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[138] for study, and so never aimed at collegiate honors. Indeed, his social qualities were so attractive that few then cared to measure the mental. He was quick of apprehension; and the fine tact he displayed implies the possession of good judgment of men and motives, and good common-sense. He was one of the earliest enthusiasts in regard to boating in Cambridge, and was the cockswain of the Undine, one of the first college club-boats. He was very diminutive in stature at that time, although he afterwards attained to a manly height. It would be hard to say whether it were due more to this smallness of size, or were rather as a term of endearment, that he was universally known as ‘The Bud.’ It was a bud that needed only the development of a healthy life and the sunshine of a loving home to blossom and ripen into goodly fruit. After graduation he studied law for eighteen months with his father, and again for a year with the Honorable Thomas Wright of Lawrence. The responsibilities of life opened to him, and he devoted himself diligently to his studies. ‘Resolute and determined,’ says Mr. Wright, ‘whatever he undertook he accomplished. He felt he had a duty to perform. He entered upon the practice of his profession determined to succeed, with a confidence in himself which afterwards proved not to have been unfounded.’ But it was a self-confidence without a taint of arrogance. ‘Never distrustful of the future, he counted success as certain.’ The same confidence and hopefulness were later no mean accessions to his worth as an officer. In all the vicissitudes of war, he wore a steady, hopeful front,—a support to the wavering, a strength and encouragement to all. He practised his profession for a few months at Newnansville, Florida, but left on account of the debilitating influence of the climate, going to Dunkirk, New York, where he established himself in 1852. He married, in 1855, Virginia T. Grosvenor, daughter of the Honorable Godfrey John Grosvenor, then of Geneva, New York, but originally from Maine. By this marriage he had two sons,—George Watson, seven
Sever and Francis, 1866.
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