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Henry Livermore Abbott.
Second Lieutenant 20th Mass. Vols. (Infantry), July 10, 1861; first Lieutenant, November 8, 1861; Captain, August 29, 1862; Major, May 1, 1863; Brevet Colonel, May 6, 1864; Brevet Brigadier-General, May 6, 1864; killed at the battle of the Wilderness, May 6, 1864.Henry Livermore Abbott, Major of the Twentieth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers, fell, mortally wounded, while commanding his regiment, in the battle of the Wilderness, on Friday, May 6, 1864, at the age of twenty-two years. He was the second son of Hon. Josiah G. and Caroline (Livermore) Abbott, and was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, on the 21st of January, 1842. He entered Harvard College at an unusually early age, and graduated in the Class of 1860. While in College he gave a good deal of time to athletic sports, both in the open air and in the Gymnasium, and to miscellaneous reading. His mind was already of an active, inquiring turn, and he gave occasional proofs of such acuteness of intellect, and of such capacity in argument, combined with modesty and firmness, as led his classmates to entertain high expectations of his future distinction. His cheerful, amiable, and genial disposition, and his frank and courteous manners, made him a very general favorite. He began to study law as soon as he left college, and he was so occupied when the Rebellion broke out in the spring of 1861. He immediately joined the Fourth Battalion of Infantry, Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, as a private, and served with it for one month at Fort Independence, Boston Harbor. In July of the same year he was commissioned as Second Lieutenant upon the recommendation of Captain Bartlett, and attached to his company of the Twentieth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers. While the regiment was in camp in Readville, Massachusetts, his rapid progress in learning his duties, and his extreme assiduity in performing
