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‘ [406] death was altogether right, and hoped they would think so at home.’ In the evening Patten was brought in wounded. Lowell asked that his comrade might be laid next him, took his hand and held it, and talked of the sudden termination of his life without a regret. When our troops moved on, and orders came for all who could to fall in, he insisted on Patten's leaving him. Patten asked if he had no messages for home. ‘I have written them all,’ he said; ‘tell them how it was, Pat.’ The officers of his regiment who went to bid him farewell tell us that the grasp of his hand was warm and firm and his countenance smiling and happy. He desired that his father might be told that he was struck while dressing the line of his men; besides this he had no message but ‘Good by’ He expressed a wish that his sword might not fall into the enemy's hands,—a wish that was faithfully attended to by Colonel Palfrey, through whose personal care it was preserved and sent home. All who saw him testify to the perfect composure of his mind and to the beautiful expression of his face. Two of our surgeons who had been left with the wounded at the farm were much impressed by his behavior, and one of them told the Rebel officers to talk with him, if they wished to know how a Northern soldier thought and felt. He lingered four days, and died on the 4th of July. A private of his regiment wrapped him in a blanket and laid him to rest under a tree. The name of the place is Nelson's, or Frazier's Farm. Lowell was among the earliest of the Harvard soldiers to fall by the hand of the enemy. Colonel Peabody preceded him about three months, having been killed at Pittsburg Landing, and Major How died on the field in the same battle in which Lowell received his mortal wound. He was also the earliest to fall of seven kinsmen, the lives of five of whom will be found in these volumes. While the soul of this noble young soldier was passing slowly away, his sister, who had for some time been serving as volunteer nurse on a hospital steamer, was lying at Harrison's Bar, on the James River, only a few miles off. She heard of his dangerous wound, and tried every expedient to get to him,
Sever and Francis, 1866.
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