Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Harvard Memorial Biographies

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. . . . We have been quiet in camp for several days. A few of the guerillas are moving about in the woods, and we pick up one or two of them almost every day. Last Sunday morning we rode into camp from a two days scout, which I enjoyed very much. The hills look beautifully in this cold, clear air, and bivouacking is delightful these fine nights, lying down before a good fire and looking up at the stars, as the noises of men and horses subside, and you hear nothing but the measured tread of the sentry, and the crackling of the big logs on the fire, till you fall into a sound sleep, and dream of home. Or perhaps you are awakened by firing from the pickets, and without any confusion or bustle an order is given, and a dark column uncoils swiftly from the dense mass of men and horses and starts out in the direction of the firing.

May, 1864.

Hatch, who was killed, was my company farrier, and a first-rate man; we buried him the next day at Vienna. The Chaplain was absent, and I performed the service; the band playing ‘Taps’ as we lowered the coffin into the grave. I could not help crying.

The incident so briefly alluded to in the last extract, we have learned from others, was one which revealed his character more deeply than any other to his brother officers and his men. In the discharge of what he took upon himself as his duty,—the burial of this soldier,—he stepped forward in the imposing presence of the brigade of cavalry, one of the very youngest of the officers present, and, in the words of the chaplain, ‘taking the responsibility voluntarily,’ he read the Scripture, and ‘out of the fulness of his heart poured forth in prayer his own thoughts in his own words.’ Some of the officers who were present spoke of it as a surprise to all, and most impressive and inspiring to the whole command.

The following letter describes his last experience in the service previous to the encounter in which he was wounded. It was written to a classmate.

June 14, 1864.

Last night I returned from a scout through Dumfries and Occoquan, through Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville and Wilderness, and back by way of Manassas and Bull Run. We were out six days. What a conflict that was of the Wilderness! throughout