The body of General Warren was identified the following day, and the ball which terminated his life was taken from the body by Mr. Savage, an officer in the Custom House, and was carried to England. Several years afterward it was returned to the family, in whose possession it now remains. The remains of Warren were buried on the spot where he fell, but the following year they were removed to a tomb in the Tremont Cemetery, and subsequently deposited in the family vault, under St. Paul’s church, Boston.
In the official account of the battle of Bunker’s Hill, the character of Warren is noticed in the most honorable terms.
“Among the dead,” says the account, “was Major General Joseph Warren, a man whose memory will be endeared to his countrymen, and to the worthy in every part and age of the world, so long as virtue and valor shall be esteemed among mankind.”
General Warren left four children, two sons and two daughters. Within a year after the death of Warren, it was resolved, by the Continental Congress, that his eldest son should be educated at the public expense; and two or three years after, it was further resolved, that public provision should be made for the education of the other children, until the youngest should be of age. The sons both died in their minority; the daughters were distinguished for their amiable qualities, and personal beauty; one of them married the late General Arnold Welles, of Boston, and died without issue; the other married Richard Newcomb, of Greenfield, Massachusetts, whose children are the only surviving descendants of the hero of Bunker’s Hill. In addition to the public provision made by the Congress for the children of Warren, it was also resolved by that body that a monument should be erected, at the national expense, to his memory. This resolution, like similar ones to the other officers of the Revolution, remains as yet without effect. Such are the only particulars of interest that are known of the brief and brilliant career of Joseph Warren. As Mr. Everett remarks:
“To Warren, distinguished as he was among the bravest, wisest and best of the patriotic band, was assigned, in the inscrutable degrees of Providence, the crown of early martyrdom. It becomes not human frailty to murmur at the will of heaven; and however painful may be the first emotions excited in the mind by the sudden and premature eclipse of so much talent and virtue, it may perhaps well be doubted, whether by any course of active service in a civil or military department, General Warren could have rendered more essential benefit to the country, or to the cause of liberty throughout the world, than by the single act of heroic self-devotion which closed his existence. The blood of martyrs has been in all ages the nourishing rain of religion and liberty. The friends of liberty from all countries and throughout all time, as they kneel upon the spot that was moistened by the blood of Warren, will find their better feelings strengthened by the influence of the place, and will gather from it a virtue in some degree allied to his own.”
THE DREAM OF YOUTH.
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BY WM. P. BRANNAN.
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