This text is part of:
[380] books and his retiring manners prevented his forming many intimate acquaintances; but he was respected by all his associates and classmates for his fine intellectual and moral qualities. On leaving college he was engaged as an assistant in the private classical school of Mr. E. S. Dixwell in Boston. Whilst occupying this position, and afterwards in the office of Messrs. J. J. Clarke and Lemuel Shaw, he studied law. He passed the usual examination and was admitted to the Suffolk Bar on the very day when he left home as a soldier. In the summer of 1860, to recruit his health, he went with a small party on an excursion which was to have been continued for several months in the Southwest. An unusual drought in that part of the country compelled him to give up the plan when only partially executed, and he returned alone on horseback, visiting the Adirondack regions on his way back. The first years of his maturity found him a strong, well-balanced, self-contained man, able to bear and ready to help others bear all the shocks of life, with a rich, warm nature, but one expressing itself in deeds rather than in words,—full of tenderness and care for others, and quick of indignation against anything he felt to be unjust, inhuman, or wrong. On the breaking out of the war, he joined a drill-club; but it was not until after the disastrous battle of Bull Run that he fully determined to enter the army. With him, to resolve was to act; and he enlisted as a private in the First Company of Sharpshooters from his native State, in August, 1861. He had no acquaintances in the company, and joined it against the remonstrances of his friends, who felt that he was equal to and ought to take a higher position. He was not afterwards wholly satisfied with the step he had taken; yet the considerations which decided his course were both characteristic and honorable, inasmuch as they prompted him simply to take the place in which he thought he could be the most useful. He was very near-sighted, and constantly used glasses; was an expert with the rifle, and capable of enduring fatigue; was doubtful of his military ability to act as an officer, and averse
Sever and Francis, 1866.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.