The last three or four days of the month I spent in going the rounds of the hospitals attending to special cases; and ere its close many a noble heart ceased to beat, many a manly form was cold in death, and many a newly-made grave might have been seen in the Soldier’s Cemetery; yet comparatively few of the Michigan soldiers in the hospitals I visited died—only four, I believe—two of the Eighth, one of the Sixteenth Infantry, and poor William Eaton, of the First Cavalry, who lingered beyond all expectation. He was the first Michigan soldier that died to whom my attention was particularly called, and for whom I had felt a special interest, and his death seemed like taking another from our already broken circle.
“Warrior, rest! thy toils are ended,
Life’s last fearful strife is o’er;
Clarion-calls with death-notes blended
Shall disturb thine ear no more.
“Peaceful is thy dreamless slumber;
Peaceful, but how cold and stern;
Thou hast joined that silent number,
In the land whence none return.”