CHARLES RUSSELL 
 
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<J^emoirs of the War of'6l 
 
COL. CHARLES R. LOWELL 
 
SVlemoirs of the War of '6i 
 
 COLONEL 
 CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 
 
 FRIENDS AND COUSINS 
 
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 BOSTON 
 
 Press of Geo. H. Ellis Co, 
 
 1920 
 
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DEDICATION 
 
 To the young men of 1917 who so nobly risked 
 their hopes of future usefulness, their health, 
 their lives, to stand side by side with our Allies 
 against tyranny and injustice abroad; to those 
 who fell, and to those who survived to whom 
 the future of our own country is now intrusted, 
 — this collection of brief memoirs of the young 
 men of 1861 is dedicated. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Foreword, with Sketch of Governor Andrew . vii 
 
 Charles Russell Lowell i 
 
 Henry Lee Higginson 13 
 
 Stephen George Perkins^ 19 
 
 James Savage, Jr. 22 
 
 Wilder Dwight 27 
 
 Robert Gould Shaw 32 
 
 Henry Sturgis, Russell 38 
 
 James Jackson Higginson 42 
 
 James Jackson Lowell 45 
 
 William Lowell Putnam 49 
 
 Cabot Jackson Russel 54 
 
 Samuel Storrow - 57 
 
 Sumner Paine • 62 
 
:M.7^K:i'. 
 
 'X^Mi 
 
 JOHN ALBION ANDREW 
 Governor of Massachusetts 
 
FOREWORD FROM A CONTEMPORARY 
 OF A GROUP OF SOLDIERS OF THE 
 WAR OF 1 86 1 
 
 Early in the time of our Civil War a set of 
 photographs, of which these are mainly dupli- 
 cates, was sent over to some English friends 
 who had recently been guests here. Placed on 
 their drawing-room table in London, the por- 
 traits helped to convince their friends that our 
 army was not made up of "mere mercenaries." 
 
 To accompany the photographs, short me- 
 moirs have been compiled, from the Harvard 
 Memorial Biographies and from other sources, 
 of Colonel Charles Russell Lowell and some of 
 his friends and cousins, with Governor John A. 
 Andrew at their head. 
 
 There were other friends and cousins whose 
 services in the war and since the war equally 
 deserve recognition, but whose photographs 
 were not at hand when the original collection 
 was made: the cousins are Francis L. Lee, 
 Charles Jackson Paine, Jr., William Gushing 
 Paine, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Charles 
 Storrow, Jr., Francis Lee Higginson, Warren 
 Dutton Russell, Frank Lowell Dutton Russell, 
 John Pearce Penhallow. 
 
viii FOREWORD 
 
 A few facts about the times into which these 
 men were born are worth noting: — 
 
 Major Henry Lee Higginson in his address 
 on Colonel Robert G. Shaw delivered in 
 Sanders Theatre, Harvard University, Cam- 
 bridge, on May 30, 1897, said in part: — 
 
 "To-day I wish to talk to you of the Fifty- 
 fourth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer In- 
 fantry, colored, commanded by Colonel Robert 
 Shaw; and of slavery, which, as a deadly poison 
 to our nation, they strove to remove. Any 
 word of mine which may seem harsh to our 
 brothers of the South has no such meaning or 
 feeling. The sin of slavery was national and 
 caused the sin of disunion. Together we wiped 
 out with our blood these two great wrongs, 
 long ago, and we also wiped out all unkind 
 feeling." 
 
 The "nationar' responsibility for the con- 
 tinuation of slavery did not arise simply from 
 the fact that in the North slavery had existed 
 in Colonial days, for in the first census of 1790, 
 made up by Jonathan Jackson whom Wash- 
 ington had appointed United States Marshal 
 for the District of Massachusetts, then includ- 
 ing Maine, there was recorded under the head- 
 ing "Number of Slaves" in that District the 
 word "nowf." Meantime the foreign slave 
 trade had been made illegal. 
 
FOREWORD ix 
 
 There had been movements toward a similar 
 poHcy in the South, when, through Northern 
 enterprise, cotton factories were set up along 
 our many rivers, the first spinners and weavers 
 being girls from the neighboring farms, and 
 stockholders, many of whom were persons of 
 moderate means, who had invested their hard- 
 earned savings, intrusting them to the enter- 
 prising manufacturers for the new cotton mills. 
 The Irish famine and other conditions in Europe 
 soon increased the tide of immigration, which 
 later was welcomed and encouraged because 
 it brought not only some highly skilled workers 
 but also persons who were unskilled but could 
 be made available for working at parts of this 
 new machinery. 
 
 The question then arose, how could the in- 
 creasing demand for cheap cotton be met? The 
 rivers and canals might cause the busy wheels 
 to turn, and cheap labor might be hired to work 
 at them; but if the slave trade were to cease, 
 and if Virginia should cease to raise slaves to 
 be sold at the more Southern markets for labor 
 where cotton raising would thrive and cheap 
 labor was always in demand, who would there 
 be to plant and gather the cotton or to serve 
 the white owners of the crops? 
 
 Naturally these considerations may have 
 tended to confirm the reluctance of the North 
 
X FOREWORD 
 
 to break with the South, and perhaps tended 
 also to bolster up the doctrine of State Rights. 
 In 1848 the Missouri Compromise was repealed, 
 and the extension of slavery into the terri- 
 tories was proposed. In 1850 the Fugitive 
 Slave Law was enacted and the Supreme Court 
 had declared that by our Constitution "negroes 
 were not citizens of the United States," "had 
 never had any rights which the white man was 
 bound to respect," "might justly and lawfully 
 be enslaved for their own good." Meantime 
 Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," founded 
 upon conditions which had come to that writer's 
 knowledge during her residence in the South, 
 was published March 20, 1852, and translated 
 into the languages of dwellers in all parts of 
 the civilized world. In Great Britain, slavery 
 had been abolished in 1807. 
 
 As late as 1850 some of the most public- 
 spirited Northerners would gladly have nego- 
 tiated payment by the United States of five or 
 ten million dollars per year to free the slaves, 
 but they dreaded a rising of the slaves and were 
 encouraged by Southerners and by Southern 
 sympathizers in this dread of that which never 
 happened, not even during the Civil War, so 
 loyal were the colored people in the absence of 
 their white masters. 
 
 Under this United States Fugitive Slave Bill 
 
FOREWORD xi 
 
 slaves were arrested, tried, even here in Boston, 
 and sent back to their owners; the last and 
 bitterest case being that of Anthony Burns, 
 June 2, 1854. 
 
 Just at that critical period, John Albion 
 Andrew, a young law student from Maine, 
 graduate of Bowdoin College in 1837, then 
 entering in November as a student in the ofRce 
 of Fuller & Washburn of Boston, admitted to 
 the bar in 1840, friend of Peleg Chandler, had 
 returned to his old master's office as junior 
 partner, and had later formed partnership with 
 Theophilus P. Chandler and with him had 
 opened an office at No, 4 Court Street. 
 
 In 1846, upon the rendition of a fugitive slave 
 who had escaped in the hold of a vessel and had 
 been left by the captain on an island in the 
 harbor, had escaped to South Boston, was re- 
 captured and returned to his owner in New 
 Orleans, John Andrew, at a preliminary meet- 
 ing with Dr. Samuel G. Howe at the house of 
 Dr. Henry Ingersoll Bowditch, September 24, 
 1846, was chosen secretary of a committee and 
 was intrusted with the work of collecting testi- 
 mony in the case and presenting it to the grand 
 jury, but this evidence was pronounced insuf- 
 ficient. At the Faneuil Hall meeting, Febru- 
 ary 24, 1846, where John Quincy Adams pre- 
 sided, Andrew read the resolutions, and a 
 
xii FOREWORD 
 
 Vigilance Committee of forty members was 
 appointed, "Andrew's purpose being to abide 
 by the law, but to wring from it the utmost 
 protection for any person on Massachusetts soil 
 whose liberty was called in question under the 
 laws of the United States." 
 
 The history of politics after this crisis is well 
 known. It is interesting to note that when 
 Lincoln's nomination was assured, and Andrew, 
 as a member of the Committee, had been ap- 
 pointed to inform Lincoln of his nomination, 
 Andrew "saw in a flash that here was a man 
 who was master of himself." "For the first 
 time," he says, "they [the members of the 
 Committee] understood that Abraham Lincoln, 
 whom they had supposed to be little more than 
 a loquacious and clever state politician, had 
 force, insight, conscience." 
 
 "As the campaign for Governor of Massa- 
 chusetts went on in 1858 to i860, people came 
 to recognize the two qualities, the cool head and 
 the warm heart, which were so remarkably 
 united in John A. Andrew, and to feel that he 
 could be trusted as their governor." On the 
 5th of January, 1861, the Legislature met in 
 convention. The inauguration took place in 
 due form, and Andrew read his address. 
 
 One of Andrew's first cares, when John M. 
 Forbes appeared as his counsellor, was the selec- 
 
FOREWORD xiu 
 
 tion of four aides to constitute his personal 
 staff, — Horace Binney Sargent, Henry Lee, Jr., 
 Harrison Ritchie, and John M. Wetherell of 
 Worcester. 
 
 Meantime a Southern Convention, at which 
 eight States were represented, had met at 
 Vicksburg and had passed resolutions in favor 
 of reopening the slave trade. In October came 
 John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry and the 
 hanging of Brown and his associates. On April 
 1 2th the seceders opened fire on Fort Sumter; 
 April 15th the President called out seventy-five 
 thousand troops; April 19th the Massachusetts 
 Sixth was fired upon on its way South, and 
 Massachusetts men lay dead in Baltimore. 
 
 One of the Governor's Staff, Henry Lee, Jr., 
 writing in later years, notes: "At Fort Win- 
 throp there were no guns; Fort Independence 
 twenty guns &c. At last, after six weeks 
 of sickening suspense, on the 15th of April, 
 came the appalling summons for twenty com- 
 panies of Infantry; early on Friday four regi- 
 ments reported in a driving storm of sleet and 
 rain; from that hour till the dawn of Sunday, 
 April 2 1 St, we all had to work night and day 
 as armorers." "Behind every great movement 
 Stands the man. The whole community, from 
 that time forth, owned Governor Andrew for 
 their leader." 
 
xlv FOREWORD 
 
 Colonel Henry Lee, in his personal reminis- 
 cences of Governor Andrew, from January, 
 1 86 1, till November, 1867, wrote: "Governor 
 Andrew was one of the very few who saw 
 clearly through this day's business." "The 
 grave closes over most men as the waves close 
 over the wake of a passing ship. The places 
 that have known them know them no more, 
 but Governor Andrew has been and will con- 
 tinue to be sadly missed." "He leaves what is 
 better than great riches, a name which will 
 never be spoken save with admiration, gratitude 
 and honor." 
 
 Such was the Governor who commissioned 
 these young men. 
 
 We shall read from the following brief ex- 
 tracts, mainly drawn from biographies written 
 half a century ago, that some of these men 
 risked their lives first of all to save the Union, 
 while others had the freedom of the slaves most 
 at heart. We can never make good the work 
 which together they and the rest made possible 
 for later generations to carry into effect, unless, 
 side by side with our other civic and patriotic 
 duties, we open the way to the colored people 
 to become not only good soldiers but also good 
 citizens, by removing, one by one, the barriers 
 which have deliberately been made to block 
 their efforts in many directions, in the North 
 
FOREWORD XV 
 
 as well as in the South. The colored race, to 
 which the war of 1861 brought freedom from 
 slavery, is the only race against which a whole- 
 sale discrimination, both legal and illegal, is 
 still practised. This occurs regardless of the 
 fact that many thousands of the colored people 
 have achieved success not only in the ministry 
 and in the army, but also in the arts and 
 sciences, in medicine, law, and literature, as, 
 for instance, our highly valued head-master of 
 a large public school, our student who was 
 elected into the Phi Beta Kappa a year before 
 graduating with honors from Radcliffe College 
 and is now a successful teacher. 
 
 Graduates of Harvard, Yale, Fisk, Atlanta, 
 and other universities, as well as of Hampton 
 and Tuskegee, and other industrial schools, are 
 taking part in the world's work and passing the 
 requirements for civil service in government 
 departments, making good records in many 
 other directions also. 
 
 This wholesale race-discrimination is as short- 
 sighted as it is cowardly. To deprive a weaker 
 race of almost vital opportunities is essentially 
 a cowardly performance. It has well been said, 
 "Perhaps the most important single factor in 
 the development of the South is its negro labor; 
 it is more to it, if viewed aright, than its gold, 
 iron, and coal mines; if properly treated and 
 
xvi FOREWORD 
 
 trained it will mean wealth and greatness to 
 that section." To quote from a conservative 
 paper, the Washington Post, published thirty- 
 five years after their emancipation from slavery: 
 "We hold, as between the ignorant of the two 
 races, the negro is preferable. . . . The negroes 
 are conservative, they are good citizens, they 
 do not consort with anarchists, they cannot be 
 made the tools and agents of incendiaries; they 
 constitute the solid, worthy, estimable yeo- 
 manry of the South." 
 
 After the recent race riot in Chicago the 
 statement was quoted from some of the white 
 aggressors that it was not so much because of 
 their color as because most of them were not 
 union men that the colored men were mal- 
 treated. Meantime many of the labor unions 
 are now opening their doors to colored workmen. 
 
 These facts in themselves give proof that our 
 heroes of 1861 did not give their lives in vain 
 when, in preventing the extension of slavery 
 into the territories, they set free that "stolen 
 race" and made them American citizens, with 
 the rights and mutual obligations pertaining 
 to citizenship in our free nation. 
 
 Elizabeth C. Putnam, 
 
 104 Marlborough Street, 
 
 Boston, Massachusetts. 
 
CIIARI.KS lUSSKLL LOW I.IJ, 
 
CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 
 
 Captain of Cavalry, May 14, 1861. Colonel 
 of Second Massachusetts Cavaliy, April 15, 
 1863. Died at MIddletown, Virginia, October 
 20, 1864, of wounds received at Cedar Creek 
 on October 19th, 
 
 Charles Russell Lowell, Jr., was born in 
 Boston, January 2, 1835. When only thirteen 
 years of age he went from the Boston Latin 
 School into the English High School; in 1850 
 entered Harvard College, took first rank in 
 scholarship and maintained it until he gradu- 
 ated in 1854. He did not win popularity at 
 first, but later was proudly acknowledged as the 
 foremost man in the class. He threw himself 
 with glad and vigorous activity into the current 
 of college life, a leader in its sports and exercises 
 and its public affairs. He chose for his valedic- 
 tory oration, "The Reverence due from Old 
 Men to Young." 
 
 As a workman he entered the iron mill of the 
 Ames Company at Chicopee for a year, often 
 meeting with his fellow-workers to talk on 
 branches of science connected with their work. 
 In 1856 he had accepted a position of great trust 
 and great promise in the rolling-mill of the 
 
2 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 Trenton Iron Company, when there came upon 
 him the great trial of his life, the growing shadow 
 of disease, and he was directed to give up all 
 work and try travel in another climate. A 
 great fabric of noble ambition fell before this 
 word. In February, 1856, Lowell sailed from 
 New Orleans to Gibraltar. Even the Arabs 
 admired his equestrian skill; at Algiers he took 
 lessons in the use of the sword, and studied the 
 movements of the French troops as he already 
 had studied the Austrian military system in 
 Italy. When he returned in 1858 he was em- 
 ployed as treasurer on the B. & I. R.R. His 
 health became gradually established, and in 
 i860 he was placed in charge of iron works in 
 Cumberland, Maryland, at the head of a small 
 city of workmen, and once again his chosen 
 work seemed to lie before him. 
 
 Meantime the great election of i860 was 
 approaching. Lowell had for years been a 
 decided enemy to slavery. Edward W. Emer- 
 son relates that when Anthony Burns was held 
 for trial in Boston as a fugitive slave, Charles 
 Lowell with another spirited boy had vainly 
 tried to get speech with the United States Judge 
 who was to give the doom; the two boys had 
 looked on when, on Friday, June 2, 1854, 
 Burns was led under guard down State Street to 
 be taken back to bondage, and one of them 
 
CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 3 
 
 said, "Charley, It will come to us to set this 
 straight." The boy who spoke those words 
 was Henry Lee Higginson. 
 
 For five months of the year i860 Lowell 
 had remained at Mount Savage, except for a 
 business trip to New Orleans, and had found 
 himself brought into more positive relations 
 than ever before with political affairs. On 
 April 20, 1861, on hearing of the attack upon 
 the Massachusetts Sixth, and of its men lying 
 dead in Baltimore, Lowell instantly gave up 
 his position at Mount Savage and set off for 
 Washington to apply for a commission of 
 Second Lieutenant of Artillery in the Regular 
 Army. We have heard that when he applied 
 to Secretary of War Cameron for a commission, 
 Mr. Cameron, struck by his youthful appear- 
 ance, said: "You, young man, what do you 
 know of a horse ^ " Charles answered, " Enough 
 to take a hard day's work out of him and to 
 bring him back fresh at night." It is certain 
 that answer gave him a captaincy instead of a 
 lieutenancy which he had asked for, either owing 
 to the impression made on Cameron or to his 
 services in another capacity. In his applica- 
 tion to Mr. Sumner for a commission he an- 
 swered the question as to his qualifications as 
 follows: "I speak and write English, French, 
 Italian, German, and Spanish, and know enough 
 
4 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 of mathematics to put me at the head of my 
 class in Harvard, though now I need a little 
 rubbing up; and am tolerably proficient with 
 the small sword and the single stick; can ride 
 a horse as far and bring him in as fresh as any 
 other man. I am twenty-six years of age and 
 I believe I possess more or less of moral courage 
 about taking responsibility, which seems at 
 present to be found only in Southern officers. 
 If you have no appointment yet, perhaps you 
 will have one from Iowa or from Maryland. 
 I have been living in the latter State for a little 
 over six months in charge of a rolling mill at 
 Mount Savage. I heard of the trouble at Bal- 
 timore and of the action of Governor Hicks on 
 Saturday; at once gave up my place and started 
 for Washington and was fortunate to get 
 through here yesterday with several detentions. 
 Whether the Union stands or falls, I believe the 
 profession of arms will henceforth be more de- 
 sirable and more respected than it has been 
 hitherto. I believe that with a week or two of 
 preparation I could pass the examinations." 
 Mr. Sumner sent in this letter thus endorsed by 
 Mr. Forbes: "Lowell is a trump, full of brain, 
 and quick-witted. I want him in various places 
 and he is a valuable man for anybody. Grad- 
 uated first in his class at Harvard." From this 
 time Charles was happy; he had found all he 
 
CHARLES RUSSELL LOW KLL 
 
CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 5 
 
 asked, an object worthy of his efforts. The 
 vague desire to do something for his fellow-men 
 became a settled resolve to do all he could, 
 whether much or little, for his country. His 
 strong human feeling was concentrated on a 
 definite task. 
 
 After some important government work, 
 Lowell received (May 14, 1861) his commission 
 as Captain in the Third (afterward numbered 
 Sixth) Regiment of United States Cavalry, 
 drilling, making himself a master of cavalry 
 tactics and military science, so that he was 
 honored with the command of a squadron. 
 
 For distinguished services at Williamsburg 
 and Slatersville he was nominated for the 
 brevet of Major in the battles on June 27th, 
 and the following week cost him the life of his 
 tenderly loved brother James, who was wounded 
 at Glendale June 30th, and died July 4th. 
 
 On July 10, 1862, Captain Lowell was de- 
 tailed for duty as an aide to General McClellan, 
 winning his esteem for efficient conduct at the 
 second battle of Malvern Hill, August 5th, 
 and in the arduous Maryland Campaign. At 
 Antietam, September 17th, carrying orders to 
 General Sedgwick's division he met it re- 
 treating in confusion under a hot fire. Lowell 
 rode rapidly, driving back and rallying the 
 men, so that whole companies started forward 
 
6 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 with alacrity at his word, and the rout was 
 checked. "He seemed a part of his horse and 
 instinct with a perfect animal life. At the same 
 time his eyes glistened and his face actually 
 shone with the spirit and intelligence of which 
 he was the embodiment." General McClellan 
 gave Lowell the office of presenting to the Presi- 
 dent the trophies of this campaign. 
 
 In November he was ordered to report to 
 Governor Andrew for the purpose of organizing 
 the Second Massachusetts Cavalry of which he 
 was appointed Colonel. 
 
 During this winter of 1862-63 the first regi- 
 ment of negroes raised in the North was pro- 
 jected in Massachusetts. Lowell aided in every 
 way, and was heartily pleased by the selection 
 of Colonel Shaw to take charge. 
 
 In May, Lowell left Boston with his regiment, 
 and was placed in command of the Cavalry 
 Department of Washington, for many months 
 resisting the incursions of General Mosby, who 
 wrote of him that "of all the Federal com- 
 manders opposed to me, I had the highest re- 
 spect for Colonel Lowell both as an officer and 
 a gentleman." 
 
 In July came the battle of Fort Wagner. 
 Lowell wrote of Robert G, Shaw's death: 
 "The manliness and high courage of such a 
 man never die with him. They live in his 
 
CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 7 
 
 comrades." "August i, '63. Everything that 
 comes about Rob shows his death to have been 
 more and more completely that which every 
 soldier and every man would long to die; but 
 it is given to very few, for very few did their 
 duty as Rob did. I am thankful they buried 
 him with his 'Niggers.' They were brave men 
 and they were his men." 
 
 Colonel Lowell married, October 31, 1863, 
 Josephine, daughter of Francis G. Shaw, Esq., 
 of Staten Island, New York, and Mrs. Lowell 
 was able to go with her husband to the army for 
 several months while there was a season of great 
 tranquillity. 
 
 On July 14, 1864, on a reconnaissance against 
 General Early's demonstration against Wash- 
 ington, a little beyond Rockville, the advance 
 column was suddenly overwhelmed by a greatly 
 superior force of the enemy and took up a 
 rapid retreat; the flying battalion of the enemy 
 came charging down upon Lowell, who had not 
 even time to turn his men; there was a violent 
 collision, and then the whole brigade went 
 whirling In mad confusion toward Washington, 
 the enemy at their heels. Lowell shouted, 
 ^^ Dismount!'^ Seizing their carbines the men 
 sprang from their saddles at the word of their 
 dauntless commander. In another minute they 
 were In line. On came the assailants, but such 
 
8 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 a deadly volley was poured into their ranks 
 that both horses and riders recoiled, Lowell 
 saw the enemy waver, advanced and turned the 
 fortune of the day. With his little force, just 
 now routed and in full retreat, but unable, 
 even in a moment of panic, to forget its dis- 
 cipline, he held his ground before two brigades 
 of the enemy's best cavalry. 
 
 July 26th Colonel Lowell was put in com- 
 mand of a new provisional brigade. 
 
 On the 6th of August, General Sheridan took 
 command of the Army of the Shenandoah, on 
 the loth moved up the Valley from Harper's 
 Ferry, the Provisional Brigade (under Colonel 
 Lowell) taking the outside position. The next 
 day Lowell overtook the rear guard of the 
 enemy, and after a sharp skirmish, drove it 
 pell-mell through Winchester, and for two weeks 
 Lowell's Brigade was lighting every day. On 
 August 26 he led an attack on the advance of 
 the enemy. Charging up to a rail fence, too 
 high to leap, behind which was the enemy, 
 Lowell actually whacked their muskets with 
 his sabre; tearing down the fence, over they 
 went; nothing could resist them. The Second 
 Massachusetts captured seventy-four men, a 
 lieutenant-colonel, three captains, and several 
 lieutenants. This was the first time that Low- 
 ell's men ever really measured him. *'Such a 
 
CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL 9 
 
 noble scorn of death and danger they never 
 saw before, and it Inspired them with a courage 
 that quailed at nothing," On September 3d 
 the army was again in motion; and on the 8th 
 Colonel Lowell was appointed to the command 
 of the "Reserve Brigade," three regiments of 
 regular cavalry, one of artillery, and his own 
 volunteer regiment. Lowell had been utterly 
 unknown to Sheridan at the beginning of the 
 campaign. 
 
 In the superb charge at Winchester, Septem- 
 ber 19th, at one moment Lowell found himself 
 with one captain and four men face to face with 
 a rebel gun. The piece was discharged, killing 
 both the horses, and tearing off the captain's 
 arm. The Colonel quickly mounted the first 
 horse that came up, and the gun was his. Thir- 
 teen horses in all were shot under him in as 
 many days. 
 
 On September 5th Colonel Lowell wrote to 
 his wife: "I like Sheridan immensely. . . . He 
 works like a mill-owner or an Iron-master." 
 
 September 8: "The Second Massachusetts Is 
 transferred to the Reserve Brigade. . . . The 
 change looks like making the Second Massachu- 
 setts a permanent member of the Army of the 
 Potomac, or that portion of It which is here." 
 
 (To a disabled officer) September 10: "I hope 
 that you are going to live like a plain republi- 
 
lO MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 can, mindful of the beauty and the duty of 
 simplicity. Don't seek office, but don't dis- 
 remember that the 'useful citizen' always holds 
 his time, his trouble, his money, and his life 
 ready at the hint of his country." 
 
 September 27: "We are about one mile be- 
 yond Stanton, facing toward the Blue Ridge. 
 We have found out pretty well where the Rebs 
 are." 
 
 October 5 : " I do wish this war was over. . . . 
 Never mind. I'm doing all I can to end it. 
 Good-bye." 
 
 (To his mother) October 17th: "There is 
 nothing to tell here. We are in a glorious coun- 
 try, . . . kept very active, and have done a good 
 deal of good work. I have done my share, I 
 think, but there is nothing to make a letter of." 
 
 On October 15th General Sheridan had left 
 the army, then strongly intrenched near Cedar 
 Creek, for the purpose of visiting other points 
 in the Valley. On the 19th, in the dawn of 
 day, the enemy succeeded in accomplishing a 
 surprise; the whole of our line, suddenly ex- 
 posed to deadly fire from the rear, was driven 
 and rushed headlong down the Valley, and at 
 midday Sheridan came galloping from Win- 
 chester and turned ruin into victory. 
 
 Meantime, late in the evening of the i8th 
 Lowell had orders to make a reconnaissance. 
 
CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL II 
 
 Reveille at 4: at 4.30 his brigade was in motion 
 and had saved the right wing from the disaster 
 which befell the other end of the line. A dis- 
 tinguished general wrote: "They moved past 
 me, that splendid cavalry. Lowell got by me 
 before I could speak, but I looked after him a 
 long distance. Exquisitely mounted, the pict- 
 ure of a soldier, erect, confident, defiant, he 
 moved at the head of the finest brigade of cav- 
 alry that at this day scorns the earth it treads." 
 Striking the turnpike just north of Middletown, 
 which was already occupied by the enemy, 
 Lowell established a position at the extreme 
 left against great superiority of numbers till the 
 final advance, when he received his mortal 
 wound. He attended in person to the disposal 
 of his men, a conspicuous mark for the sharp- 
 shooters on the roofs of the village. His horse 
 was shot under him early in the day. At one 
 o'clock he was struck by a spent ball which 
 deprived him of voice and strength. For one 
 and one-half hours he lay on the ground under 
 temporary shelter. Presently at three o'clock 
 came the order for the general advance, which 
 was to give us victory. "I feel well, now," he 
 said, though too weak to mount his saddle with- 
 out assistance. He sat his horse, firm and 
 erect as ever; the color had come back to his 
 cheeks, but he could not speak above a whisper. 
 
12 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6l 
 
 He gave his orders through one of his staff, and 
 his brigade was, as usual, the first ready. Just 
 as they were in the thickest of the fire from the 
 town, a cry arose, "The Colonel is hit!" He 
 fell from his horse into the arms of his aides 
 and was carried forward in the track of his 
 rapidly advancing brigade to a house within the 
 village. He gave no sign of suffering; his mind 
 was perfectly clear, calm and cheerful, though 
 he knew he had no chance of life. He dictated 
 private messages of affection, gave complete 
 directions to his command, and as the day rose 
 he ceased to breathe the air of earth. 
 
IIKXRY LEE IIIGGINSON 
 
HENRY LEE HIGGINSON 1 3 
 
 HENRY LEE HIGGINSON 
 
 Born in New York, November 18, 1834. 
 First Lieutenant in the Second Massachusetts 
 Volunteer Infantry, July 8, 1861. Captain in 
 the First Massachusetts Volunteer Cavalry, 
 October 31, 1861. Major in the First Massa- 
 chusetts Volunteer Cavalry, March 28, 1862. 
 Wounded at Aldie, Virginia, June, 1863. Died 
 in Boston, November 14, 1919. 
 
 Henry Lee Higginson, the descendant of an 
 old Massachusetts family, was born in New 
 York, November 18, 1834. He went to Har- 
 vard College in 1851, with the class to which 
 Phillips Brooks and Alexander Agassiz belonged, 
 but left there in his Freshman year on account 
 of trouble with his eyes. Afterwards he en- 
 tered a counting-house, and in 1856 he went to 
 Europe. There he travelled for a year, joined 
 for a time by his friend Charles Russell Lowell, 
 and later spent several years in Vienna, devoting 
 himself to the study of music. He had hoped 
 to become enough of a musician to make play- 
 ing the pleasure and resource of his leisure hours, 
 but an injury to his arm, followed by too much 
 practising, made this impossible, and confined 
 his studies to singing and the theory of music. 
 
14 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 While he was thus studying and hearing 
 music, his appreciation of the part it might 
 play in the life of the community grew, and 
 the longing to bring the best orchestral music 
 to his native land became a definite ideal in 
 his mind. 
 
 At this time, in his early twenties, he was full 
 of the generous ardor that characterized his 
 later years. He was a warm-hearted and de- 
 voted friend, a believer in the great future of 
 his country and full of an eager determination 
 to do all he could for her, a lover of the arts, 
 and a would-be servant of humanity. From 
 the first he wanted to help others; he was ready 
 to have faith in them, and to take them into his 
 affections. His sympathy with the young kept 
 him always young, and his readiness to fight 
 the wrong was as strong in his last as in his early 
 years. He was far-sighted, too, and among the 
 first in this country to rouse the young men to 
 prepare to take their part in the recent Euro- 
 pean War. 
 
 Now that his career is over, it is wonderful 
 to look back to its beginning and see how his 
 resolutions were carried out, for he was one of 
 the lovers of the truth of whom Lowell wrote: — 
 
 "Those love her best who to themselves are true, 
 And what they dare to dream of, dare to do." 
 
HENRY LEE HIGGINSON 15 
 
 Drawn hy a strong sense of patriotism he 
 came home from Europe in i860. His country 
 was on the eve of civil war. He volunteered in 
 what came to be the Second Massachusetts 
 Regiment under Colonel Gordon. The very 
 day that Fort Sumter was fired on, Colonel 
 Gordon tendered his services to the Govern- 
 ment and State through Governor Andrew, and 
 Henry Higginson within a few weeks was drill- 
 ing under Gordon at Brook Farm in West Rox- 
 bury. He was made a second lieutenant, then 
 full lieutenant, and went from there July 8, 
 1861. On October 31st he was transferred to 
 the First Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer 
 Cavalry with the commission of captain, and on 
 March 28, 1862, he was commissioned a major. 
 To quote his own words: "I went out in the 
 Second Infantry; later was put into the First 
 Cavalry, Massachusetts; served at Port Royal, 
 and then came North and served in Virginia 
 until June, 1863, when I was wounded at Aldie, 
 Virginia, was sent home, invalided for nearly a 
 year; then w^as on General Barlow's staff for a 
 short time, but had not recovered enough to 
 bear the work, so left." 
 
 Colonel Henry Lee wrote of him: "One of 
 my four nephews, Henry Higginson, Major of 
 Cavalry, is just off his bed, having recovered 
 from two sabre cuts on his head; and had a ball 
 
1 6 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 extricated from his back-bone which the rebels 
 fired at him as he lay on the ground." He bore 
 all his life the scar of the sabre cut across his 
 cheek. 
 
 On December 5, 1863, he married Ida, daugh- 
 ter of Louis Agassiz. 
 
 In 1868 he entered the firm of Lee, Higginson 
 & Co. of Boston. Years of hard work and de- 
 votion to business and civic interests followed, 
 during which he held steadfastly to the dream 
 of his early days, that of establishing a really 
 fine orchestra. This hope he realized in 1881; 
 and for all the years after that, until the dark 
 shadow of the great war in Europe eclipsed for 
 a season the light and joy of the Symphony con- 
 certs, he put his heart, and a great part of the 
 wealth his days of toil had gathered, into the 
 support of the orchestra. His wisdom and un- 
 tiring patience collected skilled musicians from 
 all parts of the world and gave to Boston con- 
 certs of unsurpassed beauty. It was a great 
 satisfaction to him in his last year to know that 
 the Symphony Orchestra he had built up and 
 sustained for thirty-seven years was to go on 
 under the direction of his friends. 
 
 Major Higginson had a genius for friendship. 
 He loved his friends and he believed in good 
 fellowship; and besides the music he gave to 
 the public are his two great monuments to 
 
HENRY LEE HIGGINSON 17 
 
 friendship. The first of these is Soldier's Field, 
 given to Harvard College in 1890, to be used as 
 a playground for its students, and dedicated 
 "To the Happy Memory " of six of his "Friends, 
 Comrades and Kinsmen who died for their 
 Country" in the Civil War. The second is 
 the Harvard Union, a building given by him to 
 Harvard in 1901, "a house open to all Harvard 
 men without restriction and in which they all 
 stand equal, a house bearing no name forever 
 except that of our University. . . . May it be 
 used for the general good and may private ends 
 never be sought here! ... In these halls may 
 you, young men, see visions and dream dreams, 
 and may you keep steadily burning the fire of 
 high ideals, enthusiasm and hope, otherwise you 
 cannot share in the great work and glory of our 
 new century. . . . Let Memorial Hall stand a 
 temple consecrated to the spirit of large patriot- 
 ism and of true democracy. Let this house stand 
 a temple to the same spirit and to friendship." 
 
 These gifts were the least of the services Mr. 
 Higginson rendered to his college. For twenty- 
 six years he was a Fellow of the Corporation, 
 and, as noted by President Eliot, attended its 
 meetings "with the utmost punctuality, assid- 
 uity and devotion, and with the highest intelli- 
 gence." He always looked upon it as a privi- 
 lege to do so. 
 
1 8 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 The knowledge that he felt It to be a privilege 
 to help all good causes made it easy for people 
 to turn to him constantly for aid and inspira- 
 tion, and made it a matter of course that the 
 flags of the city should be at half-mast when it 
 was known that he had gone from us, who had 
 so often been affectionately called "Our First 
 Citizen." m.c.p. 
 
STKPIIF.X GEORGE PERKINS 
 
STEPHEN GEORGE PERKINS 19 
 
 STEPHEN GEORGE PERKINS 
 
 Born in Boston, September 18, 1835. Killed 
 at Cedar Mountain, Virginia, August 9, 1862. 
 Second Lieutenant, Second M.V.M. Infantry, 
 July 8, 1861. First Lieutenant, Second M.V.M. 
 Infantry, July 11, 1861, 
 
 "Stephen Perkins's friends were among the 
 most gifted young men of the day." "He was 
 beloved by all who came into contact with him 
 and becoming constantly a finer and finer type 
 of noble and intelligent boyhood." He entered 
 Harvard College in 1855, but on account of 
 his eyes joined the class of '56; he spent a year 
 in the Law School, and graduated from the 
 Scientific School in mathematics in 1861. At 
 the Harvard College Regatta at Springfield, 
 '55, Perkins was one of the picked crew of the 
 Harvard four-oar, composed of John and Lang- 
 don Erving, Alexander Agassiz, and Stephen 
 Perkins, three of whom, including Stephen, 
 were over six feet in height, 
 
 Stephen Perkins's peculiar charm lay in a 
 sensation of tranquil strength, of indefinite 
 resources, of reserved power, "effecting by a 
 single quiet word or look what others had 
 
20 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6i 
 
 toiled and stormed in vain to accomplish." 
 One of his relatives had remarked to him 
 rather heedlessly at the outbreak of the war 
 that the war was not likely to come home to 
 their two lives, for instance, in any immediate 
 way. He answered with an unwonted serious- 
 ness that was almost sternness, "I do not know 
 that it will make any difference in your life, 
 but it is likely to make a very great difference 
 to mine." The war came. In a few days 
 he had enlisted and was engaged in the most 
 tedious service in the Army of the Potomac. 
 The disastrous battle of Cedar Mountain took 
 place August 9, 1862. Robert G. Shaw wrote, 
 "All our officers behaved nobly." There Per- 
 kins fell, pierced by three bullets. 
 
 A brother officer, Major Henry L. Higginson, 
 wrote of him, reviewing that short life in the 
 days before the war: "Stephen might never 
 have done anything tangible, but he would 
 always have elevated his friends and associates 
 in purpose and in tone, and thus indirectly have 
 accomplished much. Men of his kind will be 
 more necessary after than before the war. I've 
 seen men enough, the world over, but never 
 one of his kind, and very, very few equal to 
 him. When I remember his handsome face 
 with such warm blue eyes, and such a beautiful 
 smile, his voice and jolly laugh, his honesty and 
 
STEPHEN GEORGE PERKINS 21 
 
 purity of mind and soul, his wonderful insight 
 of men and things, beyond all his wonderfully 
 warm feelings for his real friends, so very 
 marked, it seems to me that a big piece of life 
 was snatched away," 
 
 Charles Francis Adams in his autobiography 
 wrote of Stephen Perkins, "Stephen was per- 
 haps the closest of my friends. The choicest 
 mind I ever knew. He was manly, simple, re- 
 fined and he had withal fine perceptions and a 
 delicate humor. . . . He loved to talk but in a 
 quiet, observant and reflective way. He was 
 mature and self-respecting, one who thought 
 much; one who looked quite through the acts 
 of men. When I heard of his death I felt that 
 I had lost something that could never be re- 
 placed." 
 
22 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6i 
 
 JAMES SAVAGE, Jr. 
 
 Born in Boston, April 21, 1832. Captain, 
 Second M.V. Infantry, May 24, 1861. Major, 
 June 23, 1862. Lieutenant-Colonel, September 
 17, 1862. Died at Charlottesville, Virginia, 
 October 22, 1862, of wounds received at Cedar 
 Mountain, August 9, 1862. 
 
 As a boy his love of outdoor play was inex- 
 haustible. One of his comrades says, "His side 
 at football would win if he could make it, for 
 in rush or race it took a good player to compete 
 with him; and yet withal he was such a gentle 
 and noble fellow that everybody loved him and 
 felt he would never do a mean thing; all he 
 wanted was fair play." His love of nature, of 
 music and other arts made his trip to Europe 
 in 1854 a keen joy to him. 
 
 Becoming interested in conditions in our 
 Southern States, Savage in 1859 gave himself 
 heart and soul to do all in his power toward the 
 freedom of the slaves. In the spring of 1861, 
 when it had become clear that war was the only 
 alternative, he joined the Salignac Drill Club 
 and was the first member of that Club to apply 
 for a commission in Gordon's Regiment. With 
 
JAMES SAVAGE, Jr. 
 
JAMES SAVAGE, Jr. 23 
 
 his friends Wilder Dwight and Greeley S. Curtis 
 a plan had been formed to organize a regiment 
 of infantry and offer it to the United States. 
 Two graduates of West Point, Messrs. Gordon 
 and Andrew, were induced to take the highest 
 appointments, and the Second M.V.M. Regi- 
 ment was thus formed. Major Henry L. Hig- 
 ginson, in his address at the giving of the Sol- 
 dier's Field to Harvard College, said: "We two 
 fellows [James Savage and Henry Higginson] 
 went to Fitchburg, just after war was declared, 
 to recruit a company for the Second Massachu- 
 setts Infantry, and when our regiment was 
 ready to march, the colors were entrusted to 
 us. This recruiting was strange work to us all, 
 and the men who came to our little recruiting 
 office asked many new questions, which I did 
 my best to answer; but often these recruits 
 would turn to the 'captain' as they called him, 
 listen to his replies, and then swear allegiance, 
 as It were, to him. He, the quietest and most 
 modest of men, was immensely Impressive, for 
 he was a real knight — just and gentle to all 
 friends, defiant to the enemies of his country 
 and to all wrong-doers." 
 
 James Savage had steadily declined promo- 
 tion which would remove him from the Second 
 Regiment, unless for a colored regiment. When 
 the raising of such a regiment was discussed 
 
24 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6i 
 
 and Major Copeland and Lieutenant Shaw ap- 
 pealed to him, "Now, Jim, we want you to go 
 with us, will you?" Jim was lying down, rest- 
 ing on his elbow; he instantly sprang up. "Yes, 
 I'll go with you if only as a sergeant," and no 
 one was more disappointed at the failure of the 
 plan at that time than he. 
 
 The following letter merits insertion as indi- 
 cating his feeling on the same general subject. 
 From it the following extracts are quoted: — 
 
 March 30, 1862, about four miles south of 
 Strasburg, Virginia, approaching the Shenan- 
 doah range, waiting for the mending of a broken 
 bridge, "the contrabands flocked to see the 
 * sogers' and told us what they had learned 
 from their masters about us Yankees; that if 
 the Yankees got hold of them they would cut 
 their right hands and feet off; that their mas- 
 ters had won all the battles and whipped us 
 terribly; how they thought 'old Mr. Brown' 
 must have had hundreds of men with him; how 
 all the blacks about here knew he was their 
 friend and the terror of their white rulers. One 
 man almost as white as I, the son of his master 
 and the father of nine children, two of whom 
 he had with him, had interested me very much; 
 looked like Neapolitans, perhaps a little fairer. 
 His gratitude to God when he told us how his 
 wife and children had been left to him when so 
 
, JAMES SAVAGE, Jr. 25 
 
 many of his neighbors told him of having lost 
 theirs by having them sold, was very touching. 
 We talked with him and his two dear little boys 
 for nearly two hours, and that was my Sunday 
 sermon," 
 
 On June 13, 1862, James Savage was pro- 
 moted to be Major, on September 17th to be 
 Lieutenant-Colonel. Lieutenant Miller wrote: 
 "The 9th of August our brigade marched to 
 about one mile of Cedar Mountain. I was 
 struck and taken prisoner. The surgeon told 
 me that Major Savage was also wounded and 
 a prisoner. The Major was very cheerful 
 though in considerable pain. Three weeks later 
 his leg was amputated and he knew that he 
 could not possibly survive." 
 
 Captain Shaw wrote Mr. Savage, August 12, 
 1862: "After amputation of his leg his mind 
 seemed to be at peace. The only comfort his 
 friends had was the assurance that his loved 
 Harry [Captain Russell] had stayed to cheer 
 and aid him, though Russell must In conse- 
 quence become a prisoner." 
 
 The last words written by James were from 
 the hospital on August i8th, to Professor 
 Rogers: "I am pretty much broken up but sure 
 of the best treatment. Your friends here leave 
 nothing to be desired — best love to all, from 
 your Major." 
 
26 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6i 
 
 And there came from Captain H. S. Russell, 
 Libby Prison in Richmond, "I was taken when 
 tying a handkerchief around J, S.'s leg. Write 
 to his father." After some weeks came a letter 
 to his father announcing the death of a prisoner 
 of war. 
 
WILDI'.R UWIGIIT 
 
WILDER DWIGHT 27 
 
 WILDER DWIGHT 
 
 Born April 23, 1833, in Springfield, Mass. 
 Died September 19, 1862, of wounds received 
 at Antietam, September 17, 1862. Major, 
 Second Regiment M.V.M., May 20, 1861. 
 June 13, 1862, promoted by Governor Andrew 
 to be Lieutenant-Colonel of the Second Massa- 
 chusetts. 
 
 In boyhood as in manhood he was recognized 
 as one in whom to place an absolute trust. He 
 took high rank as a scholar and maintained it 
 through college, and on leaving the Law School 
 he received a first prize. Was admitted to the 
 Bar in 1856, began practice in 1857, and became 
 partner of Horace Gray, Jr.; but when the war 
 came "he gave up to his country, without a 
 moment's hesitation, all that he had gained 
 and all that he was." "He suffered not a day 
 to pass, after the news from Sumter, before 
 opening a subscription paper to guarantee the 
 expenses which would be incurred in the enter- 
 prise." On the 15th of July, 1861, while in 
 bivouac at Bunker Hill, he wrote: "I have 
 always had a dream and theory about the vir- 
 tues that were called out by war. The calling 
 
28 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 needs a whole man and it exacts very much 
 of him. Self gets thrown into the background." 
 On August 3d in bivouac on Maryland Heights, 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Dwight wrote: "If you 
 could have seen the helplessness in which the 
 flour ration left us and the stupidity of the 
 men in its use you would hail as the dawn 
 the busy frying of doughnuts which goes on 
 here now." "Our triumphs just now are 
 chiefly culinary, but 'A soldier's courage lies in 
 his stomach,' says Frederick the Great, and I 
 mean that the commissary captains and cooks 
 shall accept the doctrine and apply its lessons 
 if I can make them," At times his eagerness 
 for action would express itself. "Do not spend 
 your days in regretting this or that life, — lives 
 whose whole sweetness and value depend upon 
 their opportunities, not upon their length." As 
 late as May 9, 1862, the service of the regiment 
 was still to wait. Lieutenant-Colonel Dwight 
 writes, "Of course this is a severe trial to me, — 
 the severest, I think, of my life." Two weeks 
 later his regiment saw its first action on the 
 field on the occasion of General Banks's retreat 
 in May, 1862, after the Battle of Winchester. 
 General Gordon reported, "Major Dwight while 
 gallantly bringing up the rear of the regiment 
 was missed somewhere near the outskirts of the 
 town," "this brave officer, so cool upon the 
 
WILDER DWIGHT 29 
 
 field, so efficient everywhere, so much beloved 
 in his regiment, and whose gallant services of 
 the 24th will never be forgotten by them." 
 
 While missing and mourned as dead, Major 
 Dwight, while helping a wounded soldier, had 
 been taken prisoner, and General Jackson gave 
 his permission to eight of the Second Massa- 
 chusetts prisoners to go out as escort for the 
 burial of their companions. 
 
 On June 2d the Major was seen running on 
 foot toward the regiment. The officers ran to 
 meet him. More than one lifted him in his 
 arms. The men ran from their tents toward 
 the limits of the camp. They could not be 
 restrained; they broke camp and poured down 
 upon the Major with the wildest enthusiasm. 
 A little later the regiment was drawn up around 
 the Major, who was reading to them from a 
 paper which he held in his hand. He gave 
 them the names of those of their comrades who 
 were prisoners in Winchester. He told them 
 who were wounded, and the nature of their 
 wounds. He told them of their dead, and of 
 the burial upon which even the rebels of Win- 
 chester had looked with respect. Then he said: 
 "And now, do you want to know what the 
 rebels think of the Massachusetts Second.^ 
 'Who was it ambuscaded us near Bartonsville.^' 
 asked a cavalry officer of me. I replied, 'That 
 
30 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 was the Massachusetts Second.' An officer of 
 rebel infantry asked me who it was that was at 
 the Run near Bartonsville. 'That was the Mas- 
 sachusetts Second,' said I. 'Whose,' asked an- 
 other officer, 'was the battery so splendidly 
 served, and the line of sharpshooters behind the 
 stone wall, who picked off every officer of ours 
 who showed himself?' 'That was the Massa- 
 chusetts Second,' said I. On the whole, the 
 rebels came to the conclusion that they had been 
 fighting the Massachusetts Second, and they 
 did not care to do it again in the dark." 
 
 The next day he wrote from Washington: 
 "I am here to see about my exchange, etc. I 
 am sorry you had so much anxiety about me, 
 but thankful to be able to relieve it. My re- 
 ception by the regiment is reward enough. I 
 must get back to them." 
 
 Chaplain Quint said, "You will know how 
 nobly he commanded his little band of skir- 
 mishers on Saturday night last; how his small 
 force was formed against cavalry and infantry 
 with entire success; how his clear, cool, delib- 
 erate words of command inspired the men so 
 that no man faltered, while, in ten minutes, one 
 company lost one-fourth of its number." 
 
 At the battle of Antietam, Colonel Dwight 
 was mortally wounded. His only regret was 
 that he could not longer serve the cause. " I have 
 
WILDER DWIGHT 3 1 
 
 lived a soldier, I die a soldier, I wish to be 
 burled as a soldier." He called out, "Who 
 asked for the Second Regiment? I tell you 
 where the Second Regiment was yesterday, — 
 In the foremost front of the battle, fighting like 
 men; and we drove them, boys, — drove them." 
 Colonel Andrews had sent him word of our 
 battle. "It is a glorious time to die!" was his 
 joyful exclamation. 
 
32 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 ROBERT GOULD SHAW 
 
 Private Seventh New York Volunteer Mili- 
 tia, April 19, 1861. Second Lieutenant Second 
 Massachusetts Volunteers (Infantry), May 28, 
 1861. First Lieutenant, July 8, 1861. Cap- 
 tain, August 10, 1862. Colonel Fifty-fourth 
 M.V. Infantry, April 17, 1863. Killed at Fort 
 Wagner, South Carolina, July 18, 1863. 
 
 Robert Gould Shaw was born in Boston, 
 October 10, 1837. In 1851 the family went to 
 Europe, and Robert passed a happy summer in 
 Switzerland. In November, 1852, he wrote 
 from Neuchatel, full of interest in affairs in 
 France. "Have you seen that book 'Uncle 
 Tom's Cabin'.?" August 7, 1853 : "Have you 
 heard anything about the new Slave Law in 
 Illinois.'* I think it is much worse than the law 
 of 1850. Have you read the Key to 'Uncle 
 Tom's Cabin'.? I've been reading 'Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin' again, and always like it better than 
 before. I don't see how one man could do 
 much against slavery." In 1855: "I read a 
 long account of the new Abolition Society of 
 New York and of a slave having been burnt 
 alive in Alabama. I did not think this last 
 would ever happen again." 
 
ROBERT GOULD SHAW 
 
ROBERT GOULD SHAW 33 
 
 Robert Shaw reached home in May and en- 
 tered Harvard in August, 1856, In November, 
 1861, he cast his first and only vote, for Lincoln 
 and enlisted as private in the Seventh New- 
 York National Guards, believing there might 
 be trouble in the country after the inaugura- 
 tion and he would not be willing to remain in an 
 office if the country needed soldiers. April 18, 
 
 1 86 1, he wrote his father a farewell note and 
 left in July, Lieutenant in the Massachusetts 
 Second Regiment, for the seat of war. 
 
 Near Culpeper Court House at the Battle of 
 Cedar Mountain, Shaw was serving as aide on 
 General Gordon's staff. He writes, August 12, 
 
 1862, near Culpeper Court House: " I was with 
 General Gordon, who sent me back to get some 
 artillery through the woods. It was impossible 
 to do it because the brush was so thick, and 
 besides I hadn't been gone five minutes before 
 the enemy got us under a cross fire and our 
 brigade had to retreat. They advanced so 
 close to the Second before they gave way that 
 it was easy to distinguish all their features. 
 There were 474 enlisted men taken into action 
 in the Second. Of these 120 were killed and 
 wounded and 37 missing. They were not under 
 fire thirty minutes, 22 officers went in and 8 
 came out. Goodwin, Cary, Choate, and Ste- 
 phen Perkins were all quite ill but would not 
 
34 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6i 
 
 stay away from the fight." Early In 1863 
 Governor Andrew ofi"ered Shaw the colonelcy 
 of a colored regiment to be raised In Massachu- 
 setts, being the first recruited under state 
 authority, though one was already In service In 
 South Carolina and another in Kansas. In 
 answer to this his father brought back a letter 
 to the Governor declining, as "not having abil- 
 ity for the undertaking," but on February 5th 
 Robert telegraphed, "Please tell the Governor 
 that I accept," and he wrote, "There is great 
 prejudice against it — at any rate I shan't be 
 frightened out of it by unpopularity." March 
 25: "The intelligence of the men is a great 
 surprise to me." March 30: "The mustering 
 officer who was here to-day is a Virginian, and 
 he always thought It was a great joke to make 
 soldiers of 'niggers' but he tells me now that he 
 has never mustered in so fine a set of men, 
 though about 20,000 have passed through his 
 hands since September. The sceptics need 
 only to come out here to be converted." Just 
 after this, on May 28, 1863, Colonel Shaw led 
 his regiment through Pemberton Square and 
 ofi^ to the South. I can see him now, — Colonel 
 Shaw, — riding with his hat off as he passed the 
 balcony where Mrs. Mary Lowell Putnam stood, 
 to greet her and thus to express the thanks of 
 the Fifty-fourth Regiment for the banner which 
 
ROBERT GOULD SHAW 35 
 
 she had presented. This banner bore a gold 
 cross upon a blue ground with the motto, "In 
 hoc signo vinces" (By this sign you shall 
 conquer). 
 
 From St. Helena's Island, July 6, Colonel 
 Shaw wrote, "I want to get my men alongside 
 of white troops and into a good fight if there is 
 to be one." 
 
 James Island, July 15th: "Two hundred of 
 my men on picket duty this morning were at- 
 tacked by five regiments of infantry, some cav- 
 alry and a battery of artillery. The Tenth 
 Connecticut was on their left and say they 
 should have had a hard time if the Fifty-fourth 
 men had not stood so well." "I have just 
 come in from the front with my regiment where 
 we were sent as soon as the rebels retired. This 
 shows that the events of the morning did not 
 destroy the General's confidence in us." 
 
 Morris Island, July 18: "We are in General 
 Strong's brigade. We came up here last night 
 in a very heavy rain. Fort Wagner is being 
 heavily bombarded. We are not far from it. 
 We hear nothing but praise for the Fifty-fourth 
 on all hands." After writing the above (the 
 last words he ever wrote in this world) he re- 
 ceived orders to report with his regiment at 
 General Strong's headquarters, and there he 
 was offered the post of honor because of the 
 
36 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 greatest danger, the advance in the work as- 
 signed for that very evening, the assault upon 
 Fort Wagner. Here then came the opportu- 
 nity he had waited for; he accepted it without 
 hesitation. One who was at General Strong's 
 headquarters writes (Beaufort, S.C., July 22): 
 "The troops looked worn and weary; had been 
 without tents during the pelting rains of the 
 two previous nights. When they came within 
 six hundred yards of Fort Wagner they formed 
 in line of battle, the Colonel heading the first 
 and the Major the second battalion. With the 
 Sixth Connecticut and Ninth Maine and others 
 they remained half an hour. Then the order 
 for 'charge' was given. The regiment marched 
 at quick, then at double-quick time. When 
 about one hundred yards from the Fort the 
 rebel musketry opened with such terrible fire 
 that for an instant the first battalion hesitated; 
 but only for an instant, for Colonel Shaw, 
 springing to the front and waving his sword, 
 shouted, 'Forward, Fifty-fourth!' and with 
 another cheer and shout they rushed through 
 the ditch and gained the parapet on the right. 
 Colonel Shaw was one of the first to scale the 
 walls. He stood erect to urge forward his men, 
 and while shouting for them to press on was 
 shot dead and fell into the fort," and "now 
 sleeps there with the brave fellows who were 
 
ROBERT GOULD SHAW 37 
 
 with him in his life." A Southern soldier has 
 since said, "It looked [his face] as calm and 
 fresh and natural as if he were sleeping." A 
 stalwart negro man had fallen near him. The 
 rebels said the man was a color-sergeant. The 
 brigadier commanding the rebel forces said to 
 me: "I knew Colonel Shaw before the war and 
 then esteemed him. Had he been in command 
 of white troops I should have given him an 
 honorable burial. As it is, I shall bury him in 
 the common trench with the negroes that fell 
 with him." 
 
38 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 HENRY STURGIS RUSSELL 
 
 Henry Sturgis Russell was born June 21, 
 1838. Graduated from Harvard College, i860. 
 In 1861 joined Fourth Battalion; May 28, 
 1861, was commissioned First Lieutenant in the 
 Massachusetts Second Regiment of Volunteer 
 Infantry; December 31st, Captain of his first 
 company; January, 1863, Lieutenant-Colonel 
 of Second Massachusetts Cavalry; Brigadier- 
 General of Volunteers, 1865. 
 
 On July 21, 1865, Governor Andrew said of 
 Captain Russell: — 
 
 "I know of no incident of more perfect, of 
 more heroic gentility, bespeaking a noble 
 nature, than the act performed by one captain 
 of the Second Massachusetts . . . who, standing 
 by the side of Lieutenant-Colonel Savage, . . , 
 who was fatally wounded, and not believed by 
 the enemy to be worth the saving, [Captain 
 Russell] refused to surrender until he had wrung 
 from the enemy the pledge that they would, 
 in capturing him, save also his comrade and 
 bear him back to the nearest hospital; declar- 
 ing that, if they did not, he single-handed and 
 alone would fight it out, and sell his life at the 
 dearest cost." 
 
HENRY STURGIS RUSSELL 
 
HENRY STURGIS RUSSELL 39 
 
 Not many weeks later, kindly cared for, 
 Colonel Savage died of his wounds. Captain 
 Russell was committed to Libby Prison and 
 remained there till November 15, 1862. In 
 January, 1863, he was made Lieutenant-Colonel 
 of the Second Massachusetts Cavalry. On 
 April 5, 1864, Captain Russell accepted the 
 colonelcy of the Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry, 
 a negro regiment. Between Russell and his 
 cousin, Robert G. Shaw, there had existed a 
 close friendship. Shaw's death at Fort Wag- 
 ner had lately occurred; and now Russell, tak- 
 ing the offered colonelcy, quietly said, "Bob 
 would have liked to have me do it!" 
 
 It was at the head of this regiment, June 15, 
 1864, before Petersburg, that Colonel Russell 
 received his first wound, and special commen- 
 dation from General Grant which led a year 
 later to his brevet as Brigadier-General of Vol- 
 unteers, "for distinguished gallantry and good 
 conduct, and by his extra capacity for the con- 
 trol of men." 
 
 This colored regiment entered Richmond 
 among the first troops. 
 
 On May 6, 1864, Colonel Russell married 
 Mary H. Forbes. February 14, 1865, he left 
 the army and soon retired to his "Home Farm" 
 in Milton, where he passed much of his life. 
 
 In 1878 Russell accepted from Mayor Pierce 
 
40 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 the position of Chairman of the Board of Police 
 Commissioners. 
 
 For two years he toiled hard, vigilant by night 
 and laborious by day, and brought the force 
 into fine shape. Then he resigned and en- 
 joyed some long, pleasant years upon his farm 
 until, January 14, 1895, he was appointed by 
 Mayor Curtis to be Fire Commissioner of the 
 City of Boston, and held the position for ten 
 years. It was long and arduous work to bring 
 it up to his ideal, but Major Russell left the 
 Department undoubtedly the best organized 
 and the most efficient fire department in the 
 country. With his subalterns he was popular 
 and even with the rank and file, for, though 
 very rigid, and a strict disciplinarian, he was 
 not a martinet. He made short work of dis- 
 quieting agitations concerning hours and pay, 
 yet his men, proud of being part of so fine an 
 organization as he had created, did not audibly 
 murmur. He was still in office when death 
 came to him in Boston, February 16, 1905. 
 
 Major Henry Lee Higginson, writing of Rus- 
 sell, May 4, 1 919, said: "In reply to your note, 
 Harry Russell went to the war as First Lieu- 
 tenant in the Second Volunteer Infantry in 
 May, 1 86 1. The Regiment had various expe- 
 riences in Virginia during that summer of '61, 
 the winter of '62, and so on, held the [ ] of 
 
HENRY STURGIS RUSSELL 41 
 
 the army under Banks In his first foolish move 
 and was driven back — was badly hurt at Cedar 
 Mountain in the summer of '62, distinguished 
 itself at Antietam. Harry stopped to look 
 after James Savage at Cedar Mountain and 
 was captured and sent to Richmond. By and 
 by he came back and presently was made 
 Lieutenant-Colonel in the Second Massachu- 
 setts Cavalry (after his engagement to Miss 
 Mary Forbes) and then later was made Colonel 
 of the Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry (colored). 
 This regiment entered Richmond among the 
 first troops. About that time Harry left the 
 service. He was in all respects and every- 
 where an excellent officer, greatly liked and 
 admired by everybody; he was wounded, but 
 just where I have forgotten. He was really a 
 great favorite among his mates and deserved 
 it " 
 
42 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 JAMES JACKSON HIGGINSON 
 
 Born in the city of New York, June 19, 1836. 
 Died in New York City, January 5, 191 1. 
 Second Lieutenant First Massachusetts Cav- 
 alry, January 6, 1863. First Lieutenant First 
 Massachusetts Cavalry, January 4, 1864. Cap- 
 tain September i, 1864. Brevet Major U.S. 
 Volunteers, April 9, 1865. In the Army of the 
 Potomac to the end of the war. He resigned 
 May 27, 1865. (Original Companion of the 
 Military Order of the Loyal Legion.) 
 
 James Jackson Higginson had been fitted in 
 the Boston Latin School for his entrance to 
 Harvard College from which he was graduated 
 with honor in 1857. After studying law in 
 Europe he returned to the United States in 
 1862; served for a few weeks as an agent for 
 the Sanitary Commission in Washington; was 
 commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Mas- 
 sachusetts Volunteer Cavalry and was rapidly 
 promoted, attaining the rank of major in April, 
 1865, "for gallant and meritorious services re- 
 sulting in the fall of Richmond, and the sur- 
 render of the insurgent army under General 
 R. E. Lee," and serving in the Army of the 
 Potomac to the end of the war. 
 
JAMES JACKSON HIGGIXSON 
 
JAMES JACKSON HIGGINSON 43 
 
 James Higginson had taken part in the Battle 
 of Aldie Creek in the Gettysburg Campaign, 
 was made a prisoner and confined in Libby 
 Prison, Richmond, for nine months until March, 
 1864, when released by exchange. He rejoined 
 his regiment before Petersburg and shortly after 
 was detached for special duty at the headquar- 
 ters of General Meade, with whom he served 
 through the subsequent movements and battles 
 of the Army of the Potomac up to and includ- 
 ing the surrender of General Lee in April, 1865. 
 
 In 1867 he came to New York City, where for 
 twenty-five years he was a member of the stock- 
 brokerage firm of Chase & Higginson. Mr. 
 Chase had been his companion in Libby Prison 
 with whom he had shared his blanket, when he 
 had one. 
 
 On November 11, 1869, Mr. Higginson mar- 
 ried Margaret Bethune, daughter of Archibald 
 and Elizabeth Bethune Gracie. 
 
 James Higginson's service to his country did 
 not end with the war. Like his brother Henry, 
 everything that had to do with the welfare of 
 his fellow-citizens was dear to his heart, and 
 claimed his thought, time, and means. 
 
 "During his active business life and after his 
 retirement from business he gave a large part 
 of his time to public service. He was one of 
 the early members of the Council of the Char- 
 
44 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6i 
 
 ily Organization Society; he was one of the 
 trustees of the House of Refuge; for many 
 years he served as president of the New York 
 Eye and Ear Infirmary; and from 1902 to 1905 
 was a member of the Board of Education." 
 His love of Harvard College was always a strong 
 interest in his life, and he joined the Harvard 
 Club in 1876, giving to it much time and devo- 
 tion, and finally becoming its president, which 
 office he held at the time of his death. 
 
 He was a warm and faithful friend, and was 
 widely mourned as a man of generous and just 
 spirit, of strong and manly character. 
 
JAMES JACKSON LOWELL 
 
JAMES JACKSON LOWELL 45 
 
 JAMES JACKSON LOWELL 
 
 Born October 15, 1837, ^^ Cambridge, Mass. 
 Died July 4, 1862, at Nelson's Farm near Rich- 
 mond, Virginia. 
 
 James Jackson Lowell passed from the Boston 
 Latin School to Harvard College in 1854, grad- 
 uating in 1858 as first scholar in his class. While 
 he would walk a dozen miles for wild flowers, 
 skate all day and dance as long as the band 
 would play, he found no study too dry. " He 
 was full of life, enjoyed keenly, pursued eagerly 
 and crowded every hour with work or pleasure." 
 In i860 Lowell entered the Law School. Mean- 
 time the war began. On July 10, 1861, J. J. 
 Lowell and his cousin William Lowell Putnam 
 received their commissions as first and second 
 lieutenants in the Twentieth M.V.M., and 
 after a few days at Washington the regiment 
 was ordered to Poolesvllle, Maryland, where It 
 lay in camp till October 20th. On October 
 2ist was fought the Battle of Ball's Bluff. 
 Lowell was shot In the thigh, Captain Schmitt 
 badly wounded, and Putnam killed. Our only 
 consolation was the gallant behavior of our 
 troops in a desperate situation. Lowell re- 
 
46 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 luctantly went home, and while recovering, 
 some of his classmates presented him with a 
 sword to replace the one lost in the confusion 
 at Ball's Bluff. In February he rejoined his 
 regiment. On March nth the Twentieth left 
 the camp at Poolesville and was transferred to 
 the Peninsula, reached Yorktown April 8th and 
 remained there until the 4th of May. Lowell 
 wrote on the 25th regretting that he was not 
 in the advance with his brother: — 
 
 "The severe fighting at Fair Oaks occurred 
 on May 31st and the ist of June, at Yorktown 
 we were held as a reserve, at Fair Oaks we had 
 a foretaste of what is coming before the forts of 
 Richmond. On Saturday, on being ordered 
 forward, we advanced through an interminable 
 swamp and across the Chickahominy . . . and 
 came up into the field of battle. ... As we had 
 been fairly on the run the companies were more 
 or less broken and I supposed that some of my 
 weaker and doubtful men had fallen out on the 
 way. Much to my delight I found that every 
 man was there, even in this place of compara- 
 tive rest. Three a.m. always finds us in line 
 of battle." Lowell remained near Fair Oaks 
 until the 8th of June. "June 27: still in camp 
 but a brisk cannonading is going on." On the 
 29th joined in the retreat across the Peninsula. 
 Lowell led his company until the afternoon of 
 
JAMES JACKSON LOWELL 47 
 
 the 30th, when he received a mortal wound in 
 the fight at Glendale, He desired that his 
 father might be told that he was struck while 
 dressing the line of his men. Two of our sur- 
 geons who had been left with the wounded at 
 the farm were much impressed by his behavior, 
 and one of them told the rebel officer to talk 
 with him if he wished to know how a Northern 
 soldier thought and felt. He lingered four days 
 and died on July 4th. Lowell was among the 
 earliest of the Harvard soldiers to fall by the 
 hand of the enemy. While the soul of this noble 
 young soldier was passing slowly away, his 
 sister, a volunteer nurse, was at Harrison's Bar, 
 only a few miles away, and tried every expedi- 
 ent to get to him. The serenity with which he 
 received the summons of death came from 
 neither bland enthusiasm nor from apathy. 
 No one could be less indifferent to the grief it 
 would cause at home. It was to the three 
 nephews that Mr. James Russell Lowell re- 
 ferred in a poem to R. G. Shaw: — 
 
 "I write of one while witli dim eyes I think of three, 
 Who weep not others fair and brave as he? 
 Ah! When the fight is won . . ." 
 
 The formal letter in which Lowell acknowl- 
 edged the gift of the sword contains a passage 
 which serves to illustrate the spirit with which 
 
48 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6i 
 
 our soldiers went to the war: "When the Class 
 meets in years to come, and honors its states- 
 men and judges, its divines and doctors, let 
 also the score who went to fight for their coun- 
 try be remembered and let not those who never 
 returned be forgotten, — those who died for the 
 cause of civilization and law, and the self- 
 restrained freedom which is their result." 
 
 A friend wrote his mother: — 
 
 "Don't you think that Jim's dying has ac- 
 complished as much as his life may have done? 
 I never knew how much I relied upon Jim, — 
 not so much for his friendship, which I think 
 I prized above that of all others, but for his 
 almost startling simplicity and correctness of 
 judgment in all matters we talked about." 
 
WILLIAM LOWKLL PUTNAM 
 
WILLIAM LOWELL PUTNAM 49 
 
 WILLIAM LOWELL PUTNAM 
 
 Born in Boston, Mass., July 9, 1840. Died 
 October 22, 1861. July 21, 1861, Second Lieu- 
 tenant in Twentieth Regiment, M.V.M. Fell 
 mortally wounded at Ball's Bluff, October 21, 
 1861. 
 
 William Lowell Putnam was born in Boston, 
 July 9, 1840. He was the youngest of our 
 group of cousins who used to shout Scott's 
 rousing verses as we played Highlanders and 
 Lowlanders among the wooded rocks behind 
 the house on School Street, Roxbury. 
 
 William sometimes said, as he grew older, 
 that there was no circumstance in his life that 
 he would wish changed. There was, however, 
 one real drawback to the happiness of that 
 home, — one stain upon the glory of the United 
 States of America, to whose interests all were 
 devoted: I cannot remember the time when 
 slavery was not mentioned with indignation by 
 that patriotic family and the guests who gath- 
 ered round their hospitable board. Among 
 these were Mrs. Putnam's brother, James Rus- 
 sell Lowell; James Freeman Clarke; and many 
 relatives of Colonel Robert G. Shaw. 
 
50 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6i 
 
 In 185 1 my uncle and his family went to 
 Europe, but they never forgot the important 
 concerns of their native land. When William 
 was in Nantes, in the west of France, he used 
 to escort a newly arrived colored boy to their 
 day school. Dr. Guepin, in whose family 
 in Nantes William spent several months, after- 
 ward described him in 1857 as a tall, handsome 
 youth, modest and reserved in society, and firm 
 and courageous in the practice of his duties. 
 His dream was then to serve the interests of 
 his country and become a historian. 
 
 In 1858, after an absence of seven years, dur- 
 ing which there were counted among his ac- 
 quaintances the man of science, the collegian, 
 the young officer, the workman, the common 
 soldier, and the peasant, he returned with the 
 family to the United States, with no regretful 
 longing for what he had left in Europe. His 
 love of country was as warm as if he had never 
 been absent from it. He visited Lexington 
 and Concord and found these and the streets of 
 his native place as much classic ground as those 
 of Rome. His young cousins, then in college, 
 hailed him as a comrade; the hand of the me- 
 chanic met in his a clasp as honest and as strong 
 as his own. He had fair hair and hazel eyes, 
 with bright color in his cheeks; he was full of 
 fun. His mother wrote of him, "His parents 
 
WILLIAM LOWELL PUTNAM 51 
 
 often pleased themselves with the thought that 
 their vigorous and happy boy offered the type 
 of Young America." 
 
 Then came the election of Lincoln, and the 
 war. The recruits tramped through the street 
 singing "John Brown's Body." I remember 
 my cousin Willie saying to me soon after Sum- 
 ter had been fired upon: "People say this war 
 will not last more than six months! It will go 
 on for nearer six years; but when it is over 
 slavery will have been abolished." His mother 
 wrote, "The attainment of his majority was 
 marked by his entrance into the service of his 
 country." 
 
 On July 21, 1861, William received from 
 Governor Andrew his commission as Second 
 Lieutenant in the Twentieth Regiment, 
 M.V.M., at the same time with his cousin 
 James Jackson Lowell. Colonel William Ray- 
 mond Lee had already said of him, "He will 
 make a fine officer; there is character in all he 
 does." 
 
 On the 4th of September, Lowell Putnam left 
 Camp Massasoit, with his regiment, for the 
 South. As the southward-bound train pulled 
 out from the station William stood on the plat- 
 form waving us good-bye. In less than seven 
 weeks from that time his earthly career was 
 closed. 
 
52 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 One of his men told William's mother that 
 at the Battle of Ball's Bluff "Lieutenant Put- 
 nam was standing among all the bullets falling, 
 with his arms folded, shouting to his men just 
 as calm as ever." 
 
 One of his brother officers wrote, "The men 
 were so accustomed to obeying him that I could 
 hardly persuade them to help after he had told 
 them to leave him and help some one else be- 
 cause he was mortally wounded; and Henry 
 Howard Sturgis carried him on his back to the 
 boat and to the island." William's mother, 
 in a short memoir written soon after his death, 
 wrote words which will find an echo in many 
 another mother's heart: "And yet how many 
 and what hopes passed with that passing breath; 
 those that his young breast had cherished, silent 
 and resolute; those which admiring comrades 
 had set in him, generous and cheerful; those 
 that hearts already bereaved had treasured for 
 him, trembling and prayerful. 
 
 "If we may ask his country to hold him in 
 her memory ... it must be not only because 
 he laid down for her an almost untasted exist- 
 ence, but because he gave up with it projects 
 of great and noble accomplishment." 
 
 Pierson took his sword, hoping to return it to 
 Mrs. Putnam, but the cavalry party who cap- 
 tured them demanded and retained it. It was 
 
WILLIAM LOWELL PUTNAM 53 
 
 in front of Petersburg that "that loyal sword 
 came again into loyal keeping," the trophy of 
 a Union volunteer who had supposed it to be 
 a rebel sword. In May, 1890, it was brought 
 safely home to William's mother. 
 
54 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 CABOT JACKSON RUSSEL 
 
 Sergeant Forty-fourth M.V. Infantry, Sep- 
 tember 12, 1862. First Lieutenant Fifty- 
 fourth M.V., March 23, 1863. Captain, May 
 II, 1863. Killed at Fort Wagner, South Caro- 
 lina, July 18, 1863. 
 
 Cabot Jackson Russel was born in New York, 
 July 21, 1844. During his childish years his pas- 
 sion was for playing knight-errant and wounded 
 soldier. Over the boy's bed hung the portrait 
 of John Brown of Osawatomie. Cabot Russel 
 entered Harvard College in 1861, but was sus- 
 pended for inattention to his studies, which he 
 later greatly regretted. In June, 1862, on a 
 journey to the West, after the war had begun, 
 he wrote his father: *'I don't know about Jim 
 or Charley [Lowell]. If anything has happened 
 to either one of them I shall want to enlist." 
 And when he heard of Lieutenant James Low- 
 ell's death he wrote, "Now I shall certainly go," 
 and turned back to his home in New York. 
 His age was just eighteen. He was appointed 
 to a vacant sergeantship in the Forty-fourth 
 Massachusetts Regiment, which was then re- 
 cruiting under Colonel F. L. Lee. His com- 
 
CABOT JACKSON RUSSEL 
 
CABOT JACKSON RUSSEL 55 
 
 manding officers highly commended his pluck, 
 endurance, and fidelity to duty. November I 
 he wrote, "I hope I and the regiment will be- 
 have well in to-morrow's fight." 
 
 On March 4, 1863, Cabot Russel appeared in 
 Boston to accept a second lieutenancy under 
 Colonel Robert G. Shaw in the Fifty-fourth 
 (colored) Regiment. He was soon given the 
 command of Company H and became noted for 
 careful drill and discipline. July 17, off Morris 
 Island, he described an engagement in which 
 they had to retreat and suffered heavy loss. 
 "My men did nobly." Adjutant James wrote, 
 *'Capt. Russel took part in the sharp skirmish 
 on James Island (July 16), where his company 
 bore the brunt of the battle and he showed dis- 
 tinguished ability and courage." On the night 
 of the 17th, orders were received to join Gen- 
 eral Strong's Brigade. On the i8th the Fifty- 
 fourth Regiment reported for duty to Brigadier- 
 General Strong, and was placed by him at the 
 head of an assaulting column then forming on 
 the beach in front of Fort Wagner, which was 
 the objective point of attack. Company H 
 held the left of the second line of the regiment, 
 which position was the most dangerous, on 
 account of its proximity to the flanking fire of 
 James Island. At dusk the column was or- 
 dered forward, and Russel, with an ardor and 
 
56 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 devotion that never wavered, threw himself 
 upon his death. When last seen by those who 
 survived, he was l^ing mortally wounded on the 
 ground, and across him the body of his dear 
 friend Captain William H. Simpkins, his com- 
 rade-in-arms and in death. 
 
 Adjutant James wrote of him, "From tem- 
 perament and principle he was an enthusiast 
 for freedom. . . . His sympathies grew with the 
 enforcement of the negroes' rights. He would 
 gladly have devoted his life, if it had been pro- 
 tracted, to this cause. As it was, he gave it up 
 in its very flower with a zeal, a courage, a dis- 
 interestedness unsurpassed even in the annals 
 of the war. To his soldiers he said, 'Do not 
 touch me; move on, men! follow your colors.' " 
 
SAMUEL STORROW 
 
SAMUEL STORROW 57 
 
 SAMUEL STORROW 
 
 Corporal Forty-fourth Massachusetts Vol- 
 unteer Infantry, September 20, 1862-June 18, 
 1863. First Lieutenant Second Massachusetts 
 Volunteer Infantry, September 22, 1864. Killed 
 at Averysborough (Black Creek), North Caro- 
 lina, March 16, 1865. 
 
 Samuel Storrow was born in Boston, Massa- 
 chusetts, July 24, 1843. From his earliest 
 years he showed great quickness of apprehen- 
 sion and readiness to apply practically what- 
 ever he acquired. As he grew older he dis- 
 played much manliness of character and a 
 perfect independence of judgment. He en- 
 tered college in i860, at the age of seventeen. 
 When the war broke out the next spring he felt 
 a strong desire to join the army, and began to 
 study military works to fit himself for what- 
 ever might be required of him. In the spring 
 of 1862, on account of his eyes, he obtained 
 leave of absence and sailed for Fayal, the 
 Azores. On his return he found that his father 
 was absent in Europe; that his brother Charles 
 had just entered the army with a commission 
 of captain in the Forty-fourth Massachusetts, 
 
58 MEA/IOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 then being filled up for immediate service. 
 Before Sam could hear from his father, his 
 mother, with unflinching loyalty, assumed the 
 responsibility for his enlistment, and he was 
 mustered in as Corporal in Company H, Sep- 
 tember 20, 1862. On October 12th he wrote 
 his father: "It seems to me the part of a cow- 
 ard to stay at home and allow others to fight 
 my battles and incur dangers for me. Assure 
 mother fully of your approval of the course she 
 has taken. Everybody thinks she has acted 
 nobly." 
 
 The Forty-fourth was immediately ordered 
 to North Carolina, and remained there during 
 its whole term of service. In December, 1862, 
 at the moment of the advance on Kingston, 
 Storrow wrote, "As I saw the glorious Stars and 
 Stripes of the Tenth Connecticut way ahead, 
 dancing in the sunlight, I felt that it would be 
 glorious to die under that flag; how easy it 
 would be to uphold it with one's life." 
 
 In June, 1863, the Forty-fourth was mustered 
 out, and Storrow returned to college, graduat- 
 ing with his class, and applied for a commission 
 in the Second Massachusetts, and on Septem- 
 ber 22, 1864, upon nomination of General Cogs- 
 well and the strong recommendation of Colonel 
 Francis L. Lee of the Forty-fourth, he received 
 his commission as First Lieutenant in the Sec- 
 
SAMUEL STORROW 59 
 
 ond Massachusetts and set off for Atlanta, 
 Georgia, where his regiment was then stationed. 
 
 The Second Massachusetts Regiment formed 
 part of the Twentieth Army Corps in the left 
 wing of Sherman's army which left about the 
 middle of November for its "march to the sea." 
 Lieutenant Storrow, in his captain's absence, 
 commanded his company through the whole 
 campaign, until after the fall of Savannah. 
 Storrow wrote an exceedingly graphic descrip- 
 tion of the way Sherman's army reduced the 
 destruction of railways almost to a branch of 
 scientific engineering. 
 
 March 12, 1865, when two miles from Fay- 
 etteville, North Carolina, Storrow wrote home: 
 "First of all, everybody I know of is well and 
 hearty, and best and heartiest of all am I." 
 "This campaign has been in every respect 
 harder than the last." "The four corps of our 
 army are concentrated here, all on the same 
 day, without jostling or delay." 
 
 At Savannah, Lieutenant Storrow was de- 
 tailed for staff duty on application of the regi- 
 mental commander who had just been brevetted 
 as Brigadier-General. The order was dated 
 January 16, 1865, and Storrow acted as aide to 
 General Cogswell during the march across 
 North Carolina and until his career ended. 
 
 In a letter dated March 24, 1865, to Hon. 
 
6o MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 Charles S. Storrow, General Cogswell informed 
 him of the death of his son, mentioning him as 
 "personal aide to myself." The letter goes on 
 to say: "Mr. Storrow died of wounds received 
 in action March i6, 1865, about twenty miles 
 from Fayetteville, North Carolina, while car- 
 rying an order to the left of the brigade. . . , 
 He died in about fifteen or twenty minutes 
 afterwards. . . . He was not insensible when 
 first wounded, and he had the coolness and self- 
 possession to send word to me that he was 
 wounded, that he had carried out my instruc- 
 tions, and also sent me the information I had 
 wished for. He was a brave, faithful, and most 
 promising young officer. . . . He joined my 
 regiment in October. I was pleased with him 
 at once and can say that in all my experience I 
 never saw a new and young officer take hold of 
 his work so well. In my own mind I selected 
 him at once for the place I afterwards asked 
 him to accept. He became eminently popular 
 in this brigade; and not until after I had lost 
 him did I fully realize of how much actual ser- 
 vice he was to myself and my command. 
 
 "William Cogswell 
 ^'Brevet Brigadier-General U.S. Volunteers. ^^ 
 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Morse, (Acting) 
 Colonel of the Massachusetts Second Regiment, 
 
SAMUEL STORROW 6 1 
 
 said of Lieutenant Storrow, "I watched him 
 ride across the field with his earnest eager look 
 when he was carrying that last message for the 
 General, just before he was wounded; he was 
 a fine spirited young fellow, and his loss was 
 greatly felt by those who had been associated 
 with him during his short term of service." 
 
62 MEMOIRS OF THE WAR OF '6 1 
 
 SUMNER PAINE 
 
 Second Lieutenant Twentieth M.V. Infantry, 
 May, 1863. Killed at Gettysburg, Pennsyl- 
 vania, July 3, 1863, after only two months in 
 the service of his country. 
 
 Sumner Paine was born May 10, 1845. At 
 eleven years of age he went with his two 
 brothers through most of the passes of Central 
 Switzerland, climbing the highest mountains 
 without the least fatigue. He returned home 
 in 1858, and graduated with his class from the 
 Latin School, entering Harvard College in 
 July, 1861. 
 
 Sumner entered the army in May, 1863, as 
 Second Lieutenant, Twentieth Massachusetts 
 Volunteer Militia. When just eighteen he 
 reached the railway at Fredericksburg. The 
 Battle of Chancellorsville took place the next 
 day. His cousin, Captain O. W. Holmes, was 
 very soon wounded, and on Friday, July 3, 
 Sumner took the command of his company, 
 which he held through that terrible day. 
 Then came the forced marches to Gettysburg. 
 Wednesday and Thursday had left the fortunes 
 of war trembling in the balance. Friday, the 
 

 %» 
 
 
 SUMNER PAINE 
 
SUMNER PAINE 63 
 
 Second Corps under Hancock held the left 
 centre, the key to our position. Here General 
 Lee ordered Pickett's Division, veteran troops, 
 to make their last terrible assault. Not a shot 
 was fired by the Twentieth until the enemy was 
 near and Lieutenant Macy gave the order. 
 Then began the fire, quick and deadly. Ten 
 or twenty rods to our right the weight of the 
 enemy crushed through our line, passing it up 
 a little hill. This was the crisis of the day, if 
 not the turning-point of the war. Generals 
 Hancock and Gibbons had both been wounded. 
 Macy received orders to lead the Twentieth 
 against the enemy, gave orders to Abbott and 
 to his Adjutant, but before they were repeated 
 to any one else both were shot down. Other 
 troops came up. It was in the thickest of the 
 fight, in front of his men, that Lieutenant Paine 
 was struck by a ball which broke his leg. Fall- 
 ing on his knee he waved his sword and urged 
 on his men, and was at that moment struck by 
 a shell which caused his instant death. His 
 last words were, "Isn't this glorious.'"' 
 
 His body was found close to a fence where 
 the rebels made their last desperate stand. 
 
SOURCES OF INFORMATION 65 
 
 SOURCES OF INFORMATION IN COMPILING 
 THIS VOLUME 
 
 " Life of Governor John A. Andrew," by Henry G. Pearson, 
 
 1904. 
 "Charles Russell Lowell, Life and Letters," by E. W. 
 
 Emerson, 1907. 
 "Harvard Memorial Biographies," 1867. 
 "Addresses Delivered by Henry L. Higginson, 1890-97." 
 "Addresses of Henry Lee," by G. F. Putnam, edited by 
 
 Frank Moore, 1862. 
 "Memoir of William Lowell Putnam," by Mrs. Mary 
 
 Lowell Putnam, 1862-63. 
 "The Return of the Sword," by Mrs. Mary Lowell Put- 
 nam, 1897. 
 "Memoir of James Jackson," by James Jackson Putnam, 
 
 1905. 
 "The Boston Symphony Orchestra," by M. A. DeWolfe 
 
 Howe, 1 91 4. 
 "Memoriae Positum," by James Russell Lowell, 1863. 
 "H. S. Russell," by John T. Morse, Jr., Harvard Graduates' 
 
 Magazine, 1905. 
 "Life and Correspondence of Henry IngersoU Bowditch, 
 
 by his son, Vincent Y. Bowditch," 1902. 
 "Uncle Tom's Cabin," by Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852. 
 "Letters written during the Civil War," by Charles F. 
 
 Morse, 1865. 
 
66 SOURCES OF INFORMATION 
 
 "Field, Camp, Hospital and Prison in the Civil War," by- 
 Charles A. Humphreys, 1918. 
 
 "The Journal of Negro History," by Carter G. Woodson, 
 1919. 
 
 "Modern Industrialism and the Negroes of the United 
 States," by Archibald H. Grimke, 1908. 
 
 "The Negro," by W. E. B. Dubois, 1915. 
 
 "Negro Year Book," Tuskegee Institute Press. 
 
 Reports of Fiske University. 
 
 "Reminiscences," by E. C. Putnam, July 8, 1915. 
 
 Autobiography of Charles Francis Adams. 
 
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 ■■' "'u mil (HI, 
 
 013 703 383 
 
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