1842.
William Logan Rodman.
Major 38th Mass. Vols. (Infantry), August 19, 1862; Lieutenant-Colonel December 4, 1862; killed at Port Hudson, La., May 27, 1863.the many Boston and Cambridge boys who met thirty years ago at the boarding-school of that fine old-fashioned Englishman, William Wells, in the near neighborhood of Harvard University, can hardly have forgotten one schoolmate who came among us from New Bedford, in the year 1836. He was a large, heavy, rather unwieldy boy, of great personal strength and rather indolent habit, who possessed, by reason of physical proportions, a kind of brevet seniority among his compeers. Neither genius nor the reverse, neither eminent saint nor prominent sinner, he earned a permanent sobriquet from his size, and left behind him chiefly an impression of inertia, of good nature, and of good sense. But those whose acquaintance with him continued through college life will also remember how that cumbrous frame gradually developed into a very powerful and commanding manhood; that rather heavy face into a handsome and noble aspect; and that rather indolent mind into clearness and vigor, though perhaps never into brilliancy. He became, in due time, and in his own way, a man of society, of culture, and of taste. But he studied no profession, developed no marked ambition. He was satisfied, perhaps too easily, with the competence and the pleasant surroundings to which he was born; and, retiring after graduation to his native city, he passed twenty years so quietly that his name was hardly mentioned beyond it, save among a small inner circle of his early companions, until the war called him forth for duty and for death. William Logan Rodman was the only son of Benjamin and Susan (Morgan) Rodman, and was born March 7, 1822. He was descended, on the mother's side, from a prominent family
