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[363] voice of Secession was loud about him. A man less faithful to duty might have sought his own safety, and left his post at once. Not so with him. He was careful for the safety of those in his employ; and, at an early period, he sent away a faithful Irish laborer, whom he knew to be true to the Union. But, for himself, he had charge of the property of another, and he would not leave it without permission to do so. Meantime, communication between Massachusetts and Tennessee was interrupted. He could get no letters from home; he knew nothing of what was occurring outside of Memphis. At last, everything around him told him that liberty and even life would be endangered by remaining longer among rebels and traitors. He came away, hardly knowing if he had a country. The first evidence he had that the cause of the Union was not so desperate as was indicated by his rebellious surroundings was in seeing the American flag waving at Cairo. His eloquent account of the emotions awakened by the sight of the stars and stripes will not be forgotten by those who heard it. It was not his wont to talk about his own feelings; but as he told us how the sight affected the passengers on the boat, that there was not a dry eye among them, and that he saw two strong men throw themselves on each other's neck and weep, we felt that he too had had a baptism of suffering, and had come out of it strong for noble action. The Rebellion was destructive to his business prospects, but to that aspect of it he gave no heed. Pecuniary considerations at such an hour could have no weight with him. He at once applied himself to aiding his brother Wilder, then Major of the Second Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, in procuring arms for that regiment, and turned his attention, without delay, to seeking a commission for himself in our army. He entered the service the 1st of September, 1861, as First Lieutenant in Captain Stackpole's company in the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment. While he was recruiting for his company in Northfield, Massachusetts, he received the following letter from his brother Wilder:—
Sever and Francis, 1866.
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