Ellsworth led an advance upon Alexandria on the evening of May 23d. The rebels escaped. The next morning as usual, the secession flag floated tauntingly from the Mansion House. Ellsworth's blood was up and he resolved to take down that flag and hoist the stars and stripes with his own hand. Taking with him two soldiers he accomplished his purpose.
Returning by a spiral stairway, he carried the rebel flag in his hand. The proprietor of the hotel came out from a place of concealment, placed his double-barreled shot-gun nearly against Ellsworth's body and fired. The assassin was instantly shot down by private Brownell, but Ellsworth was dead. The rebel flag was dyed in the blood of his heart. Underneath his uniform was found a gold medal with the inscription, non solum nobus, sed pro patria,—"not for ourselves only but for our country."
The body was removed to Washington City, where it lay in state in the East room until burial. The President, amid all the cares of that busy period, found time to sit many hours beside the body of his friend, and at the burial he appeared as chief mourner.
This murder fired the northern imagination to a degree. The picture of Ellsworth's handsome face was everywhere familiar. It is an easy guess that hundreds, not to say thousands, of babies were named for him within the next few months, and to this day the name Elmer, starting from him, has not ceased to be a favorite.
A little more than two weeks later, on the 10th of June, the first real battle of the war was fought. This was at Big Bethel, Va., near Fortress Monroe. The loss was not great as compared with later battles, being only eighteen killed and fifty-three wounded. But among the killed was Major Theodore Winthrop, a young man barely thirty-three years of age. He was the author of several successful books, and gave promise of a brilliant literary career. He was a true patriot and a gallant soldier. His death was the source of sorrow and anger to many thousands of readers of "Cecil Dreeme."
It was two months later that General Lyon fell at Wilson's Creek, Mo. He had been conspicuous for his services to the country before this time. The battle was bitterly contested, and Lyon showed himself a veritable hero in personal courage and gallantry. After three wounds he was still fighting on, leading personally a bayonet charge when he was shot for the fourth time, fell from his horse, and died immediately. It was the gallant death of a brave soldier, that touches the heart and fires the imagination.
These deaths, and such as these, occurring at the beginning of the war, taught the country the painful truth that the cost of war is deeper than can possibly be reckoned. The dollars of money expended, and the lists of the numbers killed, wounded, and missing, do not fully express the profound sorrow, the irreparable loss.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE WAR HERE TO STAY.
Lincoln was a man of great sagacity. Few statesmen have had keener insight, or more true and sane foresight. While cordially recognizing this, it is not necessary to claim for him infallibility. He had his disappointments.