The sentinel was released, and his heart was filled with lasting gratitude. When the campaign opened in the spring, the young man was with his regiment near Yorktown, Virginia. They were ordered to attack a fort, and he fell at the first volley of the enemy.
His comrades caught him up and carried him bleeding and dying from the field. “Bear witness,” he said, “that I have proved myself not a coward, and I am not afraid to die.” Then, making a last effort, with his dying breath he prayed for Abraham Lincoln.
THE COLONEL OF THE ZOUAVES
BY NOAH BROOKS (ADAPTED)
Among those who accompanied Mr. Lincoln, the President-elect, on his journey from Illinois to the national capital, was Elmer E. Ellsworth, a young man who had been employed in the law office of Lincoln and Herndon, Springfield.
He was a brave, handsome, and impetuous youth, and was among the first to offer his services to the President in defense of the Union, as soon as the mutterings of war were heard.
Before the war he had organized a company of Zouaves from the Chicago firemen, and had delighted and astonished many people by the exhibitions of their skill in the evolutions through which they were put while visiting some chief cities of the Republic.
Now, being commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Army, he went to New York and organized from the firemen of that city a similar regiment, known as the Eleventh New York.
Colonel Ellsworth's Zouaves, on the evening of May 23, were sent with a considerable force to occupy the heights overlooking Washington and Alexandria, on the banks of the Potomac, opposite the national capital.