THE CAPTURED SCOUT
OF THE
ARMY OF THE JAMES.
THE DEAD OF THE ARMY OF THE JAMES.
ON the evening of Wednesday, Sept. 2, 1868, some two hundred ex-officers of the "Army of the James" were assembled in the dining-hall of the St. James Hotel, Boston, in delightful re-union, as comrades of camp and campaigning. The writer of this little sketch was called on to say words in tribute to "The memory of the honored dead" of that army, and in consequence the tenderest recollections were revived of those who fell in the long years of war with rebellion.
Hardly had the writer reached his home from that re-union, before word came to him of the death of another soldier of the Army of the James; one whose varied and thrilling experiences, peculiar services to the Union cause, and noble Christian character entitled him to special mention, as a noteworthy and satisfactory illustration of the bravery and worth of the enlisted men of that army. While on his death-bed, this young soldier had sent particular request to one who, as an army chaplain in his brigade, had known something of his personal character and history, to preach a commemorative discourse on the occasion of his decease. Thus called on again to pay just tribute to the memory of the dead of the Army of the James, the writer prepared this sketch as part of a sermon preached at Warwick, Mass., Sept. 13, 1868, and now gives it to the public at the request of those who, knowing something of the young soldier's history, naturally desire to know more.
COST OF THE SLAVEHOLDERS' WAR.
Others than his immediate comrades have reasons for an interest in this young soldier, and should join in honoring his memory, and recalling at his death the record of his army life. Dying though he did among the green hills of Massachusetts, in these days of palmy peace, with parents and sisters ministering to his comfort, as he wasted slowly before their loving gaze, he was really one of the dead of the war, one of the starved of Andersonville. His vigorous constitution was broken down under the malarial damps of the sea-island death-swamps, beneath the smiting sun-glare of the Carolina sands, in the fatigues of dreary marches and anxious picket service, and amid the excitements of battle and the crushing responsibilities of a mission of imminent peril within the lines of the enemy. His young life was really worn away, not here at the North, but there at the South, in dragging months of imprisonment, in teeming hours of attempted escape, in rapid flight from the swift pursuers, and in the death-clutch with the fierce-fanged hounds in the swamp of despair!
And he was but one of many,—a representative youth; one out of thirteen thousand martyrs of Andersonville,—