John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[5] to assist Colonel Rawlins and Captain Bowers in the growing work of the adjutant-general's department. Dana was duly introduced, but before taking off his side arms and making himself comfortable, he said to me, aside: “I think I know that man's people, and if he is a Seneca, as I think he is, I can speak his language. What do you think he would do if I were to address him in his own tongue?” As the gentleman was also a stranger to me, I could hardly venture an opinion, but as my own curiosity was aroused, I said at once, “Try it on and let us see.” Thereupon Dana, without a perceptible pause for reflection, addressed the captain in a well-sustained phrase filled with clicks and guttural sounds. Parker, although a man of grave and dignified bearing, looked puzzled and surprised at first, but as soon as Dana paused his interlocutor replied in words of the same kind. A brief but animated conversation followed, and before it was ended a smile of gratification broke over Parker's face, and an acquaintance was begun which lasted till his death. Dana afterwards told me that he had learned the language as a boy, but had neither spoken nor thought about it seriously since he left Buffalo, over twenty years before. He and Parker met frequently during the various campaigns in which they took part, and were in the habit of conversing in the Seneca dialect, especially when they did not care to be understood by others.

This incident attracted the special notice of the other officers present, and particularly of General Grant, upon whom it apparently made a deep and lasting impression. The general, it will be noted, was not much of a linguist himself, but he often mentioned this talk at his camp-fire as illustrating Dana's unusual talents in that direction.

But Dana's study of languages did not end with his mastery of the Seneca dialect. It will be recalled that he had begun the study of Latin at his uncle's in Vermont,