[100] in the Army of the Potomac. His merit was appreciated wherever he was known, and his reputation was spreading in the army. He was recognized throughout his corps as a model commander; and that corps was the sturdy Second, which was reported long after his death to be the only corps in the army which never had lost a gun or a color. General Sedgwick, who knew him well, declared with emphasis that he was ‘a wonderfully good soldier’; and his division commander, General Gibbon, pronounced his military services and ability to be of the highest order, and declared that in him he had lost the best regimental officer in his division. The knowledge of his extraordinary merit had even reached General Meade, under whose immediate command he had never served; and when he heard of Abbott's death, he turned to General Grant, and spoke of the departed in strong terms of praise and regret. His corps commander, General Hancock, in a letter written nearly ten months after his death, used the following language:
He was perhaps more widely known in the army than any officer of equal rank, and was an officer of great promise. . . . . His reputation was built upon a solid foundation, and the closest scrutiny could not diminish it. . . . Had Major Abbott lived,. . . . and continued in the profession of arms, he would have been one of our most distinguished commanders.From the beginning of the war to his death, Major Abbott was a diligent student of his profession. His mind was well adapted for grasping and for retaining its principles and its details. He made himself thoroughly familiar with the school of the soldier, of the company, and of the battalion, and with the army regulations and the articles of war. He informed himself, by methodical reading, of the military systems of other nations, and was constantly adding to his knowledge of the great campaigns of history, especially of those of Napoleon. He took especial delight in tactics. He loved to think about movements, and to talk about them, and found great pleasure in discussing difficult questions, and in seeking to discover the simplest and most rapid methods of putting
