Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Harvard Memorial Biographies

In December, Sergeant Hickling took part in the ten-days' expedition to destroy the railroad-bridge at Gouldsboroa, during which he was engaged in four battles and marched one hundred and eighty miles. He was well during the whole march, but was attacked with typho-malarial fever a week after his return. During this week most of the sergeants in the company had been off duty, and an unusual severity of labor had devolved on him.

He remained eight days in the camp hospital, and was then removed to the Stanley Hospital in Newbern. His father reached him a fortnight later, and found him wholly prostrated by the fever, and with little prospect of recovery. A month later than this it was the opinion of the surgeons that he could not live in that atmosphere another week, while it was yet very doubtful if he could bear the transportation to his Northern home. He was, however, placed on board the small steamer Ellen Terry, on the 17th of February, under charge of his father and of Dr. J. Ware of Milton.

After a rough and comfortless wintry passage, he reached home on the 22d of February, and was borne into the house on his mattress, during a snow-storm, when the mercury stood at 8°. He revived a little the next day, but sank again, and for seven days lay wholly unconscious. In about four months, however, he could be lifted from his bed, and could sit up for a few hours each day. He slowly improved, but found himself afflicted with an utter helplessness of the lower limbs, pronounced by Dr. Brown-Sequard to be Paraplegia, or paralysis of the spinal cord, resulting from the fever.

For the four years following he remained in much the same condition, and was chiefly dependent for locomotion upon a wheeled chair. During two years of this time he remained at his own home, but was removed, during the summer of 1865, to the shores of Buzzard's Bay, in hopes of benefit from sea air. This failing, he embarked with his father on board the bark Fredonia for Fayal, October 20, 1865, and remained on that island till May 1, 1867, with one short visit to St. Michael's. He then returned to Boston, and continued to improve