[378] He occupied every hour of his time in regular and extra drills, and, for six weeks previous to their departure for Newbern, labored incessantly to bring them into a soldierly condition. In this endeavor he met with perfect success, and the appearance of his company was most creditable alike to him and to the men. The record of events subjoined, most of them subsequent to those already narrated, has been kindly furnished for these pages by Captain Charles C. Soule, one of Captain Crane's former playfellows in East Boston, and like himself a graduate of Harvard College, a member of the Forty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, and an officer in the Fifty-fifth; and by Brevet Brigadier-General Alfred S. Hartwell, under whose command Captain Crane served to the moment of his death. Captain Soule's account is as follows:—
Some months after graduation, in 1862, I enlisted in the Forty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, and found there my old friend Crane, a private in Company D. During our nine months campaigns we saw little of each other, as he was for some time a clerk in the Freedman's Bureau at Newbern, and our companies were for a long time separated. On returning to Boston, however, at the expiration of our term of service, we both entered the Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Volunteers. He was first commissioned as a Lieutenant, but gained his captaincy before muster-in, by hard work and soldierly aptitude. We were barracked together in July, 1863, and from that time until his death were rarely separated. It was a pleasure to be with and watch him, square, sturdy, fresh, and handsome soldier that he was, through the desert heats of Folly Island, the toilsome fatigue of the trenches before Wagner, the malarious picket details on marsh and sand-hill, the fervid drills upon the sea-beach, the sickness and weariness of the autumn of 1863, the mingled rest and activity of the succeeding winter, and the toilsome Florida marches of February, 1864. Here we were separated for two months, to meet again in May, when he recounted in glowing terms his adventures at Pilatka, among the orange-groves and flowers of Central Florida. With the regiment, sullen, turbulent, and mutinous at the neglect of government to give them their just pay, we returned to our
