken from you, remember that I have laid down my life in a great cause, and in the line of duty. And don't give way beneath the stroke. It is but death at any rate, and then a long eternity of rest and peace. If we cannot meet again on earth, we will in heaven. Love to our chil- dren, and to you a thousand kisses, my adored, my beloved wife." On the afternoon of September 10th, 1861, after a march of seven- teen and a half miles, the Tenth, the foremost regiment in the advance brigade, found itself in front of the rebel position they had marched so far to find. The gallant Irishmen, without waiting until the other regi- ments belonging to their brigade came up, charged at once upon it, and the battle was begun. The Thirteenth next came into position, and finally the Twelfth came near, led by its way-worn and weary colonel. " Cannot any one tell me how to reach the field?" said he: " my brigade is bearing the brunt of the battle. Tell me how to go to its assistance." The road was shown him, and in a few minutes he was with the Tenth, directly in front of the battery, in the thickest of the fight. There, a moment later, a ball pierced the centre of his forehead, and he fell to rise no more. ITl COLONEL JOHN W. LOWE. At the head of his men, in a sacred cause, in the hour of victory, without a pang, died John W. Lowe, at the battle of Carnifex Ferry, in Virginia, on the 10th of September, 1861. General Cox, in reviewing his services, says : " I found that caution was an element of his mind, which modified his courageous desire for brilliancy of action ; and that, with a full appreciation of the disadvan- tages under which new and undisciplined troops must act, he preferred, and, indeed, regarded it as a conscientious duty to act with a deliberate prudence, which would risk as little as possible for the sake of mere show or dash. Some, who could not understand how this quality was connected with personal bravery, were inclined at one time to call his courage as an officer into question. Those who had the best opportu- nities of judging, and who were with him under fire, are unanimous in testifying that he seemed wholly unconscious of personal danger, and careful only for the lives of the men under his command." ITS BAKER. ''VJ-A.d'KeiU COL. CALIFORNIA REC^ N.Y. V. COLONEL E. D. BAKER, U. 8. SENATOR. KILLED AT THE BATTLE OF BALL'S BLUFF, October 21, 1861. Among tlie saddest losses wliich have been inflicted upon the country since the opening of the war, is that of the late lamented Edward D. Baker, Colonel of the First Regiment of California Volunteers, and Senator of the United States. Colonel Baker participated in the battle which took place near Leesburg, in Virginia, on the afternoon of Monday last, and fell at the head of his troops while waving his sword and cheering on his men. By his death, the country is deprived of one of its most eloquent advocates in the superior chamber of our national legislature, and one of its most seasoned and fearless champions in the field. Colonel Baker, though his ripened years presented him to the country as an accomplished lawyer and a soldier of repute, began life under the most humble circumstances, and is indebted to no regular scholarship, either in literature or arms, for the distinction which, in both of these positions, he achieved. He was essentially one of those spontaneous creations, which our noble institutions so frequently de- velop, and which are most honorably known among us as "self-made 179 COLONEL EDWARD D. BAKER. men." And that Colonel Baker was a high specimen of that class, may be seen by the difficulties which retarded him at his outset, and by the pitch of elevation he attained. The dead Senator was of English birth, but he came to this country when five years of age, and by the choice of his father was settled in Philadelphia, that Quaker neighborhood being especially congenial, as the old gentleman was of the Society of Friends. In a few years the parent died, and left Edward and a younger brother relation- less, and unprovided. Labor, however, that common patron of the well and willing, extended its resource through the occupation of his father, and he obtained employment as a weaver in a small establish- ment in South-street of that city. There he remained faithfully at work for a considerable period of time, devoting his earnings, for a while, to the support of his brother, and gradually instructing him, that he might, in time, support himself Possessed of an ardent imagination, he naturally took a deep interest in reading, and his taste being stim- ulated by the allurements of romance, enlarged, until it embraced the whole range of sober as well as of illusive literature. But none, how- ever, saw in that patient, thoughtful, never-flagging boy the future statesman whose youth was worthy of a lift. Modesty is a good maxim for the manners of a youth, but genius always knows itself; and Edward Baker, whose mind had dwelt upon the marvels of the West, feeling within himself that confidence which innate strength inspires, deter- mined to seek its broad and inviting platform for his future. Youth needs but little preparation when it §ets out to seek its for- tune ; and hope at all times requires but little backing. Edward, though he had but little means to make the journey, communicated his resolution to his brother, and the two young adventurers,, with 180 COLONEL EDWARD D, BAKER. packs upon their shoulders, strong staffs in their hands, and stout, hopeful hearts within their bosoms, set their faces towards the AUe- ghanies. On foot they undertook their ascent, and on foot they crossed ; and so they trudged along; through broad intervening States, until they found themselves in that portion of the then far West which was known as Illinois. Here the young men paused and cast their lot, Edward selecting Springfield as the special place of residence. There, in a little while, he was enabled to turn to account the legal reading which he had begun in Philadelphia; and having a happy gift of language to help it into use, he soon was enabled to make a living at the law. By fast degrees he rose, and ripening with exercise, it was not long before he was among the most popular advo- cates at the bar. Through his prosperity he was now enabled to look beyond the narrow circle of the private spites and griefs in which the mere attor- ney is required to abuse his mind, and the broad field of politics invited him to the discussion of more lofty topics. He embraced the doctrines of the Whig party, and transferred his eloquence to the forum with such effect that he soon won his way to Congress. He occupied his seat in the House of Representatives with dignity and credit, and was fast being recognized as one of the leaders of that body, when the temptations of the Mexican campaign appealed to his ardent and enthusiastic mind, and induced him to abandon civil life, and seek an employment in the way of war. He went to Illinois, raised a regi- ment, and took it to the Rio Grande. A pause in the campaign enabled him to return temporarily to Washington, in order that he might express himself upon the policy of the war and cast his votes ; but that ►done, he went back to his command, and followed its fortunes 181 COLONEL EDWARD D. BAKER. on the line from Vera Cruz. All the actions of the contested road to Mexico recognized his valor ; and when Shields fell at the head of his brigade at Cerro Gordo, it was Baker's distinguished fortune to rise to the command, and to lead the New York regiments through the bloody struggles of that day. Well do we mind the lofty look with which the noble Senator, fifteen years more of snow being on his head, told the people of this city of that circumstance, in April last, when, all together, we pledged ourselves at Union Square, to avenge the parricidal blow at Sumter ! Returning to Illinois in triumph. Colonel Baker was again elected to represent his district in the halls of Congress, and he served there until 1850 ; but at the end of his term, he yielded to some views of business, and went out for awhile to Panama. The local fever, how- ever, soon drove him home, where being recruited in his health, a new contagion touched his mind. This was the memorable epidemic which directed universal attention to the Pacific shore ; and yielding to the fascination, the soldier who had become unsettled by the excitements of the war, turned his footsteps to the new El Dorado of the West. His fame had gone before him, and he was spared any efforts to pop- ularize himself in this new field of effort. He took at once a superior 1 position at the bar of San Francisco ; and a large proportion of the heavy cases of the circuit sought the advantage of his treatment. By common coiisent he was acknowledged to be the most eloquent speaker in California; but a proof was in reserve, in a circumstance beyond the mere limits of forensic eloquence, to create for him the claim of being, perhaps, the most accomplished orator in the world. Brod- erick, that noble young tribune, who had defended California from the doom of Slavery, and stood the stern bulwark against the domineering 182 COLONEL EDWARD D. BAKER. hordes of Southern " Chivalry," had been taken in the toils of a band of pistol sharps, and slain. " They have killed me because I was opposed to the extension of Slavery and a corrupt Administration," was the last declaration of the dying Senator; and as the words fell from his lips, they became fire in the heart of the weeping orator who helped to close his eyes. The empire city of the Western Ocean was steeped in gloom at the contemplation of the monstrous deed. All trade was stopped: no sound of bustle was heard along the street ; and, by common consent, without pageant or parade, or any sound but the low, measured, muf- fled throb of the church-bells, the dejected people, walking as if they almost held their breaths, gathered in the main square, and formed themselves, like so many shadows, round the bier. At the foot of the cof&n stood the priest ; at its head, and so he could gaze freely on the face of his dead friend, stood the pale figure of the orator. Both of them, the living and the dead, were self-made men ; and the son of the stone-cutter, lying in mute grandeur, with a record floating round that cofBn which bowed the head of the surrounding thousands down in mute respect, might have been proud of the tribute which the weaver's apprentice was about to lay upon his breast. For minutes after the vast audience had settled itself to hear his words, the orator did not speak. He did not look in the cofl&n — nay, neither to the right nor left; but the gaze of his fixed eye was turned within his mind, and the still tears coursed rapidly down his cheek. Then, when the silence was the most intense, his tremulous voice rose like a wail, and with an uninterrupted stream of lofty, burning, and pathetic words, he so pene- trated and possessed the hearts of the sorrowing multitude, that there was not one cheek less moistened than his own. For an hour he held 183 COLONEL EDWARD D. BAKER. them as with a spell ; and when he finished, by bending over the calm face of the noble corse, and stretching his arms forward with an impres- sive gesture, exclaimed, in quivering accents, "Good friend ! brave heart! gallant leader ! true hero! hail and farewell!" the audience broke forth in a general response of sobs. Never, perhaps, was eloquence more thrilling ; never, certainly, was it better adapted to the "temper of its listeners. The merit of the eulogy divided public encomium with the virtues of the deceased, and the orator became invested with the dead senator's political fortunes. The senatorial field in California being, however, not open to immediate occupation, Colonel Baker transferred himself to Oregon, and there the glow of his last effort soon carried him to the highest honors of that State. He was elected senator for the full term of six years in 1860, and at the time of his death had enjoyed its lofty honors only for two sessions. How he improved the privilege of his place by great arguments in favor of the Constitution, and by withering denunciations of the advocates of treason, has been a matter of universal and applauding cognizance. He was, in fact, the master debater of the war-term of Congress ; and that he had the cour- age to give his oratory force, the shrinking Benjamin, who withered at his words, and the blanched Breckenridge, whom he " cast from the Tarpeian rock," can well attest. But even these honors, and the acknowledged prominence which he had won in his last powerful position, was not enough for his active and daring spirit while the country was in arms. He left the Senate to raise a regiment ; and when that was ready, he led it to the field. He fell, as we have stated, with the "light of battle" on his features; his death being as eloquent as his life, and contributing by its noble manner, a large compensation for his loss. The event, however, has 184 COLONEL EDWARD D. BAKER. penetrated the nation with the deepest sorrow, and, at the same time, it has laid a new obligation on our settlement with treason. Upon the writer of this article, perhaps, the tidings of his loss fell with a more startling effect than upon any person else. It was our good fortune to know Colonel Baker well, and we had the honor to entertain him as our guest at dinner, on an afternoon in the month of August last. On that occasion, when we expressed (in view of the recent disaster at Manassas) a natural concern as to the deportment of his troops, he said: "Wilkes, I have some peculiar notions as to the part I am to play in this extraordinary war ; and I want you to bear in mind that what I now say to you is not the result of any idle fancy, or vague impression. It is doubtful if I shall ever again take my seat in the Senate !" To the look of surprise which I turned upon him at this expression, he replied, "I am certain I shall not live through this war, and if my troops should show any want of resolution, I shall fall in the first battle. I cannot afford, after my career in Mexico, and as a senator of the United States, to turn my face from the enemy!" There was no gloom or depression in his manner, but it was characterized by a temperate earnestness which made a deep impression on my mind. Lo ! before October has shed its leaves, his sword lies upon his pulseless breast, and his toga has become the cerements of the grave. " Good friend ! brave heart ! gallant leader ! true hero ! hail and farewell!" G. W. New York, October, 24, 1861. 18S PUTNAM. LIEUT. WILLIAM LOWELL PUTM. MORTALLY WOUNDED AT THE BATTLE OF BALL'S BLUFF, OCTOBEE 21, 1861. Lieutenant Putnam, Second Lieutenant in Company E of the Twen- tieth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, received a mortal wound while in action with his regiment at Ball's BluflF, and died the next day. His body was conveyed to his native city, and interred with military honors. Before his remains were committed to the earth at Mount Auburn, the Reverend James Freeman Clarke read the follow- ing notice of his life and character at the • funeral service, which was performed by the Rev. Dr. Bartol, in the West Church, where the grandfather of the noble young patriot had for many years presided as the revered pastor. " The boy -soldier, whose remains are before us, came, by both parents, from the best New England races. His father is descended from the ancestor of old General Putnam, and his family on this side contains such statesmen and scholars as Timothy and John Pickering. On the other side, his mother's family has given to us statesmen, sages, patriots, poets, scholars, orators, economists, philanthropists, and now gives to us also a hero and martyr. His great-grandfather. Judge Lowell, in- 189 LIEUTENANT WILLIAM LOWELL PUTNAM. derted in the- Bill of Rights prefixed to the Constitution of this State, the clause declaring that 'all men are born free and equal,' for the purpose, as he avowed at the time, of abolishing slavery in Massa- chusetts; and he was appointed by President Washington federal judge of this district. His grandfather was minister of this church, honored and loved as few men have been, for more than half a cen- tury. Of others I need not speak — but to those who knew not per- sonally our young friend, I may say that his native powers and scholarly habits indicated that he would fully keep the promise given in the traditions of his family. "Born in Boston in 1840, he was educated in Europe, where he went when eleven years old; and where, in France, Germany, and Italy, he showed that he possessed the ancestral faculty of mastering easily all languages, and where he faithfully studied classic and Chris- tian antiquity and art. Under the best and most loving guidance, he read with joy the vivid descriptions of Virgil, while looking down from the hill of Posillippo on the headland of Misenum and the ruins of Cumffis. He studied with diligence the remains of Etruscan art, of which perhaps no American scholar, though he was so young, knew more. And here let me mention a distinguished French savan. Dr. Guepin, of Nantes in Brittany, who took a peculiar interest in William Putnam, and devoted himself to his instruction as if he had been his parent. This excellent scholar and generous gentleman will hear of his death with pain, scarcely less than if William were his own child. Thus accomplished he returned to his native land, but, modest and earnest, he made no display of his acquisitions, and very few knew that he had acquired any thing. When the war broke out, his conscience and heart urged him to go to the service 190 LIEUTENANT WILLIAM LOWELL PUTNAM. of his country. His strong sense of duty overcame the reluctance of his parents, and they consented. A presentiment that he should not return alive was very strong in his mind and theirs. But he gave himself cheerfully, and said, in entire strength of purpose, that to die would be easy, in such a cause. And in the full conviction of immortality he added, 'What is death, mother? It is nothing but a step in our life.' His fidelity to every duty gained him the respect of his superior officers, and his generous, constant interest in his companions and soldiers, brought to him an unexampled affection. He realized fully that this war must enlarge the area of freedom, if it was to attain its true end ; and in one of his last letters, he expressed the earnest prayer that it might not cease till it opened the way for . universal liberty. "These earnest opinions were connected with a feeling of the wrong done to the African race, and an interest in its improvement. He took with him to the war, as a body-servant, a colored lad named George Brown, who repaid the kindness of Lieutenant Putnam by gratitude and faithful service. George Brown followed his master across the Poto- mac into the battle, nursed him in his tent, and attended his remains back to Boston. Nor let the devoted courage of Lieutenant Henry Sturgis be forgotten, who lifted his wounded friend and comrade from the ground, and carried him on his back a long distance to the boat, and returned again into the figljt. Such actions show that Boston boys retain the old spirit of their fathers. "In the fatal battle a week ago, Lowell fell, as is reported, while endeavoring to save a wounded companion, — fell, soiled with no igno- ble dust — ' non inde.coro pulvere sordidum.' Brought to the hospital tent, he said to the surgeon, who came to dress his wound — 'Go to 191 LIEUTENANT WILLIAM LOWELL PUTNAM. some one else, to whom you can do more good; you cannot save me,' — like Philip Sidney, giving the water to the soldier who needed it more than himself. " Brave and beautiful child ! — was it for this that you had inherited the best results of past culture, and had been so wisely educated and carefully trained ? Was it for this, to be struck down by a rufiian's bullet, in a hopeless struggle against overwhelming numbers? How hard to consent to let these precious lives be thus wasted, apparently for naught — through the ignorance or the carelessness of those whose duty it was to make due preparation, before sending them to the field! How can we bear it? "We could not bear it, unless we believed in God. But believ- ing in God and Christ, we can bear even this. It is not any blind chance, not any human folly, which controls these events. AU is as God wills, who knows what the world needs, and what we need, better than we can know it. He uses the folly and sin of man for great ends ; and he does not allow any good and noble effort to be lost. The death of Christ seemed, at the time, an awful waste of the world's most precious treasure ; a waste of the noblest flower of the human race. Christ, the Son of Man, by cruel and brutal hands crucified and slain, seemed a great waste, but was the redemption of the world. And the death of Christ has taught us that it is God's great law, that the best shall always be sacrificed to save the worst, — the innocent suffering for the good of the guilty. This is the law, ordained before the earth was made ; and every pure soul sacrificed in a struggle with evil, is another 'lamb slain from the foundation of the world.' "And do we not see, in these great sacrifices, that the heroism 192 LIEUTENANT WILLIAM LOWELL PUTNAM, itself is already a great gain? Is it not something to know that we do not belong to a degenerate race? Is it not a great blessing to know that we also, and our sons, are still as capable as our fathers were, of great and noble sacrifices — that Massachusetts, God bless her ! still produces heroes — that these boys of yours, trained perhaps in the lap of luxury, can at the call of their country, spring to battle, and die cheerfully for their land? Is it "not something to see that they put into simple facts and plain reality the grand words of old poetry, and say, ' I wish, 'In some good cause, not in mine own, To perish, wept for, honored, known. And like a warrior overthrown, 'Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears When, soiled with noble dust, he hears. His country's war-song thrill his ears.' "Yes, we lose them, these precious children, but we gain them while we lose them ! They go from us in their strength and beauty ; but they go direct to God, and come to us again from Him, transfigured in the light and glory of his Heaven. We take them with us in our hearts wherever we go. We feel the exalted life which they have attained. There come to me, at this time, some singularly applicable lines of Schiller, in his Wallenstein — singularly applicable, because this German play was one which William Lowell was very fond of reading, and in which the character and fate of Max seem so parallel to his own. When Max fell in a battle like that of last Monday, when he was attacked by overwhelming numbers and no retreat was possible, these are the words of. his friend — 198 LIEUTENANT WILLIAM LOWELL PUTNAM. ' He, the more fortunate ! Yea, he hath finished 1 For him there is no longer any future. His life is bright — bright without spot it was And cannot cease to be. No ominous hour Knocks at his door with tidings of mishap. Par off is he, above desire and fear : Oh, 'tis well with him.' " 'Well with him!' and -well also with the land which bears such sons. Their spirit deepens ours, deepens the soul of courage through- out the land, calls out more valor, more devotion. When we hear of such deaths, we feel how happy we also should be to die so. We feel as Pulaski felt — I quote an anecdote told me in my youth. Pulaski, the Polish soldier, was gently rebuked by Washington for rash exposure of his life. He replied, ' General, my father died, killed in battle, when he was twenty-two ; my grandfather died in battle, fighting for his country, when he was twenty-three: General, I am twenty- five, and I am ashamed to be alive.^ We feel almost ashamed to he alive, when we hear of these sacrifices. Such deaths are not in vain, for they rouse -the whole soul of the land — and the blood of the martyrs is again the seed of the church. " Farewell then, dear child, brave heart, soul of sweetness and fire ! We shall ,see no more that fair candid brow with its sunny hair, those sincere eyes, that cheek flushed with the commingling roses of modesty and courage. Go, and join the noble group of devoted souls, our heroes and saints. Go with Ellsworth, protomartyr of this great cause of Freedom; go with Winthrop, poet and soldier, our Korner with sword and lyre; go with the chivalric Lyon, bravest of the brave, leader of men; go with Baker, to whose utterance the united murmurs of Atlantic and Pacific oceans gave eloquent rhythm, 194 LIEUTENANT WILLIAM LOWELL PUTNAM, and whose words flowered so early into heroic action. Go with our noble Massachusetts boys, in whose veins runs the best blood of the age. Go gladly, and sleep in peace. Those who loved them, as much as parents ever loved child, give thee joyfully in this great hour of their country's need. Our Massachusetts mothers, more than Roman mothers, because Christian mothers, bring their spotless lambs to the altar, expiatory victims for a nation's sin. We shall rise together, parents and children, to the high level of this great historic day. Happy, happy death — coming to him who, 'being made perfect in a short time, fulfilled along time.' For if, as the ancients say, 'honor- able life does not stand in length of time' — if, 'an unspotted life is old age' — if, 'youth that is soon perfected condemns the many years' passed in mere routine and worldly self-seeking — then we may rejoice over these dear brothers and sons, who have gone to God in all the purity of their souls, not dying in vain. ' They pleased God, and he took them.' " 195 w .//////-" :# v4j" ^^^. GROUT. LIEUTENANT JOHN W. GEOUT, MASS. Y. KILLED AT BALL'S BLUFF, October 21, 1861. The subject of this sketch won a claim to this memorial, not only as being one of the first commissioned officers that has fallen in this campaign from the State of Massachusetts, but also as leaving a fame independent of fiction, of exaggeration, and of the partiality of friends. He was born in the summer of 1843, and had barely attained the age at which a legal claim could be made upon his service, when he fell a voluntary sacrifice on the altar of his country. Of medial stature and symmetrical proportions, erect carriage, and remarkably fine and manly features, and with elastic vigor and "the crimson glow of health," he seemed "every inch a soldier," and might have been selected as a model by an artist. His physical qualities were admirably complemented by his moral and intellectual. Thoifgh the child of affluence, privilege, and indulgence, and exposed to the tempta- tions incident to life in a city, he was yet above all reproach or sus- picion in respect of his habits and associates. With uniform outward respect for religion, he united a cheerful seriousness and frankness in the expression of his religious views and feelings. Says a friend — " I have known of his bearing reproach and ridicule with the same courage he 199 LIEUTENANT JOHN W. GROUT. exhibited in the last acts of his life." A generous charity and a high self-respect, the modesty of a child and the self reliance of a man, a genial amiableness and a dignified reserve, — were a rare combination of qualities, which contributed alike to the rigid disciplinarian and the favorite companion. He was a proficient at the pianoforte and in math- ematics, and had a genius for the art of drawing ; to which he added some knowledge of the French language and of the ancient classics, and a cultivated elocution. He was the only son of Jonathan Grout, Esq., of Worcester, and of the sixth generation from John of Sudbury, who was the grandson of an English knight, " not improbably descended from the brilliant Raymond Le Gros." The latter is famous as having had " command of the Eng- lish army" in Ireland; and John, for his heroism as ensign in leading his townsmen triumphantly against the assaults of the Indians in 1676, — for which he was rewarded "with a captaincy, then a substitute in the colony for knighthood in England." In his childhood and early youth, the late lieutenant exhibited some signs of the military genius of his ancestral blood. A treasured speci- men is a whittled dagger with a Union shield on it, — now doubly prized. But not until he entered the military department of Caleb B. Metcalf's Highland School, in Boston, was his element discovered, and "his taste gratified." Such were his aptitude, enthusiasm, progress, and promise, that he was soon made captain of the cadets ; and when the occasion called for the practical use of his military knowledge, it found him master of all the principles and details " in the schools of the com- pany and battalion." When all were quaking under the sad and sudden tidings of actual rebellion, and under the immediate proclamation for an army of defence, * 200 LIEUTENANT JOHN W. GROUT. it is not surprising that his parents resolutely clung to their darling " hope of future years." With filial deference and painful regret, he relinquished his earliest purpose, in hope of their ultimate consent. " When they yielded to his importunities, his joy knew no bounds, and with all the ardor of his nature he engaged in the work of preparation," practising the self-denials which would best inure him " to the hardships of the camp." Meantime his services were in great demand in drilling volunteers ; and his knowledge and efficiency were so highly estimated, that, in the organization of the Fifteenth Regiment, notwithstanding his youth, he was welcomed to Company D, with "the commission of second lieutenant." Yet, until their departure for the seat of war, the drilling of the company devolved mainly upon him, and became the occasion of his winning the highest compliments from gentlemen of military honors, and of raising the highest expectations in respect of his future career. His patriotism, however, did not consist in his love of military life and distinction. Rather than retain his office against opposition, he would have entered the ranks as a private. He assured his friends, not with buoyant rashness, but with serious candor, that he had girded on his armor for all the emergencies of war, and for victory or death. He seemed to feel the solemnities as well as the responsibilities of his posi- tion, but never faltered in his purpose or in the duties he was subse- quently called to discharge. After the regiment joined the army, he continued to be, according to the testimony of Colonel Devens, a model of behavior. His respon- sibilities were soon increased, in consequence of the first lieutenant being detailed for the Signal Corps. Attentive to the wants of his men, and generous almost -to a fault, punctual in every duty, and ever seeming to have greater resources in reserve than were yet in requisi- 201 LIEUTENANT JOHN W. GROUT. tion, he had the confidence and friendship of his company, and the respect and good-will of the regiment. True to his nature, he chose for the drilling of his soldiers localities somewhat retired ; whither, however, spectators repaired to admire his mature self-possession and his uner- ring skill. Like Colonel Baker, he seems to have had a presentiment that these pastimes would not long continue; and, alas! his knowledge and his mettle were soon put to the most terrible proof The story of Leesburg, October 21st, is, in general, familiar to all. It was the fortune of the Fifteenth Massachusetts Regiment to be in the thickest of the fight, to do the greatest execution, and to suffer the greatest loss. But Lieutenant Grout was found adequate to the duties of his office. His coolness and self-possession, his precision and courage, were astonishing, and of great effect upon the courage and efficiency of his men. In the terrific showers of leaden hail. Providence shielded him from harm. The spontaneous metaphoi: in which the testimony is borne, is that he fought like a tiger. Sometimes his sword anticipated the muskets of his men. Upon the foe who would bayonet a wounded soldier, he executed summary and seasonable wrath. When a muzzle was at his breast and a hand upon the trigger, his right arm parried the weapon and pierced the assassin to the hear-t. "Every blow of his sword told." He verified the promise, that he would never surrender. But victory was hopeless. To continue on the field, was to increase the sacrifice of loyal blood. Yet with unflinching firmness the residue of the regiment withstood the foe till they heard the order to retreat. But when they obeyed that order, they knew that they had done the utmost in the power of men, and that "Massachusetts had reason to be proud of the conduct of her sons on that field of carnage." But his coolness and discretion and generosity did not forsake him. 202 LIEUTENANT JOHN W. GROUT. Driven to the bank of the river, he still forgot himself in the services he rendered to others. With inadequate means for transportation, he crossed the stream with the wounded, and returned. Again the frail boat was filled to its utmost capacity, and he remained upon the shore. But the eagerness for self-preservation hazarded too much, and many who escaped the enemy on the field, found another beneath the waves of the Potomac. The remainder were now reduced to the last ex- tremity. And when the young lieutenant went up to his superior with the calm but heroic inquiry, " Is there any thing more that I can do ?" the reply of Colonel Devens, to whom no epithets of commendation can do justice, was: "Nothing, but take care of yourself" And when the colonel cried to his brave but sorely tried men, " I shall never surren- der!" and with the benediction, "God be with you all," gave the final order, " Every man for himself," Lieutenant Grout had done Ms duty, and nobly justified the highest expectations of his numerous friends and enthusiastic admirers. After waiting for the first faint light of the rising moon, he threw * his incumbrances beyond recovery, and, with a few companions, plunged into the stream. But before he could reach the opposite shore, the fatal ball of the barbarous assassin left him only time and strength to exclaim : "Tell Company D that I should have escaped, but I am shot!" The sad tidings, were aggravated by the ineffectual search for his remains. But at length the Potomac yielded up the treasure, which in due time was borne, with military and municipal honors, and under the flag of his heroic love, from the paternal mansion "to the house ap- pointed for all living." He is truly lamented ; and the mourning circle includes at least his native city and the honored Fifteenth Regiment. It is plensant to imagine what exalted rank and distinction he might LIEUTENANT JOHN W. GROUT. have attained. But his career is finished; and his example and fame are a rich legacy to the young men of his native commonwealth. " Many," said he, " that are perfectly ahje to go, are very brave and forward until it comes their turn ; then it is another story : fhey need something to stir them ztp." The noble deeds and sacrifices at Ball's Bluff may be the very thing designed by Providence to stir them up. As the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church, so for every hero and patriot that falls in the service of the country, _ ten should hasten from their homes to vindicate the sacredness and value of their country's cause. 204 SHIPLEY. LIEUTENANT WILLIAM SHIPLEY, ILL. Y. MORTALLY WOUNDED AT BELMONT, November 7, 1861. The unanimity with which all classes of the American people have come forward to uphold the threatened Constitution and government, is one of the most consoling signs of the era. Sectional jealousies are forgotten. The very matter of nativity, so lately made a vital question; is forever put at rest. In the struggle now enacting, the American in heart, wherever born, is the true American, and a Haggerty, a Brown, a Shipley, a Bielaski, better deserve the name than a Davis or a Mason. Those who fight beneath the American flag are Americans, those who have rejected the flag can lay no claim to the glorious title. Germany gave us young Shipley. Born on the 2d of November, 1839, his mother, soon left a widow, sought, like so many thousands of her countrymen, a home in the great and free republic of the West. But her hopes were perhaps too sanguine, — she reached Illinois in great distress, unable to find employment while burdened with a child. Fortunately, her case became known to the Hon. 0. H. Browning, and the child whose future seemed so cheerless, had the influence of a cul- tivated, religious family thrown around his youth, and the kindly hand of a supei'ior man to aid him in establishing himself in life. He was 207 LIEUTENANT WILLIAM SHIPLEY. regularly indentured to Mr. Browning at the age of six, and soon secured a place in the affection of the family, such as kindred by blood do not always attain, so exemplary, industrious, and studious were his habits. As soon as he acquired enough of the language, he was placed at school, and was a constant attendant at the Sunday-school, as pupil, and later as teacher, till he set out for the war. He grew up a pure, high-minded, cool, courageous boy, free from all profanity or itnpurity. At a proper age, he selected the trade of a carpenter, and learned his trade thoroughly. On reaching the age of eighteen, Mr. Browning gave him his indentures, and placed a sum of money at interest for him. The young man thus left to himself, did not disappoint the hopes of his friends. Upon the breaking out of the war, he was one of the first to enlist, and was one of the one hundred and seventy-five men who left Quincy under Captain Prentiss, on the 21st of April, and proceeded to Cairo, by the way of Springfield. This body was one of those first called out for three months, and at its expiration, he returned home with the rest of the men. But his heart was too warmly in the cause. After spending a few weeks at home, he re-enlisted in Captain Schmitt's company &r three years or the war. During the three months of his second service, for Providence decreed that its duration, should not be prolonged be- yond that brief period, he was, according to the testimony of his supe- rior officer. Colonel N. B. Buford, " the most exemplary officer in the regiment — a model for others — a Christian gentleman and soldier." For some time before the engagement on the seventh of November, he had been sick, and the colonel had advised him to remain in charge of the camp, but when the order came to march, he was at his post, refusing to stay behind. p 20S LIEUTENANT WILLIAM SHIPLEY. The expedition left Cairo on the 6th of November, under the com- mand of Generals Grant and McClernand, and landed at Belmont at eight o'clock next morning. The American forces comprised the Twenty-Second, Twenty-Seventh, Thirtieth, and Thirty-First Illinois, the Seventh Iowa, with the Chicago Artillery and some cavalry. The object was to break up the enemy's camp at Belmont, and in case he sent reinforcements from Columbus, to attack that also, by a force sent down on that side. The attack on Belmont was eminently successful. Although the enemy were seven thousand strong, the Americans, Schmitt's company leading, routed them, and planted the American colors on their camp. As new troops were sent, however, from Colum- bus in successive divisions, led by Pillow, Cheatem, and by Polk in person, the Americans fell back to their boats, cutting their way through. In the attack on Belmont, Lieutenant Shipley's company was first in the engagement, first in the march to take the enemy in the rear, first in the enemy's camp, and last to leave the ground before the thrice reinforced troops of the enemy. Lieutenant Shipley carried with him into the battle a small pocket Testament, given him just previous to his departure, and in the early part of the engagement, a musket-ball struck this Testament as it lay exactly over his heart, and he escaped unharmed. He stood up nobly and manfully, as did all his company through the fearful battle, but while conducting the retreat at four o'clock in the afternoon, was struck by another musket-ball, which passed through his body from side to side, immediately above the hips. All who fell at that critical juncture had to be left on the field. The next day a number of Americans, under a flag of truce, were allowed to visit the field, in order to bury the dead, and remove such of their wounded comrades as had been left on the LIEUTE^ANT WILLIAM SHIPLEY. field. They found Lieutenant Shipley alive and perfectly rational. He had lain there all night, had been stripped of his money, his watch, his arms (pistols and sword), but his Testament was left — the rebels seem- ingly placing no value on such trophies. He was taken on board the boat at ten o'clock, and received' every possible aid under the circumstances, but his life could not be saved. He died on the boat before reaching Cairo, about evening, and, despite his sufferings, was rational to the last moment, and died in the triumph- ant hope of a glorious resurrection. His regiment, with sad hearts and reversed arms, accompanied his remains to the boat which was to convey them to Quincy, whither Cap- tain Schmitt accompanied them.. Quincy prepared to honor the first of her soldiers slain on the battle-field. His funeral took place from the house of Senator Browning, the protector of his youth. Rev. Dr. Warren, of Macomb, for some time pastor of the Old School Presbyterian Church (of which Lieutenant Shipley was an exemplary member), conducted the exercises, assisted by Rev. Mr. Piper, the present pastor. They were brief, but appropriate and impressive. At the conclusion, the remains were borne to the hearse, and escorted to their last resting-place, in Woodland Cemetery, by a very large pro- cession of military, young men, citizens, and friends. 210 A L D E N. CAPTAIN HENRY H. ALDEN, N. Y. Y. KILLED AT BALL'S BLUFF, October 21, 1861. The heroic State of Massachusetts, first to shed her blood in defence of the Union, dyeing with its purple tide the streets of Baltimore, has given many of her sons for the cause, not only in the regiments raised in her borders, but from the shores of her bay to the Rocky Mountains. At the battle of Ball's Bluff, the Massachusetts regiments fought with determined courage ; and in other regiments, too, sons of the Bay State showed equal heroism. Among these was Captain Alden, of the Forty- Second New York Volunteers, commonly called the Tammany Regi- ment. Henry H. Alden was born in the town of Middleboro, Massachusetts, April 16th, 1833, but while still in early infancy, his parents removed to the town of Lyme, New Hampshire, and here he grew up on his father's farm. As he advanced, he showed a desire to render himself a useful man, and at the age of fifteen, while still attending the village academy, obtained a position as clerk in a store at Lyme. His progress was such, that he soon became himself a teacher ; but trade and com- merce were more suited to his tastes than the routine of the school-room, and he was clerk successively at Hanover, New Hampshire, and at Troy. 218 CAPTAIN HENRY H. ALDEN. The city of New York, the great centre to which so many enterprising young men hasten, soon attracted young Alden, and he proceeded to. it with a warm letter of introduction from his employers in Troy to E. J. Brown & Co., of that city, who gave him immediate employment, and were so pleased with his ability and qualities, that they continued their connection with him till his departure for the war. During the course of the year 1860, he became a member of the famous New York Seventh Regiment, joining the second company, then commanded by Captain Shaler. He was highly esteemed by his fellow- soldiers for his zeal, efficiency, and the modesty of genuine merit. In the political struggle of the year, he took an active part for the Union, and was the corresponding Secretary of the Young Men's National Union Club, during the political campaign which resulted in the election of Mr. Lincoln to the presidency. He was also a captain of the minute- men, a quasi military organization of the epoch, which has since fur- nished gallant soldiers for real service. When the war broke out, he was no less ready to serve the Union in the field than he had been in the peaceful struggle of the ballot-box. He readily marched with his regiment to defend the city of Washington from unhallowed hands. The services of that regiment have been chronicled by an able hand, now lost to his country. We have fol- lowed it in other sketches. The Seventh did not, indeed, take part in any engagement, yet of that noble band who moved down the crowded streets of the great city, amid the intense feeling of all, this volume contains tributes to three — Winthrop, Farnham, Alden — already num- bered among America's glorious dead. On the return of the Seventh Regiment to New York, Alden imme- diately sought an opportunity to serve the cause of the Union, for he 214 CAPTAIN HENRY H. ALDEN. "was already in heart enlisted for the war. One of the Union Defence Committee offered him a lieutenancy in the Tammany Regiment, which Colonel William D. Kennedy was forming. As modest as he was brave and capable, he at once accepted the proposal, and was received ; as the process of organization went on, however, his military knowledge was so apparent, that the colonel had him made captain of the company, on the 28th of June. In organizing new regiments, little difficulties frequently occur. To meet one of these, it is said that Captain Alden, ever anxious for the general good, gave up his company, and accepted the command of the tenth. The death of Colonel Kennedy delayed the equipment and formation of the regiment, but when Captain Cogswell of the Regular Army suc- ceeded to the command, the regiment was soon ready to take the field. It then left its camp at Great Neck, Long Island, and, on the 17th of July, marched from New York to the seat of war. On reaching the capital of the Union, the. Forty-Second was at first stationed on the height to which Joel Barlow has left the name of Kalo- rama, but was soon assigned to the division commanded by Brigadier- general Stone, on the Potomac, near Edward's Ferry. Here Captain Alden was for six weeks engaged in arduous picket duty, near Conrad's Ferry. When General Stone received the order to make a demonstration on Leesburg, on the 20th of October, the Tammany Regi- ment was one of those sent by him to Conrad's Ferry, opposite Harri- son's Island, to be in readiness for action. A single rebel regiment appeared, but retreated from the shells of the American troops. After passing the night at Conrad's Ferry, the Forty-Second was added to Baker's Brigade, as part* of the force with which he was to cross the river. When Colonel Baker, in the morning, heard the firing, and, SIB CAPTAIN HENRY H. ALDBN. becoming anxious to support Colonel Devens' Massachusetts men, crossed in a small skiff, he ordered the Forty-Second to follow him. The regi- ment was instantly in motion. Colonel Cogswell wished Alden to remain with the reserve, but he came up asking to lead the advance, or, if his company did not go, to be in the advance even as a private. His enthusiasm was not to be resisted ; he led the advance of the regi- ment, and, being officer of the day, was in full uniform, with his scarf over his shoulder. Before crossing, he addressed his men, telling them that they were going into action for the first time, — to behave like men : "Keep cool," said he, "obey my orders, follow me, and follow that" — drawing the elegant sword just presented to him by his company. After reaching the Virginia shore, he again addressed those who had been able to cross, — not more than fifty in all, — repeating his former admonitions, and bidding them avenge him, if he fell. Colonel Cogs- well led his men up the hill, and on, past the Fifteenth Massachusetts, who cheered them as they went through the open field, encircled by woods, where the enemy were posted. A body of troops appeared coming from the Leesburg road : the officer in advance calling out, " Baker's Brigade," misled the Forty-Second, who supposed them Ameri- cans, but when they were within a hundred yards, they saw their error. A regiment of rebel Mississippi rifles were upon them. The Forty- Second gave a volley, and when it was returned. Captain Alden fell dead, shot by a sharp-shooter in a tree, the ball striking him on his right breast, severing the main artery, and passing out at the left hip. His men, led by R. M. Seabury, second lieutenant, dashed on to avenge him, charging at the point of the bayonet ; while a well-directed shot from the Nineteenth Massachusetts, sent his murderer plunging down in death CAPTAIN HENRY H. ALDEN. The Americans were, however, outnumbered and surrounded, and Colonel Cogswell ordered the retreat. The men fell back, fighting steadily, but compelled to leave the body of their gallant captain on the ground. The disasters of that retreat, from the insufficient transporta- tion, are too well known. Many were drowned by the sinking of the boats, or were shot in the water by the enemy. On the day after the battle. Colonel McGurk, of Mississippi, appeared on the shore, and asked why the Americans did not cross to bury their dead. Captain Vaughn, of the Third Rhode Island Battery, immediately went over, with ten men of the Twentieth Massachusetts, and began the pious task, although first tempted, and then detained by the rebels. He found Captain Alden's body where he fell; but his lifeless remains showed the cruelty and rapacity of the foe. He had been killed on the spot, yet his right side showed three bayonet thrusts, which had been dealt upon his lifeless body. His cap, sword, sash, buttons, belt, and shoulder-straps were gone, his pockets rifled: the lining of his waist- coat, marked with his name, alone enabled Captain Vaughn to ascer- tain who he was. On hearing of his death, Mr. W. K. Comstock, a devoted friend and fellow-member of the Seventh, hastened to the camp of General Stone to endeavor to obtain Captain Alden's body. The permission of the War Department was needed to send a flag of truce. This obtained. General Stone, on the 30th, sent a flag of truce to General Evans to obtain per- mission to remove the body of Captain Alden, and also to send letters and refreshments to the sick and wounded prisoners. After a delay caused by his consulting his superiors, General Evans, on the 6th of November, dispatched Colonel Jenifer to signify his permission for a party to cross on the following morjiing. Mr. Comstock accordingly 217 CAPTAIN HENRY H. ALDEN. went over the river, with a coffin and men, and in a heavy rain pro- ceeded to the grave where Alden had been hastily placed, in the bed of a ravine, and disinterred his remains. The body was received at the camp with honor, and, after a funeral service, escorted towards Wash- ington. After being embalmed, it was brought to the city of New York, and laid out at the armory of the Seventh Regiment, in Tompkins Market, and on the 16th of November the regiment paid the last honors to their gallant associate. The funeral service was read by the Rev. Mr. Weston, the chaplain of the regiment, and the body was then escorted to the boat by Company B, Captain Emmons Clark, with the full regi- mental band, the colonel attending, and two officers of the Forty-Second, Captain Graham and Lieutenant Paine, acting as pall-bearers. 218 G A V I T T . MAJOR JOHN SMITH GAVITT, IND. V. KILLED AT FREDERICKTOWN, Mo., Sept. 21, 1861. John Smith Gavitt was born in Madison, Jefferson county, Indiana, March 18, 1826. At an early age he moved, with his parents, to Vander- burgh, of which he was a citizen at the time of his death. Reared amid the scenes of u frontier life, he grew up a wild boy, fearless of danger, living in the midst of excitement and turmoil, beloved by his friends, feared by his enemies, and admired by all who appreciated his many good qualities. In July, 1848, he left the home of his boyhood for California. With all the energy of his nature, he threw himself into the contest for wealth in that land of gold, and was so far successful as to return with a handsome fortune. The party with which he intended to sail becoming dissatisfied with Major Gavitt, he withdrew from the organization which had been perfected, and went out relying upon his own resources for success. The sequel of the undertaking was illustra- tive of the character of the man. He succeeded where others failed, and many of the party who had abandoned Major Gavitt were indebted to him — in the far West — for clothing and food, and the means to regain their homes. After bis return, he was elected to the sheriffalty of Vanderburgh 221 MAJOR JOHN SMITH GAVITT. county, and after serving two years, returned to California, but in 1852 and in 1858 was again elected sheriff. He filled the office to which he was thus three times called by the people with an ability rarely equalled in the State, and his skill as a detective officer was acknowledged by the police department of all our Western cities. Major Gavitt was an active politician, a democrat of the State Rights school, and a firm and unwavering supporter of Mr. Douglas, whose nomination he warmly urged at Charleston and Baltimore, incur- ring the resentment of that section of the body which there initiated the present troubles, by disorganizing the democratic party, and insuring its defeat, in order to make that very defeat a pretext for an unconstitu- tional attempt to revolutionize the country, seize the federal govern- ment, and by terror of arms force the North into submission. Major Gavitt was so obnoxious to the extreme advocates of Brecken- ridge, that on one occasion a personal collision had well-nigh ensued, but his undaunted bearing and courage so established his character, that no further difficulty occurred. When the attempt of the disorganizers to carry out in our happy land the course which has ruined Mexico failed, and they found it neces- sary to make a real war where they intended only a demonstration, Gavitt rallied to the support of the government constitutionally formed. He left his business, and enlisted for the war. He was appointed major of the First Regiment of Indiana Cavalry, and left Evansville with his command for Missouri in August. He was stationed at Pilot Knob, and soon had occasion for active service. He was virtually commander of the regiment, and on the 15th of October he set out, at the head of the First Indiana Cavalry, to support Major Hawkins of the Independent Missouri Cavalry, and with Colonel MAJOR JOHN SMITH GAVITT. Alexander, to reconnoitre the country as far as Fredericktown. Hear- ing, as he approached the town, that Thompson was there in force, he sent back for reinforcements, but as they delayed, he pushed on, in a dense fog, till he — himself riding in front — came on the enemy's pickets. A sharp volley followed on both sides, and the gallant Lieutenant Francis, of Hawkins' regiment, fell; but though sheltered from the American fire, the enemy were soon driven from their position, and retreated to the bridge, which was defended by artillery. The object having been accomplished. Major Gavitt, now fully informed of the enemy's strength, prepared to fall back to the American forces coming to his relief, and with them again returned, but on receiving his wound, drew off in good order. The American troops were soon pursued by their foe, who had recovered a little courage, but Gavitt, putting his infantry and artillery in ambush, drew the enemy's cavalry into the trap, and they were mowed down by the American fire. Major Gavitt's gallantry and strategy in this affair endeared him to his men, and he was made lieutenant-colonel, although his commission never reached him. On the 21st, a considerable American force advanced to drive the enemy out of Fredericktown. The troops consisted of Marsh's Eigh- teenth Illinois Regiment, a section of Taylor's battery, Stewart's and Laherman's cavalry, parts of the Eleventh Missouri, and the Twenty-First, Thirty-Third, and Thirty-Eighth Illinois, the Eighth Wisconsin, and Gavitt's and Hawkins' regiments, with Schofield's light artillery. Ea- ger to have another brush with his late antagonists, Major Gavitt led bravely on, Jbut Thompson and Lowe, distrusting their own strength, abandoned Fredericktown and retreated, yet at last made a stand, post- ing themselves to advantage. While Schofield opened his artillery on 223 MAJOR JOHN SMITH GAVITT. the enemy's guns, Gavitt led a charge upon them, and, with the intrepid Captain Highman of Posey county, fell dead on the field, — Major Gavitt, whose eagerness to come up with the enemy had led him thirty yards in advance of his command, receiving no less than five balls in various parts of his body. But he did not fall unavenged. In the irresistible charge of his men, the enemy were swept off the field, and fled, leaving their commander Lowe and many of their men scattered in death over the bloody field. Major Gavitt left a widowed mother and three -orphan children to mourn the loss of a faithful son and fond father. His remains, borne 'from the field of his fame, were interred with military honors at Evansville, followed by the many friends who felt, when he went forth to the war, that he would never move among them again in life,- — so conscious were all of his fearless courage, and his deter- mination to do all that in him lay to bring this wicked war to a speedy close by the prompt suppression of rebellion. •an