Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Harvard Memorial Biographies

[361] child in spirits, and eminently a man in action. His frank, joyous, and patient bearing was envied and admired by all.

I slept under the same blanket with him during his entire imprisonment, and I recollect very well that one morning, as upwards of sixty officers from the Western army were turned into our room, —which already literally swarmed with about one hundred and eighty inmates,—having been stripped of their blankets and overcoats by General Bragg, by whom they had been captured, Barker was the first to relieve their wants so far as lay in his power, and commenced by dividing his own blankets among them. His extreme generosity was, without consciousness or ostentation, made apparent in almost every act of his daily existence.

A harsh or unkind word I never heard him use to any one, and his careful attention to those stricken down by disease in prison bespoke the most gentle and thoughtful nature.

The beauties of his disposition, and his daily acts of kindness during an acquaintance of several months, had endeared him to me quite beyond my power of expression. I heard him repeatedly assert that he would never again be captured alien, and he indulged in great anxiety lest his friends should attribute fault to him for his capture; that was the only thought that ever seemed to affect his spirits. I never saw him after our release from captivity, but I learned of that brave, generous baby's untimely death with great sorrow.

After two months of imprisonment, Captain Barker was, on the 6th of May, exchanged, and ordered to Annapolis, where he rejoined his regiment on the 27th of the same month. He was engaged in many severe fights and constantly in skirmishes, and his regiment particularly distinguished itself at the battle of Gettysburg, under General Kilpatrick. He went into the fray with thirty-two men, and came out with only three, the others being either killed, wounded, or missing. A minie — ball passed through his blanket, his horse was killed, and a round-shot struck the ground within a few feet of him, almost burying him with earth; but he escaped without a scratch.

On the 16th of September, 1863, the regiment having moved from Hartwood Church, Virginia, and crossed to the southern side of the Rappahannock, Captain Barker was left behind