1841.

CHARLES FRANCIS SIMMONS.

First Lieutenant and Adjutant 14th Mass. Vols. (Infantry), July 15, 1861; discharged, on resignation, January 24, 1862; lost at sea, February, 1862, on a voyage to Cuba, undertaken on account of a fatal disease of the lungs contracted in the service.

T the Freshman examination of Harvard University, in 1837, I well remember to have observed, among my future classmates, a tall, erect young man, of demure aspect and rather sedate motions, with blue eyes and closely curling fair hair, who was pointed out by some one as Charles Simmons, with the prediction that he would be our first scholar. He came with an intellectual prestige, based less upon his own abilities than upon those of his two elder brothers, both of whom had been accounted remarkable for gifts and culture. Such a reputation is often rather discouraging to a younger brother, if it demands from him a career in any degree alien to his temperament. Perhaps it was so with Charles Simmons. He certainly seemed rather to shrink from the path of college ambition than to pursue it; and his academical career, though respectable, was never brilliant.

He was the youngest son of William and Lucia (Hammatt) Simmons, and was born January 27th, 1821. His mother was a native of Plymouth, Massachusetts; his father was also born in Plymouth County, and was for many years one of the Justices of the Police Court in Boston. Charles was fitted for college partly at the Boston Latin School, and partly by his brother, Rev. George Frederick Sim

mons.

In college I had never much personal acquaintance with him, but vividly remember the implied contrast of his grave

manners and fastidious air with the witty sayings and mirthful feats attributed to him by his few intimates. This partial antagonism had indeed a peculiar zest for the whole class, when exhibited in his public declamations, which were rather noted among us; since he usually selected some serio-comic passage, which was recited with the gravest face and the most irresistible humor.

He was shy, sensitive, proud, and reticent. But he was exceedingly faithful to his friends and to his avowed principles, manifesting in this way a sort of chivalrous spirit, which indeed brought upon him his only serious college censure. In some undergraduate disaffection, in our Senior year, he stepped forward to take a conspicuous position, from which the other leaders shrank, and he was deprived of his degree in consequence. It was bestowed upon him fourteen years after, by the earnest petition of his class

mates.

He afterwards studied law with David A. Simmons, Esq., a relative, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar. For the rest of his life he had an office in Boston, with a moderate chamber practice. But apparently the same qualities which had impaired his collegiate success followed him into professional life also. Over-sensitiveness, ill health, and perhaps some want of resolute purpose, always kept him back, while other men more fortunately constituted won an easy

success.

He remained unmarried, and rather shunned general society as well as public affairs. Yet he had excellent judgment in practical matters, and held decided views on the questions of the day; having become, for instance, strongly anti-slavery in his convictions. But he seemed by temperament a scholar and a critic rather than a man of affairs. He was especially a student of the natural sciences; had much knowledge of music, and a rare taste in all matters of art. His love of nature grew with his years; and his chief pleasures, beyond books and music, were found in

country life, among "God's fresh creations," as he himself said. Never demonstrative in manner, he became less so as he grew older, and to strangers seemed cold and uninterested. He was reserved even with his intimates; and it was, as I am assured, a matter of surprise to his nearest friends when they heard of his enlistment, through his own letters from Fort Warren.

The attack on our troops in Baltimore had, indeed, seemed to excite him very much. He had described hearing the departure of the regiments from Boston, in the middle of the night, two days after; was very much impressed by it, and he said then that, if he had not from boyhood "despised soldiering," and so did not know the use of a gun, — he should have gone off with some of the threemonths men. So he joined two different classes in Boston, for the purpose of drilling, and said that when he knew enough he should go. But he went at last very suddenly, in July, without having time to arrange his business affairs; for Colonel William B. Greene, who had been his friend for several years, came home from Paris to take part in the war, and finding this recruit ready, made him his Adjutant at once in the Fourteenth Massachusetts.

His letters describe his interview with Colonel Greene, and his enlistment.

FORT WARREN, July 26, 1861.

"Then the first day I saw him, the day he landed, - I told him I would go into the service myself, under him. Two days after he sent to me to know if I was serious' in what I had said. And the result was that he took me, green as I was; and says, after four weeks' trial, that he does not repent of his choice, and that he thought he could make a soldier of me then, and is sure of it now. So I am entirely satisfied. And if I should come to grief, be assured it will be with a light conscience; for I have no one dependent upon me, and have not been troubled with any conflict of duties."

In this same letter he thus speaks of the soldiers:

“Our regiment,' the Fourteenth Massachusetts, or 'Essex,' has as good material as ever marched out of the old Commonwealth. All from Essex County. Stalwart, sober men, all of them. Whether we succeed in drilling them to form squares, direct and oblique, or not, during the short ten days we have left, I will warrant every company of them to make face against cavalry, even in line, before turning their backs and taking to the woods. If they allow themselves to be 'cut up,' without killing man for man, call me no prophet."

The change in his mode of life seemed to transform his whole nature. This shy, contemplative, lonely, middleaged man, for whose fastidious nature the daily intercourse of Court Street had been far too rough and harassing, entered with a sort of enthusiastic delight upon the duties of a regimental adjutant, - perhaps the most wearing and vexatious functions which the army has to offer, and such as seem to demand all the energy of youth and all the equanimity of health.

His first letters from camp were very ardent. The details of camp life, the noise and routine of military affairs, which before had appeared either absurd or tedious, now excited and interested him very much. The desire, as he expressed it, "to strike a blow for the old flag we were all born under," seemed to make him forget all annoyances; and he worked there, and through his whole military life, as he perhaps had never worked before. And though it ended in disappointment, both for the regiment and for himself, yet his duty was done with his accustomed thoroughness, as his letters show.

"FORT ALBANY, VA., August 19, 1861. "Here we are at last, within four miles of the Rebels. We received sudden orders yesterday morning, at our camp at Meridian Hill, to strike our camp, and march with our whole baggage and equipage across the famous Long Bridge to this height by three o'clock, which was morally impossible; but we got here by five

o'clock, with a mile of regimental wagons and ambulances bringing up the rear of our long line of men.

"The regiment really made a fine appearance going through Washington, and did honor to old Essex.

"We have been half drowned with rain ever since leaving home; and this last experience of last night makes the climax of everything disgusting you can conceive of, to those brought up as white men and Christians. The mud is so loathsome and universal, that the men are 'down' at last, and look sober to-day. These Essex men are splendid fellows for soldiers, tough, cheerful, and persevering. They have seen nothing but the roughest side of soldiers' life ever since coming South, and yet the regiment is in a state of perfect subordination and good feeling. In striking our camp yesterday, all our tents but one fell at the tap of the drum, pretty well for raw troops. I have to detail a strong guard every day to protect the mansion (in our immediate neighborhood) of a malignant Secessionist, which would be burnt in five minutes after removal of the guard, not a specially agreeable interposition to a man of my ultraism."

"FORT ALBANY, September 14.

"This stationary life in camp, without any security that we shall be here to-morrow, and without any movement or incident, is the pure prose of war. We have all the solid discomforts which can be combined in camp life. The most sanguinary fighting would be a welcome change, — I had almost said another Bull Run, which was rather more disgraceful than bloody, but still exciting. The Colonel tries to reconcile me with our present inaction, or rather want of action, for we have work enough, by assuring me that our previous hardships are nothing' to those we shall have to face in the field. But I have no faith in it. I believe that no possibility of camp life in the field can take us by surprise. In fact, I suspect it is a general aspiration in the regiment, not confined to 'field and staff,' to take our chance of some hard knocks from the Rebels, rather than die of mildew in these wretched fens near the Potomac."

"FORT ALBANY, October 3.

"Your pleasant picture of placid, rural Concord takes me miles away from this war-blasted scene, and brings to my mind the murmuring pines and elms of the Avenue and North Branch, and the