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[483] were many violent secessionists there who would not submit. Among them was a man named Jackson, the proprietor of an inn called the Marshall House. The Confederate flag had been flying over his premises for many days, and had been plainly seen from the President's House in Washington.1 it was still there, and Ellsworth went in person to take it down. When descending an upper staircase with it, he was shot by Jackson, who was waiting for him in a dark passage, with a double-barreled gun, loaded with buckshot. Ellsworth fell dead, and his murderer met the same fate an instant afterward, at the hands of Francis E. Brownell, of Troy, who, with six others, had accompanied his commander to the roof of tie House. He shot Jackson through the head with a bullet, and pierced his body several times with his saberbayonet. The scene at the foot

The Marshall House.

of that staircase was now appalling. Immediately after Jackson was killed, a woman came rushing out of a room, and with frantic gestures, as she leaned over the body of the dead inn-keeper, she uttered the wildest cries of grief and despair. She was the wife of Jackson.

Ellsworth's body was borne in sadness to Washington by his sorrowing companions, and funeral services were performed in the East room of the white House, with President Lincoln as chief mourner. It was then taken to New York, where it lay in state in the City Hall, and was afterward carried in imposing procession through the streets before being sent to

Ephraim Elmore Ellsworth.

its final resting-place at Mechanicsville, on the banks of the upper Hudson. Ellsworth was a very young and extremely handsome man, and was greatly beloved for his generosity, and admired for his bravery and patriotism. His death produced great excitement throughout the country. It was the first of

1 on the preceding day (May 23d) a Confederate flag, flying in Alexandria, had attracted the attention of the troops in Washington City. Just at evening, William McSpedon, of New York City, and Samuel Smith, of Queen's County, long Island, went over and captured it. This was the first flag taken from the insurgents.

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