1858.
Samuel Henry Eells.
Hospital Steward 12th Michigan Vols. (Infantry), February 7, 1862; Assistant Surgeon February I, 1863; died at Detroit, Mich., January 31, 1864, of disease contracted in the service.Samuel Henry Eells was the son of Rev. James Henry and Maria Antoinette (Fletcher) Eells, and was born in Oberlin, Ohio, August 19, 1836. A few months after his birth, his father was drowned in attempting to cross the Maumee River. Ten years later the family removed to Boston, and young Eells was placed at the Brimmer Public School. Thence he was transferred to the Quincy School, where he received a Franklin medal; and thence entered the public Latin School, where he was fitted for college. In 1854 his mother died, and he came under the guardianship of his uncle, George N. Fletcher, Esq., of Detroit, Michigan.
His college life was quiet and uneventful, and most of his classmates knew him very little. Yet he always looked back with warm affection upon this period and its associations; as was shown by a very cordial letter which he wrote from Arkansas to the Class Secretary, three months before his death, in which was enclosed a liberal contribution to the Class fund.
He wrote in the ‘Class Book,’ just before graduating:—
My plans for the future are yet somewhat undecided. I think, however, of studying medicine. There has been a great number of clergymen in the Eells family; and my relations on my father's side have been anxious that I should follow the example of my father, grandfather, great-great-grandfather, and greatgreat-great-grandfather, besides a number of others not in the direct line. But for myself, I have been uniformly opposed to the idea, and am still of the same opinion.
Accordingly, after graduation, he went to Detroit, Michigan, and began at once the study of medicine with Dr. C. H. Barrett of that city, residing meanwhile in the family of his guardian. [390] He attended also the medical lectures of Michigan University, at Ann Arbor, during the winter of 186-62; but before his course of study was completed, the war changed all his plans.
On February 7, 1862, he enlisted as Hospital Steward in the Twelfth Michigan Volunteers (Infantry), then in camp at Niles, Michigan. He took part in the battle of Shiloh, where he was made prisoner,—an experience which is graphically described in one of his letters.
He remained a prisoner but a few days, there being an agreement between the surgeons on both sides that the wounded in the joint hospitals should be allowed to return to their respective camps on recovery, and their hospital attendants with them. After his exchange, he took part in the battle of the Hatchie, in the siege of Vicksburg, and in the expedition into Arkansas, under General Steele. On February 1, 1863, he was promoted to be Assistant Surgeon on the recommendation of his medical superiors, in spite of his want of a diploma. A letter written later in the season, gives some account of the wearisome and exhausting service on which he now entered.
The results of these labors and exposures soon became apparent. In August he was attacked by chills and fever, followed by camp diarrhea, and still later by ulcerated sore throat, terminating in bronchial consumption. Early in December he obtained leave of absence, and returned to Detroit, very weak and unable to speak above a whisper, but still retaining his courage and hopeful of ultimate recovery. In the words of his guardian: ‘When he was told, a few hours before his death, that he could not live, he received it without a fear, and looked on death calmly as his spirit went out, even after he had ceased to move a muscle, being still conscious, seemingly to the last breath. He fully believed God would do rightly with him, and did not fear to trust him.’ He died on the last day of January, 1864.
He had previously written as follows, from the camp near Brownsville, Arkansas, September 5, 1863, to Dr. F. H. Brown of Boston, who was then collecting information as to the Harvard military record:—
I enlisted as Hospital Steward in February, 1862, and in February, 1863, was promoted to Assistant Surgeon. Being with the Army of the Tennessee all the time, I have had but little opportunity to learn what was going on at the East, and particularly in Cambridge. I shall be glad to get any information with regard to my Alma Mater and the doings of her sons, especially in the war, and shall be happy to pay any sum which may be necessary for this purpose.
Before the letter could be answered, he himself had added, in his own modest and silent way, another act of sacrifice to those noble deeds of which he wrote; and the sum which he contributed was his life.
[395]
James Jackson Lowell.
First Lieutenant 20th Mass. Vols., July 10, 186; died at Nelson's Farm, near Richmond, July 4, 1862, of a wound received at Glendale, June 30.James Jackson Lowell was the younger brother of General Charles Russell Lowell, whose brillant career has been narrated earlier in this volume. He was born at Cambridge, on the 15th of October, 1837, at the house of his grandfather, the house now occupied by the raciest of American poets, his uncle. He came of the best Massachusetts stock, being descended on the father's side from John Lowell, one of the framers of the Constitution of the State, and a Judge in the United States courts, whose son, Francis Cabot, was one of the two founders of American cotton manufactures, and father of the founder of the Lowell Institute of Boston; and on the mother's side from Patrick Tracy Jackson, cofounder with Francis Cabot Lowell of the city of Lowell, and brother of Charles Jackson, Judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. His lineage is referred to for no trivial purpose. Both branches of his family have been long conspicuous for public spirit and the sense and love of justice,—qualities which were peculiarly marked in James Lowell's character.
Lowell passed his early youth in Boston, and went through the course of the public Latin School. His family had taken up their residence in Cambridge before he entered college, which was in 1854. In 1858 he was graduated, first scholar as his brother had been before him. His Class contained men of excellent abilities, with whom he could be closely joined by intellectual and moral sympathies; among these were Patten and Spurr, who served with him, the one in the same regiment, the other in the same brigade, and met the same fate; nunc ipsa pericula jungunt! His classmates were proud of him; he was certainly one of the brightest minds that had appeared in [396] College for a long time. He was liked quite as much as he was admired. His exterior was very engaging, both his looks and his manners. His figure was light and agile, his face radiant with intelligence and moral sweetness. He was full of life, enjoyed keenly and pursued eagerly, and crowded every hour with work or pleasure. While he would walk a dozen or eighteen miles for wild-flowers, skate all day, and dance as long as the music would play, he found no study too dry, and would have liked to embrace all science and all literature. He was, moreover, habitually meditative, and loved to ponder deep questions of philosophy and of life. His pale, oval face, and his dark, thoughtful eyes, with their drooping lashes, gave an impression of a poetical nature, and the question was often asked in his early days whether he was a poet. But his expression was more spiritual and his bent more practical than poetical: practical in a sense opposed to imaginative, not to philosophical, for, as already indicated, his inclination to speculation was marked. He always sought to see things as a whole; and though he liked to view every subject in its great features, and in the best light consistent with truth, he loved reality and hated illusion and exaggeration.
That Lowell should have begun early to take an interest in public affairs and public men will readily be supposed from what has been said. He thought it a duty to study and act on all questions of public concern. In one of his books he had written down these words of Marcus Antoninus: ‘Every action of yours which has not a near or remote relation to the public good as its end, destroys the harmony and uniformity of life.’ It is true that boys often copy out these fine things in a glow of feeling, but nothing was more unlike Lowell than superficial enthusiasm. In an oration on ‘Loyalty,’ delivered at the College Exhibition of October, 1857, he expressed his idea of the true relation of a free citizen to the state in words which no one can read lightly who knows how they were followed up. After describing the inferior forms of devotion manifested among nations who considered that the citizen existed only for his country, he said:— [397]
[398]But among those who feel the blood of the Teutons running in their veins, there is a loftier feeling even than this. Each feels himself a whole, an individual, a being whose chief end is to live independently for himself. He is willing and glad to die for his country, but he must have his individual rights acknowledged. He thinks that government the best which governs least: the state exists for him, and not he for the state . . . .
The distinction between fidelity and loyalty lies here: in the latter the agent must be free, but even a slave may be faithful. Loyalty is the feeling of one who is independent and self-relying; but a dog may show fidelity ....
Where is there a more touching example of devotion to freedom and to truth than that of Korner, the warrior-bard? In 1813 he writes to his father: “Germany rises: the Prussian eagle by the beating of her mighty wings awakes in all true hearts the great hope of German freedom.” He then declares his intention to go forth, and adds: “That I simply offer my life is of little import: but that I offer it crowned as it is with all the flowery wreaths of love, of friendship, and of joy; that I cast away the sweet sensations which lived in the anticipation that I should never cause you inquietude or anguish,—this is indeed a sacrifice which can only be opposed to such a prize,—our country's freedom.”
Let us especially cultivate it, for it belongs to youth, to the heroic age: let us not prove recreants. Like the world in its youth, let us be strong in loyalty: but while it was loyal to persons, let us be loyal to principles. One man is but a narrow limit, but a principle is broad as the earth and high as heaven, and with the enlargement of our ideas and views, the field of loyalty also is enlarged. This is the loyalty of to-day and of the future, and we should be leaders in extending it. There needs not a great soul to make a hero: there needs a God-created soul which will be true to its origina: therefore let us be foremost in proclaiming our loyalty to our intuitions. . . . . For is not a liberal education a sham and a deception, if it does not clear our intuitions, and expand our minds in every direction? But the heroes will be, not those who recite best here, or those who know the most, but those whose knowledge best clears their perceptions. Yet clear-sightedness alone will not suffice: firmness and perseverance, true grit, must be added, and then we have the man who is needed now, the man who is loyal to the highest principles, with whom matters of personal interest yield to the state, the state to conscience.
While Lowell was in college, one of his classmates says, he liked all studies, and had arguments for and against all professions, but inclined most to the law. When the time came to decide, he wisely chose the law. His impartial and philosophical mind fitted him peculiarly for the science of jurisprudence, and he would have made an admirable judge. After some study of the introductory books at home, he entered the Cambridge Law School in 1860. The events of the winter of 1860-61 occupied much of his thoughts. He regarded with warm indignation the expedients proposed to save the Union by the sacrifice of liberty, and seeing a more excellent way, began to drill diligently that he might be ready to do his part. When Sumter fell, his brother Charles went straight to Washington, and applied for a lieutenancy in an artillery regiment. James Lowell conferred with his cousin William Putnam, who was also then studying at the Law School, and in June they began enlisting men for a company of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Regiment, to be commanded by Mr. Schmitt, the German instructor in the college. When they had raised eighty-five men, and the officers were ready to be commissioned, orders were given to transfer this company to the Twentieth Regiment. Almost all the men refused to join the Twentieth, and therefore the work of recruiting had to be done over again. The time at which this regiment was raised was unfavorable for enlisting, and the consequence was, that neither in numbers nor in quality were the rank and file up to the average. It is well known that the admirable character of the officers (more than a score of whom were from Harvard College) made the Twentieth Regiment, notwithstanding its original inferiority, one of the most efficient and distinguished in the whole service.
Lowell and Putnam received their commissions as First and Second Lieutenants on the 10th of July. A nobler pair never took the field. Putnam with his fair hair, bright complexion, deep eyes, and uncontaminated countenance, was the impersonation of knightly youth. He was our Euryalus, quo pulchrior alter non fuit Aeneadum. The cousins were beautifully [399] matched in person, mental accomplishments, and pure heroism of character. The regiment was ordered to the seat of war at the beginning of September. Captain Schmitt's company was the smallest of the ten. In October, Lowell writes that there are fifty vacancies,—a dispiriting state of things for both men and officers; but, though strongly condemning the practice of forming skeleton regiments to the detriment of those already in the field, he was resolved to make the best of circumstances.
After a few days at Washington, the Twentieth was ordered to Poolesville, Maryland, where it lay in camp until the 20th of October. On the 18th of that month Lowell writes to Patten: ‘Hitherto our life has been like a perpetual picnic; work enough, perhaps drudgery enough, but also open air enough, and in a way freedom enough. .... We have been here in quiet so long, that we scarcely feel as if this were war; but the bloody fight may come any day, when may we be victorious, live or die.’ The bloody fight came—alas! without the victory — in three days. On the 21st of October was fought the battle of Ball's Bluff, in which so many brave men were slaughtered for no military purpose. Lowell was shot in the thigh, Captain Schmitt very badly wounded, and Putnam killed. The deep gloom which followed that most unnecessary calamity will not soon be forgotten. Our only consolation was the gallant behavior of our troops in a desperate situation, and the firmer resolution which misfortune inspired in an earnest people. Patten and Ropes, two of our best, went into the Twentieth Regiment soon after this battle,—Patten in Putnam's place.
Lowell made light of his wound and wanted to stay with his regiment; but what with his fear of being an encumbrance, and his hope of returning sooner to duty, he yielded to advice and went home. He remained with his family from the middle of November to the beginning of February. He had the less trouble from his wound on account of his vigorous health. There was not a sounder man in the army; indeed, he was never off duty except while getting well of this hurt. While he [400] was at home, some of his classmates presented him with a sword, to replace one which had been lost in the dreadful confusion of Ball's Bluff The formal letter in which he acknowledged the gift contained a passage which, as a main object in collecting these biographies is to illustrate the spirit with which our soldiers went into the war, deserves especially to be recorded. When the Class meets in years to come, he says, and honors its statesmen and judges, its divines and doctors, let also the score who went to fight for their country be remembered, and let not those who never returned be forgotten:—
Those who died for the cause, not of the Constitution and the laws,—a superficial cause, the Rebels have now the same,—but of civilization and law, and the self-restrained freedom which is their result. As the Greeks at Marathon and Salamis, Charles Martel and the Franks at Tours, and the Germans at the Danube, saved Europe from Asiatic barbarism, so we, at places to be famous in future times, shall have saved America from a similar tide of barbarism; and we may hope to be purified and strengthened ourselves by the struggle.
Once more with his men, he would have been fully contented if his company had not been so small. When recruits came in, free to choose, they always preferred to join the large companies. Having one day to go out to battalion drill with only five files, his spirits sunk a little, but only for a moment. This is the way he expresses himself in his letters:—
I am quite well again, and feel ready for any march which the men could stand. Lander's famous marches must have been on harder ground than we have here: such a march would be simply impossible here on most days. But we have not so far to go to find the enemy. Whenever the work comes I shall try to do my part, and whatever my fate is then, we know that it will be for the best.
You must not think that I fret over our small company, because I write for recruits. I thank mother for her good advice, but I rarely feel that any injustice has been done our company, and then I have only slight suspicions. I much more commonly attribute all the blame, if blame there is, to ourselves, and feel that there may have been something wrong somewhere, or that we are not in our proper places, and are not so well fitted as others for military matters. . . . [401]
I determined to do what I could to get recruits; but I can do very well without them if I must.
On the 11th of March the Twentieth left the camp at Poolesville, and were transferred to the Peninsula. They reached Yorktown on the 8th of April, and remained there until the evacuation of that place on the 4th of May. The regiment took no part in the actions at Williamsburg and West Point. They went up the York and Pamunkey to White House. On the 25th, Lowell writes from Chickahominy Creek, regretting that he is not in the advance with his brother. The severe fighting at Fair Oaks occurred on Saturday, the 31st of May, and Sunday, the 1st of June. The Twentieth was engaged the first day, but was not in the worst of the fight; on Sunday they were only spectators. Lowell describes as follows what he saw of the affair of Saturday, in a letter to a young friend:—
We have at last been engaged in a regular battle, though the Rebels have been so shy in using their big guns that shells are a rarity, and grape and canister are still unknown to us. At Ball's Bluff we had very severe firing for the space occupied. .It was as if a whole regiment were firing at a wall ten feet square; the bullets within that space would be very thick. At Yorktown we saw the Rebels far off in their works, and occasionally saw and felt their bullets and shells . . . . . At West Point we were held as a reserve; and the reserves not being called into action, because the first line and the gunboats drove the Rebels back, we scarcely saw the evolutions of our own battalions and brigades on the wide plain. . . . . The scene of the fight was just hidden by a wooded hill; but our batteries were actively engaged within sight. At Fair Oaks we had a foretaste of what is coming before the forts of Richmond. . . . . On Saturday we had an inspection under the Colonel, and soon afterwards we heard firing in front, and being ordered forwards, though the firing had then ceased, we advanced by a new road through an interminable swamp, and across the Chickahominy; and then, after a pause to load our pieces, we went on again; and the cannon beginning once more, we dashed forward through a brook up to our waists and mud up to our knees, and came up into the field of battle in the midst of random shots. The right and centre of the line were already formed and engaged, and shells [402] were flying from both sides. At the centre was a house with outbuildings; near this was a battery of ours, and the battle raged warmly. We formed into line in the rear of the centre (on the right by file into line). As we had been fairly on the run for some minutes, the companies, especially those near the left (since we were marching by the right flank), were broken, and I supposed that some of my own weaker and doubtful men had fallen out on the way. Much to my delight I found that every man was there. The line was formed and dressed, amid much confusion from contrary orders, &c., and the bullets which missed the line before us came whizzing round our heads. The man on my left, one of my corporals, was mortally wounded, and the corporal next on my right, of the next company, had a ball strike the ground directly before his left foot, and I felt it slightly myself; but I had at no time in the fight even a slight graze. . . . . We marched forward a few paces in line of battle close to the Fifteenth Massachusetts, when Tom Spurr, a classmate of mine, called out to me and waved his sword. But we were soon faced to the left, and marched round to the left of the line, re-formed our own line, with the Seventh Michigan of our brigade on our left, and marched steadily forward to fire and charge on the enemy, if they waited for us to come.
The regiment on the right (Thirty-fourth New York, of our division, Gorman's brigade) was a little in front at first, and although the regiment had had a bad reputation at Poolesville, and since we entered Virginia, yet it went forward with great firmness, halted and delivered its fire, advanced again and fired, and would have charged, had not the fire already cleared the woods in front of all the active Rebels. We were even with them before their second fire, and advanced across a fenced road, on the opposite side of which a wood lay before our right wing, and a very deep plain (five hundred yards perhaps) before our left wing. The Seventh Michigan had another wood in front of their left wing (this wood was not very far from us, as the two regiments joined each other). There was at first a line of Rebels in front of us, and the shots came across the field, but only a scattering fire. As we approached the fence beyond the road, we were on the watch for a sudden attack from behind it, but the Rebels fled back and scattered over the field. The men opened a fire on them, thinking that orders had been given, or else the first man from impulse and the others from imitation. We at once stopped them and crossed the fences. Then a volley came from the Rebels in front of the woods on the left, at the Seventh Michigan. It was very heavy, and looked beautifully in the [403] gloomy twilight. Then we fired with a will, and drove the Rebels back into the woods, and the fight was at an end. We stacked arms and rested where we were, without sleep throughout the night, establishing pickets, and sending out small parties for stragglers and the wounded. With cavalry, or an hour more of daylight, we could have taken a great many prisoners. We secured, as it was, men of twelve different regiments and seven different States. Though we looked for harder work the next day, the men had been so cool and brave,—not a man of E shrunk back after we formed the line,—that we felt ready for anything. Rebel arms, and here and there their owners, lay scattered about. Our regiment lost two men shot dead, and about seventeen wounded; one of Company E, at least, mortally. But no volley was fired at us directly, I think; though I may be mistaken, and there were many bullets which found their way towards us. On Sunday morning we were ready before daylight, and we saw Rebel horsemen and skirmishers in front; but our batteries had come up in force, most had been unable to get over the river and marshes in time for Saturday's fight, and the Rebs soon beat a retreat from that point. About two hours later, six A. M., they attacked the left of our force, which was now very large, and for many hours a fearful fire was kept up at that point; but we could only see the smoke and hear the reports of the guns, and see our new troops constantly entering the woods, for the line was long, the fields wide, and the fight just within the woods. About noon the Rebels retired, unsuccessful in their attempt to drive us into the river or butcher us. All our troops moved towards the left, and in the afternoon and night an attack on us (we then occupied the centre of the field and the right of the line) was expected, as the balloon had reported very large reinforcements on their way from Richmond.
We had many alarms, but the Rebels did not attack us, and on Monday we secured our position, buried the dead, collected the arms, &c., but got little rest. Since that time we have been on picket duty near the railroad and turnpike, and have now been unable to take off our arms or equipments for a week. We are under arms, ready for an attack, about half the time, day and night, but have had no attack yet; and I think the Rebel rank and file will scarcely be brought to attack us again, where they have been discomfited so signally. They had a partial success Saturday morning, as at Shiloh on the first day, and in part for the same reason, it is hinted; but the punishment followed more quickly on this occasion [404] than the other, for we punished them on the same day. The Rebels did their best to drive us across the river, and laid a deep plot, but we defeated them. They had meant to make it a three days affair rather than fail; but their disaster Sunday taught them the impossibility of success, and Monday was quiet.
The battle was followed by twelve days of extremely fatiguing duty, which very few of the regiment bore as well as Lowell. He writes thus to his classmate Hartwell:—
Our fight of the 31st and 1st was followed by the hardest work yet put before us,—ten days of unceasing vigilance in the face of the enemy. Rain or shine, night or day, we were under arms at the slightest alarm, and remained in line for an hour or two; we did not mean to be surprised, like Casey's division. For twelve days we kept on our clothes and equipments. As knapsacks and baggage were not brought near us for nearly that length of time, we could not have changed our clothes even if we had been able to call fifteen or five minutes our own. We were washed by the rain, and then dried ourselves in the sun, or before fires, which were permitted in the daytime. For five days we have been in the rear, near enough the front line to be turned out in case of firing, but far enough back to sleep half of the nights without equipments on, and to indulge in frequent baths; also to pitch our shelter-tents and think a little of our meals. But even in this place of comparative rest, three A. M., always finds us in line of battle, and for an hour and a half we are ready for the attack of the enemy. Six o'clock used to seem an early hour to arouse us for prayers, but our day seems nearly half gone at that time.
Lowell remained near Fair Oaks until the 28th of June. He had entire confidence in the skill of McClellan, and felt sure of his success. He knew nothing of what was preparing for the Army of the Potomac, and very little of what was going on. Like a true soldier, he was intent on doing what his hand found to do, even though he was working in the dark. He writes to Hartwell on the 26th:—
Sunday [22d] was a quiet day with us, but we have since had skirmishes at our front, in which we were generally rumored to be advancing, and yet found our forces in their old position at night, the movements being merely reconnoissances on one side or the other. But to-day there has been quite heavy firing on our left, [405] and we are at last rumored to have advanced, and remained forward. . . . We think we are gaining ground upon the Rebels, not merely because we are not losing it (at first we were content with that), but because we beat them generally in the skirmishes. But it is very hard to learn the truth about these little fights; some men talk one way, some the other, and one can rarely tell which to believe . . . .
I don't wish to be shot in a skirmish or on picket, but in a real fight, if I am to be hit again . . . .
The fighting yesterday [at Oak Grove] was quite severe, and the loss quite heavy; but we still hold our advanced position. To-day our part of the lines has been quiet; but there has been very heavy cannonading, and probably a severe battle on our right in Porter's corps [Mechanicsville]. It is rumored that he has driven back Stonewall Jackson, and turned the left flank of the enemy; and all our camps have rung with cheers since dark. But the Rebel bands are playing away vigorously in front, perhaps for a reported victory; perhaps to deceive and bother us; perhaps to keep up the spirits of the Rebels; perhaps, and perhaps, and perhaps. As the truth now appears, it is our own bands, which have been dumb for a month, but are now allowed to play; but we hear the Rebel drums after. We are looking for orders to march at any moment, and I really have hopes of seeing Richmond before this month is ended . . . .
June 27.—All right, except that we are still in camp; but a brisk cannonading is going on.
This is the last letter Lowell ever wrote. The orders came, but not to march on Richmond. He was ordered to Savage's Station (being then in command of his company) to destroy ammunition, and on the 29th joined in the retreat across the Peninsula. He led his company until the afternoon of the 30th, when he received a mortal wound in the fight at Glendale. He was shot in the abdomen while the regiment was advancing over an open field. To those who came to help him when he fell he said, ‘Don't mind me, men, go forward.’ He was carried to a neighboring farm-house, which had been taken as a hospital. When told, in answer to an inquiry, that his wound was probably mortal, he said that he was as ready to die as to live, were it not for his friends. ‘He felt that his [406] death was altogether right, and hoped they would think so at home.’ In the evening Patten was brought in wounded. Lowell asked that his comrade might be laid next him, took his hand and held it, and talked of the sudden termination of his life without a regret. When our troops moved on, and orders came for all who could to fall in, he insisted on Patten's leaving him. Patten asked if he had no messages for home. ‘I have written them all,’ he said; ‘tell them how it was, Pat.’ The officers of his regiment who went to bid him farewell tell us that the grasp of his hand was warm and firm and his countenance smiling and happy. He desired that his father might be told that he was struck while dressing the line of his men; besides this he had no message but ‘Good by’ He expressed a wish that his sword might not fall into the enemy's hands,—a wish that was faithfully attended to by Colonel Palfrey, through whose personal care it was preserved and sent home. All who saw him testify to the perfect composure of his mind and to the beautiful expression of his face. Two of our surgeons who had been left with the wounded at the farm were much impressed by his behavior, and one of them told the Rebel officers to talk with him, if they wished to know how a Northern soldier thought and felt. He lingered four days, and died on the 4th of July. A private of his regiment wrapped him in a blanket and laid him to rest under a tree. The name of the place is Nelson's, or Frazier's Farm.
Lowell was among the earliest of the Harvard soldiers to fall by the hand of the enemy. Colonel Peabody preceded him about three months, having been killed at Pittsburg Landing, and Major How died on the field in the same battle in which Lowell received his mortal wound. He was also the earliest to fall of seven kinsmen, the lives of five of whom will be found in these volumes.
While the soul of this noble young soldier was passing slowly away, his sister, who had for some time been serving as volunteer nurse on a hospital steamer, was lying at Harrison's Bar, on the James River, only a few miles off. She heard of his dangerous wound, and tried every expedient to get to him, [407] but without success. Three years after, that same sister, who had continued all this while in the hospital service, set out from Richmond to find her brother's grave. Following the line of our Army's retreat from Fair Oaks, in his very footsteps, she with some difficulty tracked out the farm-house and at last discovered the tree which marked the place of his burial. The day happened to be June 30th, the anniversary of that on which he was wounded, and the grave was found at about the same time in the afternoon when he was brought into the hospital. The remains were removed by affectionate hands in the succeeding November, and deposited in Mount Auburn beside those of his brother.
This was a short life, only a span long: but if the essential thing in life be the bringing of our wills into free co-operation with the will of God, this life of less than twenty-five years was yet complete. That harmony once achieved, and immortality so assured, it can be of little moment whether death comes sooner or later. Though the final act of sacrifice has importance in our eyes, as setting a visible seal to his integrity, we see, and we should see without surprise, that it cost Lowell no struggle. The serenity with which he received the summons of death must not be misunderstood. It did not come from blind enthusiasm, nor even from an unusual exaltation of feeling. It was also as remote as possible from apathy: it had no character of insensibility. It has already been said that his enjoyment of life was intense. No one had a keener relish for its every-day pleasures. It was crowned for him, in Korner's words, ‘with the flowery wreaths of love, of friendship, and of joy.’ No one could be less indifferent to the grief his death would cause at home; no one could have taken a deeper satisfaction in witnessing and assisting in the extension of knowledge and the improvement of the condition of mankind. The coexistence of this vivid enjoyment of the world with a readiness to relinquish all its delights and hopes at a moment's call, has been portrayed and explained by the one who knew him best, in these verses.
Twin fountains sent forth Our Delight. From one
Came all that Nature to her darling brings [408]
To make a lover of each looker on;
Fair gifts—not graces yet-nor rooted quite;
Fair silver vessels for the golden fruit.But lest the lover's soul, dizzy with joy,
Lost in a perfumed cloud should lie before
The lovely and the fair, crying, ‘No more,—
I want no more,’—from the twin fountain flowed,
Deep, simple, stern, a rill of Hebrew life.
‘Lord, I am thine: do with me as thou wilt;
Set thou my feet aright; they seek thy goal.’
Thus prayed this rich-fraught soul, and in his thought
Beheld himself a pilgrim weak and poor.
A minuter analysis than it is possible to go into here would show a rare symmetry in Lowell's character, the result of a religious discipline acting upon a pure and generous nature. His whole life, says one who knew it all, was ‘luminous with love.’ Even in childhood his love was not the accidental, unspiritual attachment of most boys. Though impetuous, and by no means wanting in energy of will, he was docile and modest. The eagerness with which he pursued his objects occasioned him many trials of temper, and the self-chastisement which was thus required kept him from thinking highly of himself. He never excused his faults, or used any sophistry in extenuating them, but felt them keenly and repented of them humbly. Towards himself he was rigid; but though he expected every man to do his duty,—for a sense of justice is generally recognized as his distinguished trait,—he was lenient to others. Though he was not given to the expression of religious sentiment, he lived habitually near to God, and in lowly dependence upon him. In a book of extracts, he entered, probably about the time of his leaving college, some lines of Ben Jonson as a sort of charge to himself, which may serve as an epitome both of his character and of his career.
That by commanding first thyself thou mak'st
Thy person fit for any charge thou tak'st;
That whatsoever face thy fate puts on,
Thou shrink or start not, but be always one;
That thou think nothing great but what is good,
And from that thought strive to be understood:—
These take, and now go seek thy peace in war;
Who falls for love of God shall rise a star.
[409]
Edward Bromfield Mason.
Assistant Surgeon 14th Mass. Vols. (1st Mass. Heavy artillery), March 1, 1862; Second Lieutenant 2d Mass. Cavalry, June 4, 1863; died September 14, 1863, at Readville, Mass., of injuries received from an accident in camp.Edward Bromfield Mason was born July 2, 1837, in Boston. He was the son of William Powell and Hannah (Rogers) Mason, and the grandson of Jonathan Mason, who was United States Senator from Massachusetts from 1800 to 1803. As a boy, he was unusually attractive in person and character, uniting in an uncommon degree gentleness and warm affections with a spirit of daring and cool courage that helped him out of, as well as led him into, many difficulties.
After going through the usual course of studies in various schools, at fifteen years of age he accompanied his parents to Europe, and the eighteen months passed there developed and fostered a love of adventure, and an enthusiasm for the beautiful in nature and in art, which were most marked features in his character. Naturally modest, and free from any inclination for display, it was only to his most intimate and sympathetic friends that he showed himself freely. With them, his graphic descriptions of what had most interested him abroad, his vivid imagination, his lively and genial humor, and his intense enjoyment of everything that was striking and beautiful in life, imparted a singular glow and charm to his conversation.
On his return from Europe, at the close of the year 1853, he was fitted for Harvard College by Mr. Samuel Eliot, and entered the Sophomore Class in July, 1855. He graduated with his Class, and after leaving college commenced the study of medicine with Professor Wyman and Dr. Nichols at Cambridge. At this period an incident occurred, strikingly illustrating his kind feelings, his fearlessness, and his disregard of self. A fellow-student, with whom he was but slightly acquainted, was suddenly attacked with a severe form of small-pox. [410] Being at a distance from his relatives and friends, he suffered much from want of suitable attendance and nursing; and the nature of his disease and his limited means rendered it difficult to obtain assistance. Edward, regardless of his own exposure, pitying his helpless and friendless condition, visited and watched with him, and thought so little of these charitable acts that they never came to the knowledge of his family and friends until he himself was taken down with the varioloid in consequence.
Before the completion of his medical course, the war of the Rebellion broke out, and both he and his brother were anxious to bear their part in defending the Union. Their father, however, just slowly recovering from a long and dangerous illness, which left it uncertain how far he might regain his former state of health, felt so unable to meet the trial of parting with both of his sons at once for so dangerous a service, that they promised that one of them should certainly remain at home with him. The oldest, in November, 1861, was appointed Aid to Major-General McClellan. Edward, however, remained at home, completed his medical course of studies, and, in July, 1861, after passing a very good examination, received his diploma of M. D.
No longer occupied by a daily attendance at Cambridge, at the Medical School and the Hospital; in a high state of health, with a vigorous frame, an active imagination, and a courageous spirit; excited by the daily reports from our armies,—he felt a renewal of his original desire to enter the service. He became restless and uneasy, and expressed himself strongly as feeling that he was put in a wrong position by remaining quietly at home, while so many of his companions were in the field, or hastening thither to join our Massachusetts regiments. Under these circumstances, his parents, seriously questioning whether they were justified in taking advantage of his affection for them, and any longer opposing a desire so natural, patriotic, and honorable to him, consented to release him from his promise, with the understanding that he should apply for a commission as Assistant Surgeon, instead of a more exposed position in the line. [411]
To this limited release, he finally, with reluctance, assented, having previously set his heart upon obtaining a second lieutenancy in a regiment in which some of his former companions were commissioned. After waiting anxiously for a length of time, he finally received a commission as Assistant Surgeon in the Fourteenth Massachusetts Volunteers, commanded by Colonel W. B. Greene, then stationed at Fort Albany; and in February, 1862, he joined the regiment.
As month after month rolled by, and while other regiments passed to the front, the Fourteenth still remained stationary to guard the capital, he became very impatient at the continued inaction; and but for the pain he knew he would give his parents, would willingly have taken any position which would bring him into more active service.
The dull routine of his duties at Fort Albany was, however, unexpectedly interrupted in August, 1862, by an order sent to Colonel Greene to join the Army of the Potomac, and advance towards the enemy. Dr. Mason wrote home in great spirits at the prospect before him.
On the 28th of the month, near Fairfax Court-House, Colonel Greene found a cavalry force of the enemy twice as large as his own before him, commanded by General Fitz-Hugh Lee. An immediate attack was expected, which was not made, however, owing to the strength of Colonel Greene's position. Unfortunately the Surgeons, Drs. Dana and Mason, while selecting a house for the accommodation of the wounded, just outside the lines of their regiment, were suddenly captured and taken to the Headquarters of General Lee. Here Dr. Mason unexpectedly met his former classmate at Cambridge, W. F. Lee, nephew of General R. E. Lee, and a Colonel in the Rebel service. He received the prisoner kindly, and presented him to the General, who after examining him very closely as to the position and numbers of our troops, released him and his companion, retaining their horses, equipments, and attendants. Dr. Mason's replies to General Lee's questions proved very satisfactory to Colonel Greene.
In a letter to Dr. Mason's father, referring to these incidents, Colonel Greene writes as follows:— [412]
The Doctor was very cool throughout the whole business. The principal surgeon reported that Dr. Mason wanted to fight when he was captured, and that he refused to give up his pistol until he was ordered to do so by Dr. Dana, his immediate superior, who expressed great admiration of his assistant.
Dr. Mason told me, when he made his report, that he would apply to Governor Andrew for a position in the line, and that I would soon lose the power of ordering him to the rear. He asked me to give him a letter of recommendation, and to state in it that I thought he would do better in the line than as a surgeon. . . . . I gave him as good a letter as I knew how to write. It was certainly my opinion that he would make an excellent line officer.
Dr. Mason, on writing home, said that Colonel Greene had given him a very handsome letter of recommendation.
After an absence of about three weeks, the regiment returned to Fort Albany, much to the disappointment of Dr. Mason, which disappointment was enhanced by the resignation of Colonel Greene, which took place shortly afterwards. Early in December, however, he received an order from Headquarters to serve as medical director on the staff of Colonel Cogswell, acting Brigadier-General; but in January, 1863, Colonel Tannett, the new commander of the Fourteenth, ordered him to Maryland Heights to look after four companies of the Fourteenth, which were stationed there. He then wrote to his father:—
I had long wished to make a change and to obtain if possible a commission in the First Massachusetts Cavalry, when my present position as medical director was offered me. I accepted it with pleasure, and desired to retain it as long as possible, hoping that something might turn up in the mean time; but now that I am compelled to return to my former position and go to Harper's Ferry, this wish of mine is strengthened, and I have decided to write an application to the Governor, desiring him to transfer me from the medical staff, and commission me as a line officer in either the First or Second Massachusetts Cavalry. I am afraid you will consider this step as rash and ill-advised. I am sorry on your and mother's account to feel compelled to take it, but I am not satisfied to remain as Assistant Surgeon in my present situation for the rest of the war, attending only to the sick, and without any opportunity [413] of obtaining experience in the surgical part of my profession. Colonel Cogswell, who will probably be confirmed as Brigadier-General in a few weeks, has promised to take me on his staff as aide-decamp. If you still feel opposed to my making this change, please write.
After much delay,—during which, following the wishes of his parents, he applied for a transfer as Assistant Surgeon from his present position to a regiment in the field, and found that such a transfer was against the regulations,—he accepted a commission as Second Lieutenant in the Second Massachusetts Cavalry, offered him by Colonel Lowell.
In August he sent in his resignation as Assistant Surgeon, and shortly afterwards reported himself at Readville, where a part of the regiment was recruiting. At an evening parade, his horse, an undisciplined one, reared and fell backwards upon him, inflicting a serious injury, which after a fortnight of severe suffering proved fatal to him.
The following extract from a tribute to his memory which appeared in the papers shortly after his death, from the pen of a friend in no way connected with him, will show how those estimated his character who had an opportunity of forming an unprejudiced judgment of it.
No careful observer of his thoughtful and expressive face can have failed to see beneath that clear serenity a latent power capable of being brought into earnest action; and in the nameless slight courtesies, addressed to those who most needed them, which mark the true gentleman, no one could have hesitated to recognize the self-forgetfulness which led him to brave the peril of a fearful disease, from which the timid shrank, in order to minister to the extreme needs of a friend. All honor to the simple goodness which would have refused praise for a deed which was doubtless a necessity to his kindly nature,—a deed which won for him the respect of many who would have hesitated to follow his example.
Endowed with all the qualities that make home lovely,—amiable, unselfish, intelligent,—with a touch, if we mistake not, of romance, which might instigate the possessor to swerve a little from the beaten track, this young man seemed born to make brighter the fortunate circumstances in which he was placed by [414] Providence, while a rare modesty secured the regard of all who really knew him.
The delineation of Dr. Mason's character in this extract will be accepted by all who knew him intimately as eminently just. Should those who formerly felt an interest in the subject of this memorial find that it accords with their view of his character, void as it is of any brilliant deeds or great services, they may possibly believe with the writer, that if Dr. Mason had been permitted to follow his inclination from the first, he would have borne himself as bravely in defence of his country as those noble companions of his who fell in the field; and would probably have found with them a soldier's grave.
[415]
Henry Lyman Patten.
Second Lieutenant 20th Mass. Vols. (Infantry), November 25, 1861; first Lieutenant, October 1, 1862; Captain, May 1, 1863; Major, June 20, 1864; died at Philadelphia, Pa., September 10, 1864, of a wound received at deep Bottom, Va., August 17.Henry Lyman Patten, of the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteers, was born in Kingston, New Hampshire, on the 4th of April, 1836. His father, Colcord Patten, and his mother, Maria (Fletcher) Patten, were substantial New England people, whose children (Henry being the youngest) have all become worthy citizens. His early life gave bright promise of distinction. His singularly quick intelligence and love of books caused him, after the usual course of district schools, to be sent to the public Latin School of Boston. Thence, having graduated with high honors and prizes as a medal scholar, he passed into Harvard College in July, 1854.
At this time Patten was a fine specimen of the college student. In person he was short, straight, compact, well-knit, vigorous, and elastic. In later years, his shoulders so filled and broadened as to remove the idea of insignificance which his small stature gave. His face, with its regular features, was thoroughly handsome: its frank and open expression was the trustworthy index of his character, and his passport to confidence and love. His cheeks were ruddy with health, his hazel eyes full of light and meaning, his lips mobile and expressive, his forehead broad and shapely. He was almost equally proficient in all the college studies, except the modern languages, but perhaps showed most skill in the classics and metaphysics. Through several college terms he ranked third or fourth scholar in a class of nearly a hundred. Lack of money, however, (an inconvenience which vexed him for many years,) forced him to be absent through part of his course, teaching schools or private pupils. This double pressure slightly lowered his numerical rank, but did not touch his [416] prestige among his fellow-students and professors as a brilliant and thorough scholar.
His character was, in college, a singular mixture of boyishness and maturity. He was fond of athletic and out-door sports, and passed nearly as much of his college career on the Delta as in the recitation-room. He was a quick and daring football player, and one of the best cricketers in the Class. A friend writes of him, that ‘his only fault as a cricket-player was that he was too rash, and was frequently put out in attempting to make runs when the ball was almost in the hand of the bowler of the opposite side.’ He very often neglected the Class tasks to play out a match-game, or for a walk, or for skating,—or sometimes, it must be owned, for a favorite book, or agreeable company, or a friendly idle chat. Among his comrades he won a reputation for frankness, generosity, courage, quickness, intelligence, and an overflow of good-humor and animal spirits. In conversation, his address was pleasing, his words select and forcible, his utterances direct and frank. He had no reservations. There was no worse thing left in his mind to be said after the hearer's back was turned. Sometimes his emphatic style of assent or dissent was unpleasantly brusque: but his vivacity and vigor, and the general bonhomie of his bearing, made him an excellent conversationalist and an agreeable companion.
He was an active member, in successive years, of the Anonyma, Institute of 1770, Psi Upsilon, and Hasty Pudding Club, and of a much-prized private club. As he possessed a fine oratorical delivery, and a ringing and melodious voice, he became an effective as well as fluent debater. He was, too, an unusually good writer, as his college dissertations, exhibition parts, and his exceedingly entertaining letters attest.
If among his many noble traits frankness be pronounced the most striking, his generosity held at least the second place. He was generous to a fault, spending his money instantly on getting it, and never on himself alone. He was charitable in his judgment of others. One of the most judicious of his comrades said:—
I do not remember ever to have heard him speak ill of any [417] person not present. I know no one with more liberality in judging other's actions, or more sympathy with the feelings and sufferings of others, or a more prompt and indulgent appreciation of the temptation under which a wrong or mean action might have been committed, than Patten. Nevertheless, he was wonderfully firm in sticking to his own opinions and practices, and settled in his convictions.
College days being over, and his Commencement speech pronounced, Patten turned to the law. It was the summer of 1858. A twelvemonth earlier, in vacation, he had written from Kingston to a friend:—
My brother, though not a lawyer exactly, is the “squire,” and has an office in which are several law books, a dozen or so, into which I now and then peep. I think you and I will never repent our choice of a profession. I never have seen a sensible fellow yet who, having studied law, did not think it the best of pursuits.
But the omnipresent question of finances again came up, and the result was a year's devotion to teaching, with the view of accumulating money enough to carry him through a year of law study. It need hardly be added that this plan took three years for its accomplishment, instead of one. After many disappointments in seeking a place, he became a tutor in the Free Academy at Utica, New York. There he kept up a correspondence with some old friends, and sighed to be in Cambridge, ‘studying law and reading Plautus.’
His year at Utica ended, Patten obtained a situation as private tutor, through the aid of President Walker of Harvard University, who had always been his friend. His pupil, George Appleton, a youth of eighteen, was a grandson of William Appleton of Boston, and son (by a former marriage) of Mrs. Arnold, herself a daughter of George W. Lyman. Her residence was at Montgomery, Georgia, twelve miles from Savannah, on the beautiful Vernon River. Thither Patten went for a year, in the autumn of 1859. He passed much leisure time in shooting the abundant small game, his pupil being extremely fond of field sports. For a while the genial tutor also was quite enamored of this pursuit (though he got surfeited in due [418] time) and enthusiastically wrote: ‘When you ride horseback or row, you are likely to be thinking about ordinary cares all the time, —post equitem sedet atra cura,—and perches on the oar-blade, too. But when a covey of partridges start,—whir, whir, whir—away fly all thoughts but those of the game.’ In one of his admirable Savannah letters to friends, we find a scholarly criticism on Dr. Eliot's rendering of the word δρπαγμόν as ‘to be robbed,’ in a sermon which he discusses. Controversial theology and metaphysics had always great charms for him; and, with congenial comrades, he would speculate earnestly on these topics for hours together on long walks or before the evening fire. He was much pleased, while at Savannah, with the writings of Mansel. His letters, also, are full of earnest and candid discussions of slavery. He tells with fidelity what he sees of it. His theory is that of ‘necessary evil for the present.’ He desires its speedy end, but finds ‘many excuses and palliating circumstances for slaveholders,’ and ‘insurmountable difficulties at present’ in its removal. Meanwhile he ‘can never forget the immense injustice on which the system rests.’ Politics he reviews quite as earnestly, it being the year of the Presidential election. His favorite candidates were Bell and Everett, but he would have voted for Mr. Seward, had he been the Republican nominee. In the spring of 1860, he attacked Blackstone again, though not very earnestly, and found ‘no book more interesting.’ But lighter reading, as of favorite novels, like ‘The Virginians,’ was better suited to the approaching summer; and out-door pleasures made him, he says, ‘dwindle in mind and grow fat in body.’ As his engagement approached an end, he sighed for ‘Northern air’ and a more ambitious career.
In the summer of 1860, accordingly, he returned North, and accepted, in September, an assistant professorship in the Academic Department of Washington University, St. Louis, offered to him by his friend Chancellor Hoyt of that University. Here our young pedagogue passed another successful year, and thence returning, he entered the Cambridge Law School in the summer of 1861, and at the same time received a proctorship [419] in the College. But the great war of Rebellion, which was to make, to crown, and to terminate his career on earth, had already come. Some of his old comrades were already in the field. In August, directly on returning to Kingston from the West, we find him eager to have a share in the good cause. One of his letters ‘believes it not immodest to say’ he could fill a second lieutenancy as well as some who had been commissioned. But he was working against great obstacles. He writes to an intimate friend: ‘I feel with you on the military question, . . . . but I have no prospect of a lieutenancy. ——would not lift a finger for me, as he does not wish me to go. But if I could have a lieutenancy, I would accept.’ He adds, that the want of vigor in the war ‘alternately drives me frantic and depresses me’; and closes by asking, ‘Can you send me up a manual of tactics?’
The Twentieth Massachusetts marched away to the front in September, and a month later, at Ball's Bluff, received its baptism of blood. On hearing this news, Patten, who had chafed so long to be away, breaking loose from all hindrances, devoted himself forever to the country. The example of his intimate friend Lowell, for whom he had always great admiration and affection,—which were thoroughly reciprocated,— had greatly influenced him, as it did many other college classmates. The repulse at Leesburg ploughed grievous gaps in the ranks of the Twentieth, which many young heroes sprang forward to fill,—a score for every lad who had fallen. In Company E, Captain Schmitt and First Lieutenant J. J. Lowell were wounded, and the gallant Second Lieutenant Putnam killed. Patten instantly applied to succeed young Putnam, and, thanks to his bearing, character, and record, and the enthusiastic support of his friends, after exciting competition, succeeded. He was long on the tiptoe of expectation; but, resolved to fight in the good cause at any rate, presented himself in the regimental camp not only before a commission had been given to him, but even before he had had a nomination. A letter soon after sent to Cambridge expresses his exultation at his appointment. [420]
Henceforth the history of the Twentieth Massachusetts is Patten's history. He never was absent, till death, from any battle in that remarkable series of battles which it fought. He never was absent even from any great march or any severe duty. He had taken the resolve to cling to the regiment so long as it carried its banner or its name. His undivided soul was in the country's cause. ‘We are in for the war,’ he used to say till the fatal bullet found him, ‘though it lasted twenty years.’ Never, except when struck down on the field or prostrate from disease, did he accept even a brief furlough, and that he reluctantly consented to snatch only when no arduous labor or peril was in prospect. He always hurried back to camp, in trepidation lest something might have happened and he away. Under his eye, and in his daily round of bivouac, march, and battle, the Twentieth dwindled away to a fragment, filled again, again and again dwindled and filled, till he saw only in its unquenchable spirit the sign of what he found it in the Maryland camp.
Some of Patten's young friends joined in buying him a handsome sword, which they sent with a complimentary letter. It was a grateful present for a double reason. Till it arrived, he wore a sword which had been lent him. When it came, his letter of thanks pleasantly traced different parts of the weapon and accoutrements to individual givers,—the point, the hilt, &c., according to fanciful analogies. ‘The belt,’ he concludes, addressing the original source of the little gift, ‘is [421] yours. For all hangs upon that, and that clasps the closest. But the rest shall be undivided.’
When once he had resolved to give his life to the country, Patten, as was said, went to camp on the chances of a commission; and fearing he might fail of one, even after appointment, he writes thence, ‘I firmly intend to go in as private rather than go home.’ Many weeks elapsed, during which he was without rank, sword, or uniform. One letter, in his impatient hand, says he has ‘expected his commission every night for the last two weeks. . . . . We are afraid of dull inactivity this winter. But, pshaw! I can't write anything till I am settled. I am feverishly impatient.’ His commission as Second Lieutenant of Company E bore date November 25, 1861. That winter he passed with the Twentieth, of Lander's brigade, in Camp Benton, at Poolesville, Maryland, diligently studying,—his eyes and ears wide open to his new duties, and his heart inspired with ever-increasing loyalty and devotion. His letters vividly picture these new experiences and especially the guard duties,—the guard on a beautiful night, with a huge open fire, and the camp-fires of the evening's pickets glimmering against the dark Virginia mountains. ‘One does not sleep much under such circumstances,’ wrote Lieutenant Patten; ‘there is a little romance in it.’ He soon showed himself a thorough and admirable officer; yet he of course thought otherwise. ‘My military education,’ he says, ‘comes on slowly. Theoretically, I do very well, and find no difficulty in managing my peaceful company. But the grand air is preciously wanting in your humble friend.’
Towards the end of February Lieutenant Patten, who had been chafing all winter at the general inactivity, exultingly writes a hurried line: ‘We really expect an advance, and the thought thrills every fibre of us. An advance! and battle!-perhaps death,—surely victory and glory. The regiment is ready,—on, on to Richmond and victory.’ Shortly after, in March, the division, Sedgwick's, moved across the Potomac and up the Shenandoah Valley nearly to Winchester in support of Banks's movement, and then was withdrawn to Bolivar. [422] During this operation, our Lieutenant insisted that he had slept better in the open air than ever under any roof.
The great Peninsular campaign followed, beginning in April, 1862. At Yorktown, Lieutenant Patten got his first sight of siege and battle. Thence Sedgwick's division was despatched in the column which occupied West Point; but the Twentieth was only drawn up in support in the action there. The whole of Sumner's corps was now north of the Chickahominy, while those of Keyes and Heintzelman were south of it. By so faulty a disposition the enemy was sure to profit. When, at Fair Oaks, on the 31st of May, the left wing of the army was driven back, the danger was imminent. But Sumner, hearing the thunders of battle from the left bank of the river, and reading the necessities of the hour with the inspiration of a genuine soldier, marched au canon, without waiting for orders. Sedgwick's division was in advance, crossed the swaying and dangerous Chickahominy bridge, made a forced march through the deep mire all day long, and at six at night, after the greatest exertions, reached the scene of action and deployed column. It was not too soon. The enemy, driving all before him, was sweeping down upon our troops with a destructive fire. Sumner at once hurled at him the head of his gallant column, composed of Dana's and Gorman's brigades,—five excellent regiments in all. In Dana's was the Twentieth Massachusetts. The troops streamed with fixed bayonets into the woods, amid great enthusiasm, checked the enemy's course, drove him back in confusion, and saved the day at Fair Oaks. ‘That one act of heroic duty,’ says the historian of the Potomac Army, ‘must embalm brave old Sumner's memory in the hearts of his countrymen.’
Then followed the turning of the right wing of the army at Beaver Dam Creek, and the memorable seven days retreat to the new base on the James. In that terrible time of trial, which brought out from every soldier whatever of virtue there was in him, Patten's gallantry and manliness were so brilliant as to receive special official mention in the report of his commanding officer. In three successive battles, at Gaines's Mill, [423] Savage Station, and White Oak Swamp, Sumner's columns held off the exultant rush of the enemy with stubborn grip, and met each dash of Magruder with an answering blow, till the army and all its trains had safely traversed the swamp. But it was a week of hourly fighting and marching. The swamp being passed, the next day, June 30th, A. P. Hill and Longstreet, surging up against our rear, were repulsed with great loss in the battle of Glendale. Here Dana's brigade was conspicuous, and the Twentieth Massachusetts plucked fresh laurels, though with the loss of many priceless officers and men. Both officers of Company E were among the wounded, —Lieutenant Lowell mortally, Lieutenant Patten with a deep flesh wound in the leg. They were carried from the field and laid side by side in the field hospital. Anguished with pain, Patten nerved himself to go forward with his company and regiment the same night (the battle was on a Monday afternoon), and, exchanging farewells with his comrade, found rest at length for his wounded frame in the camps of the army at Harrison's Landing.
His duty done, and his anxiety for his company (thenceforward under his own charge) being set at rest, he began to feel the effects of his wound. During the battle he had refused, with characteristic endurance, to yield to it, and had led his company, after Lowell's fall and after his own hurt, till the fighting was done, and they took him away. Colonel Palfrey, his commanding officer, vividly recalling Patten's conspicuous bravery on that day, wrote thus two years after:—
It was not till the battle of Glendale that he had an opportunity to display that singular constancy of which the harder service of his after life furnished numerous instances. His determination on that occasion, when he fought through the battle after receiving a painful wound in the leg, made a deep impression upon me; and it gave me sincere pleasure to make particular mention of him in my official report of that engagement. His subsequent conduct more than justified the reputation he then acquired.
A few weeks prior to this letter, the same officer directly addressing a letter of sympathy to Patten, then struggling with [424] his fifth and final wound, had said: ‘I know your pluck and toughness are almost unequalled. After seeing you fight through Glendale with such a wound, . . . . I feel that you can bear anything.’ While, however, his praise was in the mouths of all his brother officers, and especially of his own men, who from that time idolized him, Patten seemed unconscious of having done anything worth mentioning.
As for that injury which his commander called ‘such a wound,’ he made light of it,—never would have mentioned it had it not been necessary. But, in truth, he had succumbed at Harrison's Landing, and they had sent him North among the wounded. Instantly on arriving at Annapolis he hastened to discharge a duty which had been weighing on him during the passage; and, with characteristic modesty and self-forgetfulness, wrote this letter, of which the first five words and the last two sentences seem, in the original, to have been written some time after the rest:—
Never, either with tongue or with pen, has he anything to say of his own exploits. His thoughts are always with others and for others. As in the present case, the fall of a comrade makes the news of the battle ‘sad news,’ no matter how glorious his own conduct, how narrow his escape, how joyful his safety and prospects. A word at the end of this letter alone explains his ‘slight wound,’—so described as to make it appear nothing,—if he had not unthinkingly mentioned his danger of falling into the enemy's hands and his physical inability to take care of a dear companion's sword. So it was with all his wounds, even to the mortal one.
Now, therefore, the young soldier took perforce his first furlough, believing the campaign over, and seeking, before the next one, health for his exhausted frame and healing for his wounds in the bracing air of his New Hampshire home. As he limped about with his cane, his astonished friends found him already developed into a thorough soldier. They found him enthusiastic for the cause, for the Army of the Potomac, and never tired of sounding the praises of his regiment,—making up for this profuseness of eulogy by his extreme reticence and modesty with regard to himself. He was hardly at home when, unexpectedly, news came of Pope's disastrous campaign. Heedless of the remonstrance of his kind surgeon, away he went on his cane, with his wound unhealed, and, to his inexpressible satisfaction, reached his regiment before it had again encountered the enemy. The battle of Chantilly followed on the 1st of September. There the brigade fought, and then brought up and covered the rear of Pope's retreat to Washington. Without pause succeeded the great Maryland campaign, consisting of the brilliant battle of South Mountain and the [426] terrific and decisive engagement of Antietam. At this latter battle the regiment was severely engaged, with very great loss of officers and men; and Patten was reported to be ‘in the thickest of the fight.’ These actions took place on the 14th and 17th of September, and closed up the long battle-summer. When, some months later, the fearful losses among the officers of the Twentieth gave young Patten a chance for promotion, his commission as First Lieutenant was antedated to October 1, 1862. It was a grade tolerably well earned.
Not long after, he received from certain friends the assurance that, if he would consent to it, he should have a majorship in a new regiment, and all the rest and recreation possible in a long recruiting service at home. The bait might have been tempting, considering his exhaustion, and the fact that some of his young friends were reaching colonelships and brigadier-generalships without having been through a half of his service. But it had no attraction for him. With no lack of ambition, he would yet have served always in his subordinate position, rather than have been the commanding officer of any other regiment.
Burnside's brief but bloody campaign followed. In the memorable attempt to carry the heights beyond Fredericksburg, the first thing necessary was to throw pontoon-bridges across the Rappahannock. Hall's brigade, consisting of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Massachusetts and Seventh Michigan, ‘volunteered,’ as General Couch reports, as a forlorn hope, for a perilous scheme now resolved upon. They were three of those five regiments of Sedgwick's division who had routed the enemy at Fair Oaks. This brigade was sent down the steep bank unsupported, and at its foot they sustained for fifteen or twenty minutes the enemy's cutting fire, while open boats could be prepared and pushed into the stream. In these unprotected boats the brigade, by several instalments, made the passage of the stream, under concentrated fire, till they had gained the cover of the opposite bank. ‘The affair,’ says Mr. Swinton's History, ‘was gallantly executed, and the army, assembled on the northern bank, spectators of this piece of [427] heroism, paid the brave fellows the rich tribute of soldiers' cheers.’ But the harder half of the task remained. This was the ordeal of marching straight through the town, and driving out the picket marksmen who, having been forced back from the bank, had taken refuge in the houses. This most severe of trials was too much even for the other fine regiments of the brigade, and the Twentieth marched alone through the town, in column of companies, with the fire of unseen rifles wasting them in front, in rear, and on either flank, from every house, till the street was strewn with their dead, and nearly one hundred officers and men, being one in three, lay killed or wounded within fifty yards. Nevertheless, they carried the town and the bridge was laid. The brigade commander reported that he ‘cannot presume to express’ what is due to ‘the Twentieth Regiment for its unflinching bravery and splendid discipline.’ Next day the regiment held the extreme right of Couch's corps, in the murderous charge up Marye's Heights; and a cross-fire of artillery and musketry ploughed lanes in the ranks of the column. The Twentieth lost sixty of about two hundred men; and many supporting regiments broke and fled from the field. In this two days attempt on Fredericksburg, it lost one hundred and fifty-seven killed and wounded, out of the scanty three hundred and seven to which the Peninsula and Antietam had brought it down. Patten was one of the two or three officers who were in the thickest of all and escaped unhurt.
But we must, henceforth, abandon details, and hurry into lines what is worthy of volumes. The next great action for the Twentieth, and consequently for Patten, was Chancellorsville, where the division (the Second of the Second Corps) was assigned to General Sedgwick's famous column on the left, which carried Fredericksburg, stormed Marye's Heights, threatening Lee's whole army with destruction, and, when Hooker had failed like Burnside, held the line of outposts till all had recrossed the river.
Meade now succeeded, and Gettysburg was fought. In that tremendous battle the Twentieth, as usual, was under the [428] hottest fire. It was in that division, for example, on Cemetery Ridge, which, during the battle of July 3d, received Pickett's magnificent charge with pluck as magnificent. The crest was soon covered with dead and wounded; but all who survived of the attacking column remained prisoners on the ridge. The Twentieth Massachusetts carried to Gettysburg ten officers and two hundred and eighteen men. Of these, seven officers and one hundred and one men fell in the action; three officers and one hundred and sixteen men came out unscathed, or too slightly wounded to be reported. Patten was twice wounded, but even after his second wound refused to quit the field. One wound was in the leg, the other in the hand. The middle finger of his right hand was amputated.
That his wounds might the sooner heal, Patten took a furlough. It was a twelvemonth since he had been home. He now received the rank of Captain, antedated to May 1, 1863; he had had at least the satisfaction of performing its duties on a lieutenant's rank and pay for a full year. On this visit, as always, he was full of enthusiasm for his company, his regiment, and, above all, for the immortal cause. He was loud in his praises of McClellan also, of whom he remained an unyielding champion to the end. On all these points he was never tired of talking, and they seemed to absorb the whole of his once varied and changeable thoughts. There was little now in the army to keep him away from home; but he returned, as usual, at the first moment, and went through all Meade's exhausting series of marches and manoeuvres, which resulted in the battle of Bristoe, where Warren thoroughly repulsed A. P. Hill. Warren's Second Division did this work, and the Twentieth captured two of the five guns there taken. Soon after, Patten marched with the army to Mine Run; and his regiment, deployed as skirmishers, drove in the enemy's skirmishers at Robertson's Tavern with memorable rapidity.
Patten's days were now nearly numbered. He came back from Mine Run with a debilitating disease of the bowels, almost surely fastened upon him for life. One whiff of fresh Northern air was all he would allow himself. Against the [429] remonstrances of friends, he rushed back to camp the moment he had strength to perform the smallest part of his duties. On the 24th of January, 1864, he writes:—
In May, 1864, commenced the grand final campaign. The regiment, as always, was in the Second Division, Second Corps. Captain Patten was still suffering from weakness, was scarcely fit to be in camp, much less to do the hard work now forced upon the army. But he dashed into the two days Wilderness battle with all his old enthusiasm. Hancock's corps was hotly engaged on both days, and the Twentieth was mowed down as usual under fire. Colonel Macy was wounded, Major Abbott (Patten's exemplar and constant friend, whose praises he was never tired of rehearsing) was killed. Patten himself was shot through the hand. Worn out and wounded as he was, he refused to quit the field, but, as senior Captain, took command of the regiment at Spottsylvania, and fought it [430] thenceforth throughout the long road from the Rapidan to Richmond. It was a period of three months of constant march and battle,—march by night and battle by day. Officers and men fell all along by the wayside, with wounds or with exhaustion. He had but three or four officers to aid him in his task, yet he clung to it, marched in every march, led his regiment in every battle, and attracted the notice of the corps and division Headquarters by his extraordinary intrepidity and steadiness. He fought through the Wilderness on May 5th and 6th; through the running fight to Spottsylvania; through the fierce battle of the 10th at the latter point; the battle of the 12th, memorable as ‘the fiercest and most deadly struggle of the war’; through the murderous battle of the 18th, and all the days and nights intervening. He fought at North Anna, and again at Cold Harbor, where Hancock alone lost three thousand men in less than an hour,—that unmatched charnel-house of the war. When the overland campaign was abandoned, he fought his shadow of a regiment three days before Petersburg, on the 16th, 17th, and 18th of June, and then moved down in the column which attacked the Weldon Railroad. His escape from these perils was amazing, since he was invariably reckless in exposing himself to fire. At length, on the 22d of June, after a score of gallant achievements, he performed the crowning act of his soldierly career and his life.
The Sixth, Second, and Fifth Corps had been extended to the left, to seize the Weldon Road, below Petersburg. By improper tactical dispositions, a gap had been left between the Sixth on the left and the Second in the centre. Mahone saw the error, rushed across the right flank of the Sixth Corps, struck the left of the Second, both in front and on the left, and instantly rolled up Barlow's division like a scroll. The retirement of Barlow uncovered Mott to an attack in front, flank and rear, and he too gave way in confusion. On the right, Gibbon's veteran division alone remained, having a point of support and protection in some hasty intrenchments. It in turn was overwhelmingly pressed on all sides. Regiment after regiment gave way, and the rout appeared universal, till the [431] shock reached Captain Patten. He had a regiment which never had learned to break. Changing front with the greatest rapidity and skill, he disposed his scanty band of heroes to meet the shock. It was met and stayed. For the first time that day the Rebel column was checked, and all that was left of the division and of the day was saved. Thus Captain Patten plucked up drowning honor by the locks, and snatched personal glory from a day of utter and disastrous defeat.
Of this action Major Finley Anderson, soon after of General Hancock's staff, wrote to the New York Herald, and depicting the universal rout and destruction, especially on the capture of McKnight's batteries, said:—
At this point, however, the tide was turned in our favor by the coolness, courage, and skill of a good line officer. It was Captain H. L. Patten, commanding the Twentieth Massachusetts Regiment, who, taking advantage of an angle of the zigzag line of breastworks, executed a change of front, poured some well-directed volleys into the enemy, and checked his further progress. It is a prevalent opinion that, had other commanders acted as he did, the enemy would have been repulsed in the commencement.
General Morgan wrote afterwards:—
When nearly all the other regimental commanders seemed to have lost their wits, Major Patten may be said to have saved his regiment from the fate that overtook those adjacent to it.
After this crowning exploit, Patten still commanded his regiment, through battle, march, and skirmish, until the 14th of August, when he was relieved by Colonel Macy. Meanwhile, he had been adjudged worthy of the rank of Major, the assurance of which he received just before his death,—antedated to May i, 1864. Soon after occurred the series of sanguinary feints at Deep Bottom. Major Patten took his regiment into the fight of the 17th of August, at Deep Bottom, where Gibbon's division suffered greatly, and soon, rushing in to the front, as he always did, he received a rifle-ball in the left knee, —his fifth and final wound. He was carried from his last field, and the surgeons amputated the leg above the knee,— [432] an operation which he endured with heroic fortitude. But what the soul could bear without flinching was too much for the body. Sent to Turner's Lane Hospital, in Philadelphia, it was soon evident that, in the incessant fatigues of the long campaign, he had poured out his vitality drop by drop. His once vigorous system had broken under the surgical operation, and it was only left for him to bear, as he did with the fortitude of a fearless soldier and a Christian gentleman, his last excruciating agonies.
On arriving at the hospital on August 24th, he wrote to one of his brothers in the gallant vein which always marked him, —a letter designed to relieve anxiety. But its painful handwriting bore witness against it.
Six days later, he wrote to Professor Child as follows:—
[433]
On the same day he wrote home that he was ‘getting along swimmingly’; but the inevitable end drew nigh, and on the 10th of September all that was mortal of him expired.
His last days were consoled by his brothers and by kind friends, among whom was Mrs. A. H. Gibbons of New York, whose presence and motherly kindness were of inestimable comfort to the agonized young soldier. He sent for her a week before his death, and she instantly went to his bedside from Beverly Hospital, fifteen miles distant. She found him ‘in a very suffering condition,’ and afterwards wrote:—
In all he manifested a spirit of resignation and entire submission as to the final result, loving, kind, and considerate to the latest moment; and when he could no longer speak, he took my hand and pressed it to his forehead, giving me a look of recognition and of gratitude for the little I was able to do for him. A very short time before he died, he repeated the names of his brothers, the surgeon at his bedside, who was untiring in his devotion and interest, and my own. I never witnessed more terrible agony than his. He endured it with wonderful patience and fortitude. His manly, heroic bearing was observed by all who were with him.
After his death, the body of Major Patten, clothed in the blue soldier's uniform he had so worthily worn, was taken to Kingston, his home. All the village gathered to the church at the obsequies. ‘There was universal sadness,’ writes his brother; ‘for all had known him, and every one had loved him.’ Amid tears, his friend, the clergyman, pronounced a simple, tender eulogy, and then all the people looked at his handsome face, still noble and firm as ever, ‘as he lay in his coffin, every inch a soldier.’ From Kingston the body of Major Patten was sent to Cambridge, and there buried with impressive ceremonies, with services conducted by the Rev. Presidents Walker and Hill, and the Rev. Dr. Peabody. The solemn procession of the officers and students of the University, the personal friends and admirers of the dead hero, the brother officers of his regiment and other regiments, then bore him to his grave in Mount Auburn.
[434]
Henry Augustus Richardson.
Acting Assistant Surgeon, U. S. N., August 12, 1861; discharged, on resignation, June 5, 1862; died July 1, 1863, of disease contracted in the service.Dr. Henry Augustus Richardson was born in Boston, November 25, 1836, the son of George C. and Susan Gore (Moore) Richardson. In his childhood the family removed to its present residence in the adjacent city of Cambridge. In the schools of Cambridge he received his early education, and commenced his preparation for a college course. Having completed his preparatory studies at Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, he entered the Freshman Class of Harvard College in July, 1854. There his personal traits soon made him a general favorite among his classmates. He had many friends and no enemies in every circle, and in 1858 he graduated, bearing with him the hearty good — will of all.
The circumstances of his life did not drive him to laborious effort, but to a person of his practical nature indolence had no attractions. One of his best inheritances was a desire to be actively occupied amid the busy scenes of the world. Hardly had he left college, when he began his preparation for the labors of life, and chose the practice of medicine as his employment. Indeed, the bent of his genius had been manifest in his boyhood. Before and after he entered college he had enjoyed giving a part of his time, with a few congenial minds, to personal investigations in chemistry and comparative physiology and anatomy. During his Senior year he was a frequent attendant at the lectures of the Harvard Medical School, and treatises upon medicine and surgery constituted a large portion of his desultory reading. The views of his parents and friends coinciding with his own, he became, in October, 1858, a student in the United States Marine Hospital at Chelsea, then under the charge of Dr. Charles A. Davis. Here he remained [435] three years. During this period he devoted himself to the study of his profession with great zeal and diligence. He came regularly to Boston to attend the lectures before the Harvard Medical School, and there received the degree of M. D. in July, 1861. The opportunity which his duties at the hospital presented for exact and certain information was well pleasing to the tendency of his mind, which always inclined toward practical rather than theoretical science. He delighted in close surveillance of disease and remedial experiments, and, though a true student of science in the best sense of the term, was not a great reader of scientific books. His natural self-possession and coolness, his quick sympathy with the sufferings of a patient, and his lively and constant interest in the malady and its development, his reassuring humor and cordial ways, never failed to win the confidence of the rough, warmhearted men to whom he ministered in the hospital, while at the same time they gave full promise of success among the more congenial associations of civil life. His faithfulness and his natural aptitude for the executive management of the institution soon brought him the principal control of its details; and a formal installation in May, 1861, as the assistant physician of the hospital, was but the recognition of services previously performed.
Dr. Richardson was not a mere student. He preferred the business and activity of the world to the cloister of the scholar. The enterprises of industry, no less than the theories of science, interested him; and upon all affairs of public concern he held decided and intelligent views. He was cautious, but independent and fearless in his conclusions, ready, although never forward, in his avowal of them. The dispassionate and reflective mood in which he considered all questions of duty or policy gave a conservative tendency to his opinions; but when fairly persuaded, he followed his convictions zealously and enthusiastically; for cool and impassive as was his brain, his heart was ardent and impulsive.
This contrast of character was exemplified in his conduct during the great civil strife which agitated the nation. Before [436] the appeal to arms he had shown a strong preference for the security of ancient constitutional landmarks over the hazards of reform, and honestly deprecated much of the action of reformers. Undoubtedly, too, in the remembrance of hospitalities which he had received while sojourning with acquaintances at the South, his ingenuous, grateful nature influenced his mind in some degree. But when the sword became the arbiter of the destinies of the country, he eagerly arrayed himself among the active defenders of his established government. His politics never seduced him beyond the sound of Union music; his prejudices never carried him out of the shadow of the Union flag. When war came, his sympathies, guided by his judgment, led him irrepressibly toward the service of his country. Those who knew Richardson were sure that whither his sympathies tended his devoted action would follow.
In August, 1861, he passed the examination of the Naval Board, was commissioned Acting Assistant Surgeon, and soon after joined the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron as Acting Surgeon on board the United States steamer Cambridge. Thus at the commencement of hostilities he became the first volunteer in his position from New England, and the vessel in which he sailed was the first merchant steamer that left Charlestown Navy Yard, refitted as a gunboat.
Dr. Richardson had often declared naval superiority to be the force which would eventually decide the national conflict, and he entered the service in full expectation of active duty and perilous fortunes. But his steamer was assigned to the monotonous though important blockade off Wilmington and Beaufort. Deeply disappointed that his commander had not received a roving commission, Richardson still applied himself cheerfully and assiduously to the requirements of his position. The audacity of the blockade-runners, their familiarity with shifting channels and fickle currents, the speed of their craft, and the deficiency of the national government in both pilots and vessels, demanded untiring vigilance and constant exposure on the part of our crews. Ceaseless quest and toilsome traversing the same ocean wastes was the lot of the patient blockaders, [437] watching and circling, like scattered sea-gulls, along their prescribed line of coast. When the notorious Nashville was waiting at Beaufort, ready to dart from her refuge and speed once more upon her hazardous voyage, tedious days and anxious nights of sentinel watch, anchored at the mouth of one narrow outlet, formed a part of the duty of the Cambridge. The lively, adventurous temperament of her surgeon chafed under this dreary experience. Gladly would he have sought more stirring scenes of duty, but he would not for a moment contemplate the abandonment of the service.
In consequence of exposure to wet and cold during the wintry season, and the restraint from habitual exercise, Dr. Richardson's health failed. These causes, with the bitter disappointment to his aspirations, induced the development of a disease which had proved fatal to his mother and elder brother. Once, when the Cambridge had put into Baltimore for repairs, he visited his home on a brief furlough. Then his decline was painfully apparent. His figure had become thin, gaunt, and bent, and his system was shaken by a racking cough. Friends and physicians besought him to resign his commission and seek the restoration of his health. But this he steadily refused to do, declaring that while the war lasted he should remain in the service of his country; that he could render the best service in her navy, and there he would stay so long as he had strength to perform his duty.
An incident which occurred at this time illustrates at once the changeless sincerity of his friendship and his uncompromising devotion to his government. Recounting one day the formality and coldness of a recent interview between himself and a Southern classmate, an intimate companion of college days, he said, sadly, regretfully, almost bitterly: ‘We parted, old comrades as we were, with bare civility,—and both knew that all which estranged us was the uniform I wore.’ Then in a moment, as if the refluent surge of his patriotic impulses had swept away all memory of personal considerations, he exclaimed spiritedly: ‘But, friends or no friends, our old flag must wave, and wave it shall so long as there's a halyard to hoist it.’ [438] The earnestness and enthusiasm of voice and action showed the determination of the intrepid spirit which was leading his feeble body on to duty, and, alas! to death.
And so, uninfluenced by the arguments and entreaties of his advisers, Dr. Richardson returned to his ship. He well knew the nature of his ailment, and felt that death was threatening him in a form more terrible than ‘an army with banners.’ Yet he did not quail, but went back to his post; back to the inactivity and exposure of his seafaring life; back to the fog and spray of ocean; back to the stormy winds and debilitating climate of the Carolina coast. There, as his friends had anticipated, his condition became daily more alarming. But, steadfast and true to his duties, he would not yield. A few months longer he remained, hoping to render a little assistance to his country. His zeal appeared to gather the strength that his failing vital forces lost, and not until it became manifest, as he sorrowfully said, that he was a hindrance to the cause he would have aided, did he succumb to the irresistible decree.
In July, 1862, he was forced to resign his commission and return home. He was a wreck indeed. His associates hardly recognized in that wan, haggard form their hale companion of former days. In the comforts of home he gained some strength, and then spent the summer months quietly in the salubrious air of Southern New Hampshire. But his health receiving no permanent improvement, he sought a drier climate, and passed the winter and spring in Minnesota. There he obtained small relief. The malady had made too deep an inroad to be stayed by aught that wealth could provide or science suggest. In May, attended by a brother, he returned to his father's house, fully impressed with the certainty of impending dissolution. But the same warm heart and patriot spirit dwelt in his shattered frame. Slowly wasting and dying as the days ran on, he continued constantly happy and sociable. With affectionate invitations he called his friends to his chamber, and in their society the old ardor beamed in his countenance and shone in his converse. When Class Day came, too feeble to participate in the festivities on the College grounds, he assembled a party [439] of his classmates at his own home, and bore himself so bravely that they almost believed his wasted form would rise from its melancholy ruin. Not an impatient syllable escaped from his lips, not a word of regret for his sacrifice. On the contrary, he gloried in the service he had done for his country, and grieved that it was no greater.
But more rapidly and surely, day by day, his decline continued as the summer advanced, and still calmly and firmly he awaited the final catastrophe. As if the very shadows of his friends relieved the gloom of death, one of his latest acts was to obtain the photographs of his College Class. In their silent company he cheered the lonely hours, recalling memories of a brighter and a happier past. To the last he was eager to learn the progress of the war, and enthusiastic in asserting the ultimate success of the national arms. He passed the last day of his life in hopeful discussion of the military movements which three days afterwards culminated in the victory of Gettysburg. In the evening he retired, fell into a deep sleep, and slumbered soundly all night; awoke in the morning languid and weary, conversed a little, then turned and slumbered again, and never more awoke.
And so, on the 1st of July, 1863, emaciated, feeble, and faint, but patient and ‘forlornly brave’ unto the end, died Harry Richardson. In admiration of the fortitude of the patriot, in reverence for the fidelity of the officer, but, more than all, in love of the sterling virtues and endearing qualities of the man, this humble record of his life is placed among the memorials of his classmates and friends. Eulogy his fair memory needs not. All who knew him know the full measure of his worth, and, knowing that, recognize the wealth of the sacrifice, expressed more eloquently to them than labored pages can portray, in his simple epitaph, Pro patria;.
[440]
Thomas Jefferson Spurr.
First Lieutenant 15th Mass. Vols. (Infantry), November 17, 1861; died at Hagerstown, Md., September 27, 1862, of a wound received at Antietam, September 17.Thomas Jefferson Spurr was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, February 2, 1838. His grandfathers were General John Spurr and Dr. Daniel Lamb, of Charlton, Massachusetts; his parents, Colonel Samuel Danforth and Mary Augusta (Lamb) Spurr. Both parents were born in Charlton, but removed to Worcester about 1832 or 1833, having at that time but one child, a daughter. Colonel Spurr pursued in Worcester the business of a merchant until his death, which took place November 3, 1842. Thus in his fifth year Thomas Spurr was left, with his sister, under the sole care of his mother; and it seems well to say here, that perhaps the strongest point in his character was the love which he felt for that mother.
While at school his zeal as a student and his love of athletic sports were equally noticeable. He easily led his class at the Grammar School, and completed, in an unusually short time, his preparation for college, at the Worcester High School. He entered college without ‘conditions,’ and took at first a high place in his Class, ranking among the first eight scholars at the first Junior Exhibition. Mathematics proved to be his favorite study, though he was faithful and successful in all. But at the end of the first term of that year he began to suffer from disease of the eyes, and he could only remain a fortnight during the second term. A voyage to Fayal did no good; and though he rejoined his Class, he was compelled to continue his studies with the aid of a reader. This deprived him of rank, although he was chosen by his classmates a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, for which rank is usually held to be essential. [441]
After graduation he remained at home for a time in ill health; then entered on his law studies, at first with the help of a reader, and afterwards unaided, as his eyes grew better. He studied for a year in the office of Messrs. Devens and Hoar, in Worcester; and in September, 1860, entered the Law School at Cambridge. His desire was to become a scholar and a lawyer.
‘If his life had been spared,’ writes one of those who knew him best,
it would probably have been respected and useful, though not distinguished. His friends might fairly have hoped for him that he would have become one of the leaders of the bar of his native county; that he would have done his full share to promote all the institutions and schemes for the public good which in our community depend on the voluntary public spirit of the citizens; and that his purity, his generosity, his rectitude of purpose, his friendly and unselfish nature, would have won for him an enviable place in the public regard.
He was ambitious of success, but his standard was a very high one. Speaking about an acquaintance just going into business, he said to one of his companions:—
I think he will succeed; but I should not wish to succeed by such means as I feel sure he uses. I never could stoop to the little meannesses and deceits which many business men practise without seeming to dream that they are wrong.
He was in every respect thoroughly manly. Strong of body, he was also self-relying and brave. He had, too, a purity and chastity of nature to which no stain of indelicacy ever attached itself. Of his love for his mother, about which a strong statement has just been made, his brother-in-law writes:—
It manifested itself, not much in expressions of endearment, not at all in any mode which would attract the attention of strangers, but in constantly making her comfort and happiness the predominant consideration in all his plans of life. When he was in College and in the Law School, no week passed without at least two letters from him to her; not letters written as in the performance of a self-imposed task, but full and complete journals of his life and thoughts. This feeling grew stronger with the separation caused by his life in [442] the army. His dying moments were occupied with thoughts for her welfare, and her name was the last word upon his lips.
This strong tie made it peculiarly hard for him to go to the war. His mother was a widow, and he her only surviving child. It was only after a great struggle that he could make up his mind to leave her. He held very strong convictions, and believing that the North was right beyond question in the contest, was fervent in his wishes for its success. He felt, as so many young men felt when the war broke out, that he must do something for his country. He was not moved by the love of glory or adventure, although, being of good constitution, he did not fear hardship. He Went because it was his duty to go, feeling, as other noble spirits felt, that he should be ashamed to look his friends in the face, or hold up his head anywhere, if he did not do his part
When the war broke out he was in Russia, having taken this long voyage, in the spring of 186, in the hope of thus doing something for the benefit of his eyes. The Russian merchants, to whom he and his companion had letters, received their accounts of the state of things in the United States through the most hostile English sources; and what he heard from them, of course, filled him with alarm and dismay. He hastened home, and after a very short time spent in learning the rudiments of military drill, accepted the position of First Lieutenant in Company G of the Fifteenth Massachusetts Regiment, to which post he was recommended by Colonel Devens, who then commanded the regiment in the field. His recommendation was not sought by him, or by any friend of his for him, but was the result of Colonel Devens's personal knowledge of his qualities.
‘His original appointment,’ says his brother-in-law,
had not been approved by his men or the other officers of the regiment; they thinking that the vacancies should have been filled from among those who had gone through the dangers of Ball's Bluff; and if anything in him had made it possible, he would have encountered serious discomfort, if not hostility. But all this feeling soon yielded to his friendly and courteous manners and his thorough and conscientious [443] performance of his duty; and all persons connected with his regiment agree that he was universally beloved by his comrades, both officers and men.
He was for a considerable time the only commissioned officer in his company, and his devotion to it was invariable. When they were stationed for some weeks near Washington, where he had many friends, he resolutely declined all their invitations, with a single exception, saying that his duty required his constant presence with his men. When he found he was too ill to go into action with his company at Malvern Hill, he burst into tears. He went with his regiment to the Peninsula, returned with it, and received his death wound at the battle of Antietam. The closing scenes of his life are best described by his brother-in-law, George Frisbie Hoar, Esq., who was with him in his last hours:—
He joined his regiment in the fall of 1861. I never saw him again until I was summoned to Hagerstown after the battle of Antietam. He was dressing the line of his company, about nine o'clock of the morning of the battle, the regiment being under a severe fire, when his thigh was struck by a minie — ball which shattered the bone. Two of his men came where he lay, and offered to carry him to the rear. He ordered them back to the ranks, and refused all assistance. The place where he lay was a short distance in front of a wood, to which the regiment was almost instantly compelled to retreat. The ground where he fell was not again occupied by our troops until after the battle. He lay on the ground where he fell all of Wednesday and through Wednesday night. On Thursday the enemy occupied the ground. Among them was a college acquaintance and contemporary (whom I believe to have been a Major Hale of South Carolina), who treated him with kindness, caused him to be removed to a farm-yard near by and laid on the ground between two haystacks, and gave him a blanket, which we are glad to preserve. Thomas lay in this farm-yard until Saturday, when the ground was again occupied by our forces, and he was then removed to a hospital. On Monday he was taken to Hagerstown, where his mother and I, with Dr. Sargent, found him on Wednesday evening. Early the next morning, Thursday, he was carefully examined by the surgeons, who were able, by extracting the splinters of bone from his flesh, to relieve the agony which he had suffered [444] since he was wounded, but found his recovery hopeless. He said to me after the examination, “I suppose you will tell me the result when you think it is best.” It would have dishonored that brave soul to keep it back, and I told him the whole truth. He heard it bravely and cheerfully. He said he hoped his company would be satisfied with him, and feel that he had deserved their confidence; that he was not conscious of having had a single thought for himself after the first bullet was fired. He added that he believed he had the confidence of Colonel Kimball. He lay through this day and the next suffering a good deal, and gradually growing weaker, but with his mind perfectly clear and calm. There is too much of a private and personal nature in the conversations of those two days to make it proper to repeat them here. Dr. Sargent, the distinguished physician who kindly and generously left his pressing professional duties at home to give his dying young friend the benefit of his skill, writes: “I shall consider myself as more than compensated for any sacrifice I have made, by the elevating and purifying influences of that death-bed,—the death of the Christian patriot; of the excellent son and brother, whose translation in the clearness of his intellect, and even in the fulness of wisdom, was such as I never before witnessed.”
At about half past 4 on Saturday morning he asked his mother, Do you think I am failing? “ She said, ” Yes. “ He said, While my mind is clear, I should like to pray with you.” He then, in a voice as clear and distinct as his usual voice in health, prayed for a blessing on his friends, thanked God for giving him such a kind mother, for the goodness which had followed him through life, and that he had been enabled to pass the last days of his life surrounded by kind friends, without which they must have been days of terrible anguish. He took leave of each of his friends who were present, and sent kind messages to his near. relatives who were away. He sent his love to Lieutenant Bigelow, a young officer (then Sergeant) of his own regiment, who lay wounded in the same house, and said: “Henry (Lieutenant Bigelow) behaved beautifully. I want General Devens to know it. He ought to have a commission. He is so modest and quiet, that I don't think General Devens knows how much there is in him.” He then spoke to Dr. Sargent, and said: “I have no doubt you have done all you can. I am much obliged to you. I am perfectly satisfied.”
He then called his man Isaiah, and said, I hope I have not been unreasonable with you; “I have tried not to be.” The man [445] burst into tears, and replied, “You have always been mighty good to me, sir.” Thomas then said: “I believe there are no little things I have left unarranged. I should like to have Isaiah ride in the car beside the coffin, so that it shall not be roughly handled. I have tried to do my duty. I hope my example of devotion to my country may not be lost.”
After a slight pause he said: “It may be well for you as surgeons to make a certificate of my death, and send it to Colonel Kimball. His address is, ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Kimball, Fifteenth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, Sedgwick's Division, Washington, District of Columbia.’” He then crossed his hands over his breast, and said, “Now the sooner it is over, the better.”
He then lay for a few hours quietly, giving occasional slight directions for arranging his position, &c., till about nine o'clock, A. M., when he asked for water, which he could not swallow. He then seemed sinking fast. He opened his eyes once more, and said, “Don't feel badly; be of good cheer, mother” ; and in a few minutes quietly breathed his last.
end of Vol. I.
