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[95] attached a rope to the sword-belt and drawn it out to where the survivors lay, and how they together had borne it, partly on their hands and knees, a distance of three miles to the hospital,— the Club caused medals to be struck in remembrance of the honorable deed. They are of gold, and bear this inscription, ‘A tribute from the Century for a rare act of heroic devotion in rescuing the body of Colonel Peter A. Porter from under the guns of the enemy.’ Two of them, by the chances of war, have yet to be found, to claim their memorial of gratitude. Perchance already with their beloved commander, they need no record to testify to their affection. The family and friends of Colonel Porter owed an equal debt of gratitude to the devoted and faithful services of his attached servant, John Huney, who had been taken many years before as a child into his family, and had followed him with romantic affection into the field. It was owing to his unremitting efforts that the privilege was accorded them of uniting his remains with those of his ancestors. ‘If he had been my brother,’ he said, ‘I would have buried him at White House; but I promised you to bring him back, if he were wounded or dead.’ The sentiment of personal attachment which these actions indicate was earnest and sincere in his regiment, and had grown out of the careful and just consideration he always showed his men, and from his observance of the golden rule, by which he consistently strove to direct his every action,— to do to others as he would, in like circumstances, have had them do to him. This was beautifully shown in his letter declining a nomination of Secretary of State for New York. ‘I left home,’ he wrote, ‘in command of a regiment composed mainly of the sons of friends and neighbors committed to my care. I can hardly ask for my discharge while theirs cannot be granted; and I have a strong desire, if alive, to carry back those whom the chances of time and war shall permit to be present, and to account in person for all.’ In his will he left the following record of his upright and modest adherence to duty: ‘I, Peter Augustus Porter, being ’
Sever and Francis, 1866.
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