[113] strategy of the campaigns in Spain and the greatness of the hero of Austerlitz. He was a delightful companion. Many a time it has been the fortune of the present writer to sit with him long into the small hours of the morning, listening to his pleasant and genial voice. Yet of worldly affairs he was singularly ignorant. He had little experience of men. He was without ambition almost to a fault. About making or keeping money he had very little idea. He spent readily what he had, and waited impatiently for the next pay-day or the next remittance from home. His friend and kinsman Governor Andrew writes of him:—
I used to be struck with the cheer, the friendship, the fresh and lively feeling with which on his visits home he talked of the army, of his life in the service, of his favorite friends, of his own regiment, and of its rival the Tenth Connecticut, of his commander, his duties, and his pursuits. He was very communicative, always gave us, when he called, many personal anecdotes amusing and jocose, but never ill-natured or critical. Being attached to the Signal Corps, very soon after his regiment marched, in which there was little chance for promotion, he thereby lost the chances of his own regiment, according to the rule always observed among Massachusetts Volunteers. He was one of quite a number of men from Massachusetts whose very fitness, by education and ability, to do staff duty, and work requiring a certain superiority of general training and a certain quickness and expertness of mind, hand, and eye, and a certain faculty of independent work, stood in the way of their lineal advance. . . . In a certain sense he was younger than his years, as it seemed to me, when compared with many of his companions. And he showed that feature in ways which made him attractive and interesting. I thought he had qualities which, as he matured in age, would have developed in him more of a man than would be found in many others who developed decidedly earlier in some of the ways of the world. I always found him quick to perceive, ready to observe and to comprehend, exhibiting a bright, reliable, and active intelligence. He was one of the boys who went out in the Massachusetts service whom I really loved.His young, open, and generous nature won him the love not merely of the Governor of Massachusetts, and his fellowofficers,