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 liKEVKT (■llI.tiXEL U.S. & N. Y. VOL. | 
 
 3of)n SSUeitts irr Jitnstrr, 
 
 3i(tmtor, 
 
 />//■;/< r.'th Ai'itiL. isi:i. <,i 4..-,-, 
 
 1. M. 
 
 CHANCELLORSVILLE. 
 
 WASHINGTON, 
 SCOTT'S 1100. 
 
 FREDERICKSBURG, ii'l 
 
 ADVANCE TO 
 GETTYSBURG. 
 
 BY AX OFFICER OF THE ARMY OF THE TOTOMAC. 
 
 Wctp ¥orfe : 
 
 J. R. UUTII, I'KINTKU, A-i P E A I{ L STREET. 
 1874. 
 
61503 
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 n fllcmonam 
 
 JOHN WATTS (le PEYSTER, Jr. 
 
 DIED 12th APRIL, 1873, 
 
 '* My son, my eon, 
 
 A father's cyca arc looking on thy grave." 
 
 ****** 
 **Thro' echoing lands that ring with victory, 
 
 Answering for the living with the dead, 
 
 And give me marble when I ask for bread. 
 
 And give me glory when I ask for thee." 
 
 * # * 
 
 *' Thou knowest why we silent ait, and why our eyes arc dim,— 
 Sing us such proud sorrow as we may bear for him." 
 
 *' Reach me the old harp that hangs between the flags he won ; 
 I will sing what once I heard beside the grave of such a son.'* 
 
 — *'^4 Heroes Orave,'''' by Sidney Dobell. 
 
 "No further seek his merits to disclose, 
 Nor draw his frailties from their dread abode ; 
 There they alike in trembling hope repose, 
 The bosom of his Father and his God." —Gray's *^ Elef/y.''* 
 
 "And thou wert the meekest man, and the gentlest, that ever sat in hall among 
 ladies. And thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put lance 
 in rest." —'■'•Elegy of Sir Lancelot,'"— Morte d'Abthxtb. 
 
 The hand that writes these pages does so with the 
 reluctance of one who feels that he is an intruder on 
 a sorrow so deep and recent, so sacred in its nature, 
 that any attempts at consolation in the ordinary sense 
 of the term were useless. Only at the urgent request 
 
2 
 
 of the head of the family to which the subject of this 
 brief memoir belonged, and against the writer's own 
 wishes, does he attempt the task, feeling sensible, from 
 what little he saw himself of the brief and mournful 
 young life that ended so sadly, that no words of his 
 can heal the wound that God in his wisdom inflicted, 
 when the sword pierced the parents' heart, and the 
 Angel of Death took their first-born. 
 
 It is not with the hope of consolation, not with the 
 purpose of trying to palliate inevitable grief by exciting 
 the feeling of pride, that these pages are written. In 
 the face of such a sorrow, only one feeling of the 
 human heart is possible, the deepest and most sincere 
 sympathy ; a sympathy that would take refuge in 
 silence if it were permitted. 
 
 Nevertheless, feeling that the task, however difiicult, 
 must be done, and praying earnestly that it may be 
 done in such a way as to render it a grateful tribute 
 of sympathy, I have consented to undertake the pre- 
 paration of such a slight sketch of one who has gone 
 to his rest, as may serve to remind us of the happiness 
 to which he has attained at last. 
 
 "If in this life only we have hope, we are of all 
 men the most miserable," said one whose life, after 
 the commencement of his mission, was a constant 
 succession of trials and suff'erings of body and mind, 
 tlie latter aggravated by the former. Of all the gifts 
 which have come to us with the Second Dispensation, 
 there is one alone which is worth all the rest, the 
 revelation of the recompenses of a future life, for trials 
 
in this. The same Lazarus, who sat at the gate of 
 Dives, a painful and touching sijectacle, a poor 
 wreck, whose every moment was a torment, whose life 
 was one long martyrdom, found rest, peace and happi- 
 ness at last, in Abraham's bosom. If there is one 
 lesson that comes to us in tlie wliole teaching of the 
 Creator of the Universe with more force than another, 
 with more consolation to the suffering in heart than all 
 the rest, it is that bright revelation of God the Com- 
 pensator, of Paradise the Home of Compensation, 
 which God ix Man has told us of in every chapter, 
 almost every verse, of his recorded teachings. 
 
 It is not my purpose, therefore, in tliese few words 
 of sympathy, to enlarge on the brilliant military 
 record of one who has left all such things far, far 
 behind him. To say that he was brave to excess, is 
 but to repeat the testimony of every comrade in arms 
 that saw him in action. To recount the names and 
 honors that were conferred on him by brevets, for one 
 quality of a many-sided character, is but poor con- 
 solation to the desolate hearts that yearned over him 
 from the cradle to the grave. 
 
 To say that he was handsome in person, brave and 
 gentle, a lion among men, a lamb among ladies, may 
 be true ; but what balm does the memory of beauty 
 and virtue carry with it to those who mourn the loss 
 of all that endeared him to them ? In the presence of 
 eternity, how paltry are all such honors; in the 
 presence of death, what consolation can a labored 
 eulogy offer ? It is but to increase the sorrow by the 
 
memory of wliat lias been lost. In snch a ease, only 
 two tilings are \)oss\b\ii—forgetfii,lness, or Hope. 
 
 Which shall be my theme in treating snch a 
 sorrow ? 
 
 The waters of Lethe are deadly cold, lit emblems 
 of the pagan spirit that dictated the fable. "Is there 
 a way to forget to think?" asks the poet, in a dreary 
 apostrophe of woe. The qnestion answers itself. 
 While the brain holds thought, it must hold memory 
 also, and the loss of memory is the loss of reason. 
 To us, who live in the brightness of that light to which 
 all the wisdom of the ancients only shows as a feeble 
 glimmer in the darkness of ignorance, there is a 
 sweeter spring than ever lay, still and dark, in the 
 pool of Lethe. 
 
 The pleasures of hope are ours, alike for ourselves 
 in the shadow of death, and in the memory of those 
 who have gone before us on the long journey, from 
 which none return, but which all must take. That 
 hope it was which dried the tears of tiie warrior 
 monarch of Israel, when he reproved his servants 
 with the simple words, "I shall go to him, but he 
 shall not come to me." 
 
 To me, who came to the record of a sad young life 
 almost as a stranger, at first sight the retrospect was 
 inexpressibly mournful. In all the records accessible 
 to me, there was so much tiiat was a mere recital of 
 perpetual suffering, that it seemed to me as if nothing 
 that could be said or written on the subject could be 
 other than a tearing open of wounds that only time 
 
could heal. Of any real insight into the inner nattire of 
 the man himself, whose life I was investigating, there 
 seemed no glimpse possible. His own letters had 
 perished ; the letters of others referring to him, so far 
 as I conld lind tln'm, were ]iurely in reference to his 
 bearing in action, and all of hut <nw tenor— that that 
 bearing was faultless, that his courage and coolness 
 were remarkable, even abnormal. These letters have 
 been repeated already in the public prints, accom- 
 panied with the official commendations of such gen 
 erals as Hooker and Kearny, names synonymous with 
 daring, even rashness. To show that the character for 
 utter fearlessness which I have atti-ibuted to the subject 
 of this memoir, is strictly in accordance with fact, and 
 existed from liis early years, these letters are printed 
 in an Appendix herewith. To encumber the body of 
 the narrative with such matters, would seem to me to 
 be unwise. 
 
 - One anecdote in this connection I cannot refrain 
 from giving ; I lieaixl it from the Rev. Dr. Oliver him- 
 self: 
 
 "When quite a boy, Watts accompanied his brother 
 Frederic, Rev. Mr. Olivei-, (under whose care he tlieu 
 was at Altoona, Pa.,) and some others, to visit a coal 
 pit somewhere beyond Pittsburg. The party pene- 
 trated so deep into the mine, and lingered so long, 
 that their lights gave out ; and, in the darkness, such 
 as could almost be felt, all the party, and Mr. Oliver, 
 except Watts, became flustered or nervous. Watts, 
 however, so far from experiencing any sensation of the 
 
6 
 
 kind, actually seemed to enjoy the situation, as one 
 which required a solution, which he would like to 
 experience. Finally he suggested, as mules were very 
 sagacious animals under such circumstances, that they 
 should leave the solution to tiiem. They did so, and 
 the mules brought them out. Mr. Oliver wrote to his 
 father about Watts' perfect fearlessness on this oc- 
 casion." 
 
 It is not to courage, not to honors gained in the 
 field, that I trust, to inspire a sentiment of hope, 
 mingled with mournful regret, but still sweet in its 
 very sadness, but to the far tenderer, nobler side of the 
 character of the poor boy who suffered so much, as 
 that side has been latterly revealed to me by glimpses, 
 partly from a few of his own letters, partly from the 
 letters of private friends containing references to his 
 character, from a standpoint outside of the mere- 
 tricious glare of military events. I saw him alive but 
 twice, each time under the most melancholy circum- 
 stances ; and tlie memory of those interviews has 
 added to the light in which I have come to view his 
 character, as a man of much sorrow, now — Heaven be 
 thanked — at rest. 
 
 John Watts de Peystek Junior was born in 
 New York City on the 2d December, 1841, with every 
 apparent prospect of a fortunate and happy life before 
 him, a promise that nothing seems to have happened 
 to dim, during his childhood. That he was as happy 
 as most children is to be hoped, for certainly his after- 
 years were full enough of trials. 
 
The first glimpse that I Isave of the young man, I 
 find in a letter to his father, written apparently from 
 New York, just about the opening of that terrible 
 struggle, known as the Great Rebellion. It is entirely 
 on business matters, relating to money ; and j-et, at 
 the close comes one little unconscious touch of nature 
 which is irrepressibly affecting to me, who remembers 
 the face and bearing of the poor lad years afterwards. 
 That an ardent love reall}^ existed between father and 
 son, I have no doubt. That the Either yearned with 
 the strongest affection over his son, is certain. That he 
 craved his affection by word and deed, appears from 
 the jiassage in the letter referred to, wherein the son 
 answers a complaint of the father : 
 
 "You complain of the cold and business-like form 
 of my letters. You j^ourself first set the example of 
 dropping the language of affection." 
 
 These words are quoted from memory of their 
 spirit only ; and yet there was sometliing in them that 
 caused the writing to swim before my eyes as I read 
 them ; they conveyed to my mind such a sentiment 
 of dreariness and desolation. A wall of reserve and 
 pride had grown up between two people, both em- 
 inently worthy of love, but apparently incapable of 
 understanding each other. The language of affection 
 had ceased between them, at first, possibly, from mis- 
 understanding on the part of the father, offended at 
 morbid reticence and exclusiveness of the son ; and 
 tile young heart, too proud and sensitive, clothed 
 itself in the iron panoply of reticence and reserve — a 
 
8 
 
 panoply that, like the shirt of Nessus, injures its 
 wearer worst of all. 
 
 That this was the case with the subject of our me- 
 moir is evident from the constant references in the 
 letters of others, to his reticence. When a lad of 
 twenty is extraordinary for reserve, it may be taken 
 for granted that he is also extraordinarily sensitive. 
 Reticence is not natural to j^outh. Happy j-ontli is 
 frank as day, headlong in trust, foolish in openness. 
 When a silent, reserved lad is seen, there is little 
 doubt that such a lad is unhappy. He must be hiding 
 his truer nature, from morbid sensitiveness. It may 
 be foolish, it is certain to i)rove a cause of misery; but 
 he cannot change his nature withoutjielp from others. 
 It all depends on his treatment by others, whether he 
 conquers his sensitiveness, or whether it conquers 
 him. 
 
 The next letters that come before me are from 
 Washington. It seems that young de Pej'ster has 
 gone to his cousin. General Philip Kearny, the "one- 
 armed devil," as the enemy called him, and that the 
 latter has allowed him to follow liira as volunteer aid. 
 Tiien it also turns out that the youth has found that 
 glory is not what he thought it would be, and tliat, in 
 consequence of miscarriage of letters, he is short of 
 money, has no uniform, is subject to various mortifi- 
 cations among a rich and dashing staff, and, in short, 
 finds thorns of discomfort under the rose of military 
 adventure. 
 
 Still, these are but slight annoyances to one whose 
 
opening life begins io feel itself at last, and blossom 
 forth, unrestrained by criticism, under the light of 
 kindness. General Kearnj^ a man of many faults, 
 had yet the virtues of a knight, courage and generos- 
 ity. To his young kinsman he seems to have been the 
 soul of kindness, bringing from the tender-hearted lad 
 in his letters home, expressions of the most enthusi- 
 astic gratitude. Under his guidance and care, j^oung 
 de Peyster seems to have passed his only perfectly 
 happy days. The unconscious influence of this happi- 
 ness breaks forth in two letters home, directed, "Dear 
 Father and Mother," in which the proud, reticent boy 
 loses all his nervous sensitiveness, and prattles fool- 
 ishly and happily away, like any other frank, light- 
 spirited lad, writing home, intoxicated with the joy of 
 a first campaign, feeling that he is doing a man's duty 
 among men, and doing it worthily. 
 
 Judging from the internal evidence of these few 
 letters, I am convinced that, could young de Peyster 
 have remained on his kinsman's staff till the death of 
 the latter, he would have developed into a splendid 
 officer, and probably have been a much happier man. 
 In Kearny, whatever the faults of the latter to others, 
 his young cousin seems to have found a kind and 
 judicious friend, whose influence over him was de- 
 cidedly beneficial, mentally, restoring a mind grown 
 morbid with self-contemplation, to a tone far more 
 healthy and natural. 
 
 Unhappily, this was not to be. Kearny was unable 
 to appoint the young man officially on his staff', and 
 

 10 
 
 his first battle — Williamsburg — decided him to send 
 him home. As the General very truly said, he had 
 no right to allow one to expose himself so freely to 
 destruction who had no properly apj^ointed duty to 
 be there ; and young de Peyster, without even a 
 second lieutenant's commission, seems to have exposed 
 himself in such a manner as to deserve the soldiers' 
 soubriquet of " Kearny's Dare Devil." To nse 
 Kearny's own words, "Watts has done enough for 
 grandeur ; he has been shot at enough without being 
 regularly commissioned." 
 
 Through the influence of his father, a commission as 
 first lieutenant in the 11th New York Cavalry, was 
 now obtained for him, and he seems to have proceeded 
 to service with his regiment at once, working hard to 
 familiarize himself with the various duties of a cavalry 
 officer. 
 
 His extreme youth — he was not yet of age — his 
 small stature and boyish appearance seem to liave 
 been obstacles in his way, which he felt sensibly, and 
 when, shortly after, his State offers him a position as 
 major in an artillery regiment, he writes to decline 
 it, in the last letter of his which has come under my 
 notice. In that letter he says that he feels he is not fit 
 for the duties of major, being too young, and declines 
 the otfer with a simple modestj' that shows well for his 
 knowledge of himself. 
 
 Unhappily, he was over-persuaded, and this lad of 
 twenty found himself alone once more, in the midst 
 of an inimical regiment, with a colonel who seems to 
 

 11 
 
 have looked upon the appointment as an invasion of 
 his rights, captains who were jealous of his extreme 
 youth, with ev^erj circumstance against him, and 
 emphaticall}' — from these causes, not his own want of 
 any soldiei-ly attribute — in a false position. 
 
 For a short time this was obviated bj' his being 
 detailed on the staff' of General Peck, a good-hearted 
 man, and an old regular officei", who put him on 
 court martial duty, where he seems to have done 
 remarkably well, thanks to an acute mind, and the fact 
 of his having once studied law, which he retained. In- 
 deed, he won the praise and good-will of every officer 
 with whom he associated. 
 
 An attack of James River fever sent him home, and 
 he was not able to return to duty till next year, when 
 he was appointed Cliief of Artillery to the Second 
 Division of the Sixth Corps, and served as such, with 
 his usual reckless gallantrj', on the Fredericksburg 
 Heights, at the battle of Chancellorsville. At the 
 time he was seriously ill, and the exertions he under- 
 went at the battle proved his ruin. From that time 
 forth — in comparison with the past and its goodly 
 promise, his histor3' is almost a blank. 
 
 A few references to him occur in letters written by 
 his aunt, and two officers whose home was near his 
 own. The former seems to have loved him most 
 dearlj-, and to have been especially proud of him in 
 those brilliant days when he served on the staff of 
 Kearny. Both she and Kearn^^ himself remark on 
 the wonderful improvement in the shy, distant, reticent 
 
12 
 
 lad, by his sudden transition to active life. Kearny 
 notices in an early letter this same reticence, which 
 he characterizes as especially unfortunate, "horrid, 
 horrid!" The warm praise with which he men- 
 tions the other qualities of his young kinsman, 
 atones, however, for all the discomfort attributable to 
 this one failing of reticence. In spite of it all, the 
 boy-officer seems to have been a great favorite with 
 those who knew him, especially for his generosity 
 and quiet, gentle deportment, his kindness of heart 
 and unselfishness. 
 
 After the battle of Chancellorsville occurs a long 
 hiatus. Young de Peyster seems to have been in 
 wretched health, and to have suffered, at times, from 
 that disease which afterwards caused him such acute 
 misery. Whatever the cause, is hidden in mystery. 
 It is probable that he sustained concussion of the 
 brain at Chancellorsville from the near explosion of a 
 shell or spherical case shot or the wind of a round 
 shot, which carried away his cap ; but, whatever it be, 
 he does not seem to have been conscious of anything 
 in the excitement of the battle. The letter of General 
 Owens quoted in the Appendix, will show that his 
 position at that battle was one in which few could 
 retain their coolness of head, however cool they might 
 seem outwardl}^ In the centre of a battery, taken 
 and re-taken, with grape and round-shot flying to and 
 fro, action seems like a dream of blood, and after it is 
 all over, very few men can give a coherent account of 
 the incidents of the fray. Some injury, either to the 
 
13 
 
 brain or nervous system, mnst have been siiffered in 
 this battle by the subject of this memoir, for his con- 
 duct thereafter seems to have become entirely changed, 
 as far as I can ascertain. Moody and erratic, subject 
 to strange bursts of ill-temper, and neglecting the 
 ordinary rules of health in tlie wildest manner, he 
 seems to have speedily sunk into a state of health 
 decidedly alarming. 
 
 In a letter to his father from Colonel W , one 
 
 of the officers I have spoken of, comes out the fact 
 that the boy-major is in a painful position, with 
 enemies around him to magnify every fault, and 
 threatened with being called before the examining 
 board on the representation of these enemies — a 
 menace they did not dare to press, for they knew that 
 he could pass any such ordeal — however severe — tri- 
 umphantly. 
 
 It was during this time, when nearly out of his 
 mind with continued illness and annoyances of all 
 kinds, that a fracas occurred between him and his 
 temporary commanding officer, in which the latter 
 charged him with the lie direct, and the young major, 
 driven frantic by the injustice and insult alike, clial- 
 lenged his commander. The challenge was refused, 
 the young officer put under a close and needlessly 
 humiliating arrest, with a sentry at the door. He 
 broke the arrest and caned his commanding officer. 
 Result, he was dismissed from the service, without 
 trial or hearing of any kind, by the arbitrary order 
 of the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton. 
 
14 
 
 Here, it might be thought, had set in night the 
 young star tliat once slione so brightly. A brilliant 
 record of gallant deeds had been blotted out by the 
 hasty act of a moment, an act done in the extremity 
 of desperation against injustice. As far as his enemies 
 were concerned, they had had their will, and suc- 
 ceeded in their plans. 
 
 But, thanks to the kind Providence that watches 
 over the nation, a man was then at the head of the 
 American State whose verj^ instinct was for justice, 
 and who at last was reached, and — listened. The 
 result is told so graphically by the Rev. Mr. Oliver, 
 who acted as embassador in the affair, that I cannot 
 help quoting his words : 
 
 "The officer superior to Watts insulted him; he 
 took a cane to him ; the officer preferred chai'ges, and 
 Watts was dismissed. General Barry and myself 
 went separately to President Lincoln to get him re- 
 stored. I never saw the President laiigh as he did 
 when he became acquainted with the matter. He put 
 his big feet on the table, leaned back, and roared. 
 'Come back,' he said, 'in six months, and I will see 
 what I can do for you. I have every desire to do all 
 I can, in consideration of the Major's services and his 
 father's loyalty ; but I dare not at once restore an 
 officer who has been dismissed for caning a superior 
 officer for using improper language to him ; becaiise, 
 if I did, in less than twenty-four hours, one half of 
 the officers in the Army of the Potomac would be 
 attempting to thrash their superior officers, under 
 similar circumstances.' " 
 

 15 
 
 The President's words, as I can bear witness, were 
 a truthful commentary on the state of manners among 
 a hirge majoritj' of the officers in the Federal Army 
 at that period. The custom of duelling has been often 
 called a relic of barbarism ; but I cannot help record- 
 ing my earnest conviction that its decline in the North 
 has been accompanied, in too many instances, by an 
 almost entire loss among men of those courtesies of 
 life which only prevail at present among the small 
 class of people amongst whom the duel is still re- 
 tained, spite of law, and spite of the influence of a 
 press, teeming with foul epithets, for which no pun- 
 ishment save the duel has yet been found an effica- 
 cious preventative. 
 
 In the matter in question, in the case of Major de 
 Peyster, it is evident that he was the victim of a man 
 who sheltered himself from just retribution behind a 
 law which recognizes no such thing as delicac}'- in the 
 intercourse of gentlemen. And such a dismissal as 
 his, in any country, has always been held, by the 
 tacit verdict of society, to be no disgrace, in any sense 
 of the word. Even the shadow of the latter was sub- 
 sequently removed by the complete and triumphant 
 reversal of the unjust sentence, and the conferring 
 of the brevet of Lieutenant-Colonel and Colonel U. S. 
 Volunteers, on the reinstated officer, for his gallant 
 conduct at Chancellorsville. 
 
 Both justice and honor came too late, for the poor, 
 high-spirited lad who had embarked, two short 3'ears 
 before, ou a career of hope, which then looked so 
 
 I 
 
 r 
 
^ 
 
 16 
 
 bright. Illness, mental and. bodily, had attained too 
 sure a grasp on him to be shaken off, and he could 
 not return to the army. It was but the beginning of 
 the end. Henceforth, his life seems to have been a 
 gradual going down hill, in pain and weakness, a 
 mental disease gradually becoming worse and worse, 
 and ever picturing on an over- wrought brain the scene 
 of injustice and contumely in which he had been the 
 victim. It was under these trying circumstances that 
 his parents, well-nigh broken-hearted, found their son 
 sent back to them, crushed for life. Everything that 
 wealth and affection could do to divert the mind and 
 restore the body, was tried in vain. The voj-ages to 
 Europe and to China and Japan that were relied on 
 so fondly, came too late to save him. Only on one 
 occasion did his intellect seem to awaken to its normal 
 state, when in the whirl of a typhoon, the almost sink- 
 ing vessel in imminent peiil, he became once more 
 calm, smiling and rational. It is an evidence of how 
 fierce was the turmoil in liis mind when such an ele- 
 mental strife was necessary to waken it to external 
 objects. All this time his condition of body was one 
 of constant pain, partly from a diseased liver, and the 
 remnants of old malarial fever. Doubtless, with a 
 healthy tone to the system, the mind would have 
 recovered its balance. As it was, year followed year, 
 aggravating all the symptoms, and finally rendering 
 more stringent restraint necessary. 
 
 It was under these unhappy circumstances, and 
 within a year of his death, that I first saw the subject 
 
17 
 
 of this imperfect memoir, calling on him with his 
 father, on the latter's invitation. Having only seen, 
 before that time, the portrait of the quick, bright, 
 vivacious young officer, who had been Kearny's pet, 
 I was inexpressibly affected when I saw the melancholy 
 wreck, that was all tliat remained of the once dashing 
 soldier. 
 
 It was under these circumstances that I formed an 
 opinion of his real character, which has only strength- 
 ened since I have perused the few remaining scraps of 
 his letters now extant. I say "few," because all 
 letters to him, also all his own papers, memorials, 
 library and collections were utterly consumed with 
 the cottage he occupied upon his father's estate in 
 June, 1866. Several little circumstances, both at 
 that and a subsequent interview, gave me an impres- 
 sion that was inexpressibly pathetic. Under all the 
 cloud of mental disease, wliich usually brutalizes its 
 sufferers, one thing was noticeable in this poor young 
 fellow — an intense gentleness and consideration for the 
 feelings of others, an intense and innate chivaliy of 
 bearing, that se(^med to forget his own painful position 
 the instant that the feelings of another were in ques- 
 tion. A more delicately courteous person I never met 
 among men in the blessed possession of all their 
 faculties, and especially did I notice, on a subsequent 
 occasion, the habitual reverence which he displayed 
 towards old age, unhappily so I'are in our day and 
 country. 
 
 It is on these points of his character, as I saw them. 
 
18 
 
 and on tlie silent, uncomplaining patience with which 
 he bore his lot, that I am able to dwell at last, with so 
 much pleasure, after the mournful record of suffering 
 which I have just closed, gilded only by a brief 
 glimpse of the sunlight of ac-tion. In a life which 
 had so little of pleasure, so much of misfortune, 
 and which ended in such deep and apparently un- 
 broken gloom, what is there, what can there be of 
 consolation, of lesson, to us who survey it from the 
 outside ? 
 
 To me, at least, there is a broad and shining track, 
 leading from that bed of suffering to the home of 
 compensation. If this j'oung gentleman, with all his 
 higher faculties clouded under the veil of diseases 
 wliich invariably bring to the surface the baser 
 qualities of nature, could impress me, a total stranger, 
 with the gentle and considerate courtesy of his man- 
 ner, doing the honors of a poor little room with all 
 the simple dignity and kindness of a king in a sump- 
 tuous palace, what must not have been the charm of 
 his nature when in the full possession of himself 1 To 
 be a true gentleman, brave, courteous, unselfish, is 
 given to few men. To be such, is to imitate the truest 
 pattern of a gentlemen that ever walked the earth, the 
 pattern sent us from Heaven itself. To be siuih is also 
 to court misery, in this world, where selfishness is the 
 rule, and unselfishness the exception. Tiiat the sub- 
 ject of this memoir must have been to his inmost 
 essence one of the type of gentlemen of which Bayard 
 was a living exemplar, and of which the essentially 
 
19 
 
 pathetic life of the misunderstood Kniglit of La Man- 
 cha is the ideal, is evidenced to me by one fact. 
 
 I have frequentl}' visited patients who were nnder 
 treatment for mental disease, and my experience has 
 been uniform in regard to tlieir manners and conver- 
 sation. An intense selfishness generally pervades 
 them ; an intense desire to ventilate their fancied 
 wrongs to any one who will listen to them. Courtesj', 
 in its true sense, that of consideration for others, is 
 almost unknown to them. 
 
 In the person of tlie gentleman whose life I liave 
 attempted to sketch, I recognized an anomaly among 
 such cases. He seemed only anxious to make his 
 visitor, a stranger, feel at home and at his ease, and 
 sought to evade any painful subject witli the refined 
 tact of a man of the best society. Of complaint, in a 
 position eminently painful, even when encouraged 
 thereto in my presence, there was not a solitary 
 word ; and, on a subsequent occasion, he exhibited 
 such noble, gentle self-command, such gratitude for 
 the smallest alleviation of an unhappy lot, that lie 
 entirely won my heart. 
 
 Again I say, if sucli was the impressiofi made by 
 the nervous invalid, with clouded brain, and higher 
 faculties obscured, what must have been the man him- 
 self, liad I known him in health ? That gentleness 
 and kindness were his normal attributes, that my 
 estimate was not mistaken, I have the unconscious tes- 
 timony of the only person in the world to wliom the 
 shy, reticent boy of former years ever gave his con- 
 
20 
 
 
 fidence ; and to those tiualities I turn at last with a 
 satisfaction the greater that they alone constitute tlie 
 ground of hope for tlie future. 
 
 If Christianity is not all a lie, if the Saviour of Man- 
 kind is to be believed, it is in those very qualities of 
 kindness, gentleness, patience under suffering, and 
 unselfishness, that the only acceptable offering lies, 
 under the Dispensation of Love. 
 
 The Author of Life does not say. Blessed are the 
 prosperous, the rich, the successful, the men who rise 
 to station in life, at whose feet the nations bow, whose 
 names are spoken aloud in the streets, and sung in 
 the ballads of fame. 
 
 What does He say ? 
 
 Ye who sorrow over a life of pain, listen to the 
 words : 
 
 "Blessed are they lliat mourn, for they shall be comforted. 
 " Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. 
 " Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh. 
 " Whosoever shall seek to save his life, shall lose it, and whosoever 
 shall lose his life shall preserve it." 
 
 The subject of our memoir lost his life for others. 
 He was gentle and magnanimous, and his life was one 
 of mourning. 
 
 God has compensated him for all at last. 
 
 F. w. 
 
i: 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 013 704 991 
 
 HOLLINGER 
 pH8.5 
 
 MILL RUN F3-1343 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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 013 704 991 
 
 HOLLINGER 
 pH 8.5 
 
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