[90] adapted; and had he escaped the bullets of the foe, would have achieved high military distinction. As one of his friends wrote of him, ‘He was a born commander, cool, intrepid, self-reliant, indomitable, and took to the leadership of affairs as naturally as an eagle takes to the air.’ He had a physical frame inured to hardship, with a courage equal to the leadership of a forlorn hope, a resolute will, and a tireless tenacity. Few have fallen in the war of greater promise. But his ‘leaf has perished in the green.’ It was less than thirteen months from the time that the regiment left Brook Farm to his death. Excepting the skirmishes in Banks's retreat, the battle of Cedar Mountain was the second in which he was engaged; and at the time of his death he was not yet twenty-two.
He only lived but till he was a man;Two days after the battle Abbott's body was recovered; and his face, even in death, wore a singularly placid expression. At the request of many citizens and friends in Lowell, his parents, who before the breaking out of the war had removed to Boston, waived their preference for Mount Auburn as the place of his interment, and it took place at Lowell. The same hand that sprinkled the waters of baptism upon his infant face committed his body to the earth. A monument, inscribed with his name and a brief record of his services, and bearing also the names of the soldiers of his company from Lowell who fell with him, marks his last resting-place. By his side lies the body of his brother Henry; schoolmates, classmates, fellow-martyrs, and loving brothers,—even in death they are not dissevered.
The which no sooner had his prowess confirmed,
In the unshrinking station where he fought,
But like a man he died.
