his men and inspiring them with enthusiastic confidence in him. Poor fellow! I saw them crying in the ranks as they stood presenting arms to his body when it was brought back from over the river.

"As a man, too, he was singularly free from faults. To his soldierly traits and accomplishments he added the rarer virtues of Christian morality. He was a steadfast example of modesty, purity, and temperance; yet at the same time his tent was one of the cheeriest places to spend an evening in that the army afforded; for he was the most genial entertainer, and knew the art of good-fellowship to perfection. His generosity and charity were of the kind that never faileth.' I recall an instance illustrative of this, which I was told by those who witnessed it.

"At one time a captain of his regiment, mistakenly conceiving himself injured by the Colonel in some official transaction, for several weeks cherished and expressed a bitter spirit toward him, and avoided meeting him as much as he could. Meanwhile the Colonel took no notice of the matter, but invariably spoke of and to the captain, without manifesting displeasure with his conduct, though its injustice must have deeply offended him.

"Finally, however, it was made known to the captain in some way that he had been entirely wrong in the case, and going to the Colonel in person, he acknowledged his fault and made a full apology. It was a scene not easily to be forgotten, when that same evening, at the customary meeting of the regimental officers for training in tactics, the Colonel made the reconciliation public, by taking the captain's hand before them all, and openly declaring his satisfaction in the fact that they were friends again. This same officer was also fatally wounded at Chancellorsville, and it was commonly reported after the battle that he was struck while stooping over the Colonel, having been the first to reach his side after he fell."

Chaplain Patterson took from Colonel Stevens's neck a locket of his wife's hair, and sent it to her, with his papers. The body, dressed in uniform, was wrapped in a blanket, and laid in the ground near the old Wilderness Church. It was soon after exhumed by one of our surgeons, placed in a rude coffin made from a door of the church, and delivered to the

father at the ford. After resting awhile in the Governor's room in New York City, it was transported to Dunkirk, where it lay in state, under guard, till the day of the funeral.

All classes and ages assembled to do honor to him whose sympathetic nature, kindly to all, was in turn beloved by all. Resolutions of honor had been previously adopted by the officers of the Excelsior Brigade, by the Supreme Court, by the members of the bar in that county, and by the citizens of Dunkirk. And just before the burial, the grim Arsenal was the scene of a most touching ceremony. The infant son of Colonel Stevens, held over his lifeless body, was baptized with the customary forms of the Church, assigned the name of his father, and sanctified to the cause in defence of which that father had sacrificed this world's ease and successes, friends, wife, child, and the immeasurable opportunities of life.

1849.

EVERETT PEABODY.

Colonel 13th (afterwards 25th) Missouri Vols. (Infantry), September 1, 1861; killed at Pittsburg Landing, Tenn., April 6, 1862.

THE

HE Rev. William B. O. Peabody, D. D., of Springfield, Massachusetts, was the son of Judge Oliver Peabody of Exeter, New Hampshire, and was born July 7, 1799. He married Eliza Amelia White, daughter of Major Moses White, who served in the army through the Revolution. Rev. Dr. Peabody was settled in Springfield, Massachusetts, in October, 1820, and remained with the same parish until his death, which took place in 1847. He was well known as a preacher, essayist, naturalist, and poet, and was universally respected for the pure and elevated character of his daily life. Those who remember the Springfield of forty years ago speak of Mrs. Peabody as lovely in person and manners, full of energy and public spirit, and taking a leading part in all the schemes for doing good which were in vogue at that day.

Their eldest son, Howard, died in infancy. The rest of the family consisted of one daughter and four sons, of whom Everett was the oldest. He was born in Springfield, June 13, 1830. There is little to be told about his childhood. He was a tall, athletic boy, fond of outdoor sports, and excelling in them. He was particularly skilful as a swimmer. Once, while swimming across the Connecticut, at Springfield, he was taken with the cramp when half-way across. One of his schoolmates swam out to him with a plank, by the aid of which Everett reached the shore. It is a curious circumstance that this schoolmate (since dead) was in the Rebel army at Shiloh, and afterwards said that

as he was marching into the Federal camp he saw Everett's body on the field, and recognized it at once.

Everett was remarkably quick to learn, and was regarded as the most gifted boy of the family. He was fond of poetry, and would repeat page after page of Scott's poems, which were great favorites with the household. His father had a strong desire to send him to college, but had not the means to do so. Assistance was at last volunteered in such a manner that he could not refuse; and in 1845 Everett entered as Freshman in Burlington College, Vermont. He remained there but a year, and in 1846 entered Harvard as Sophomore.

At first his standing was very high, so that one of his letters expresses the hope that he shall prove to be among the first eight scholars; and although he afterward seemed to care less about his rank, he had a part at Commencement when he graduated. He was fond of fun and frolic, and was rusticated, in 1847, for helping to make a bonfire on University steps. He was sent home to study with his father, and was at home when his father died, his mother and only sister having died three years before. He finished the term of his suspension in the family of Rev. Rufus Ellis, then of Northampton.

While in college he never was a plodding student, but learned with singular ease and facility. I remember his asking me once to hear him recite a lesson of several pages, which he had been studying for half an hour; and I was surprised to hear him give the substance of page after page, having evidently fixed in his mind every point of importance in the lesson clearly and distinctly, while he troubled himself little about the precise phraseology. He had at this time acquired a good deal of facility in French and German, and had a great deal of miscellaneous information. His wit and love of fun made him a favorite companion at social entertainments; and he enjoyed such things himself, although not to excess.

During his last winter vacation, he made a visit to Philadelphia and Washington, and in the latter place gained an aequaintance who seemed to fascinate him a good deal, — Colonel Baker, then in Congress, and subsequently killed at Ball's Bluff. Colonel Baker confided to the young man a project of taking a party of fifty or a hundred men to California, for two years' service in the mines. Everett was delighted with the prospect of adventure involved in such an enterprise, and wrote home to his friends for aid and advice; but the project ultimately failed.

He graduated in 1849, and at once found employment at engineering on the Boston Water-Works, under Mr. Chesborough. Soon afterwards, he obtained a leveller's place on the Cleveland, Columbus, and Ashtabula Railroad. He thus describes his first experience of outdoor life:

"February 3, 1850.

"Thank Heaven, I can support myself now; and if it is a pittance I live on, it is at least earned by my own right arm, which does not snarl and tell me I am extravagant, whenever I ask it therefor. And so au diable with money matters. Well, it's glorious, after all, going about in these old woods, with trees which seem to have borne the brunt of the tempests for a thousand years. Huge shafts, with buttress-like roots, and a flowering of Nature's own mosaic. Though our feet are wet and our hands cold, though we anticipate the sun and work like hodmen, there's a luxury in it which I can feel, but not analyze. You might not think it poetry, but it is, this wading through the swamps watching the clouds. We have nothing at the East to compare with these glorious clouds. We left off work last night about a mile and a half from the tavern where we now are. I started, along with about six of the party, and trudged through the swamp for a mile and a half or two miles, and then found ourselves four miles from the tavern, in a driving snow-storm, dark, and the walking not fit to be called walking. We came home very much fatigued."

This was the beginning of a Western residence of more than ten years, with but a few short visits to the home of