THE DEATH OF COLONEL ELLSWORTH.
On his return to Illinois he made the acquaintance of Abraham Lincoln, and gained at once his friendship and esteem. He entered his office in Springfield ostensibly as a law student; but Mr. Lincoln was then a candidate for the Presidency, and Ellsworth read very little law that autumn. He made some Republican speeches in the country towns about Springfield, bright, witty, and good-natured. But his mind was full of a project which he hoped to accomplish by the aid of Mr. Lincoln—no less than the establishment in the War Department of a bureau of militia, by which the entire militia system of the United States should be concentrated, systematized, and made efficient: an enormous undertaking for a boy of twenty-three; but his plans were clear, definite, and comprehensive.
THE MARSHALL HOUSE, ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA, IN WHICH COLONEL ELLSWORTH WAS KILLED.
From a photograph owned by Bryan, Taylor & Co., publishers, New York, and reproduced here by their permission.
After Mr. Lincoln's election Ellsworth accompanied him to Washington. As a preliminary step towards placing him in charge of a bureau of militia, the President gave him a commission as a lieutenant in the army. Shortly afterward he fell seriously ill with the measles; and before he was thoroughly convalescent, the guns about Sumter opened the Civil War. There had been much doubt in many minds as to the loyalty of the people in case of actual war. Ellsworth never had doubted it. He said to me as I sat by his bedside: "You know I have a great work to do, to which my life is pledged; I am the only earthly stay of my parents; there is a young woman whose happiness I regard as dearer than my own; yet I could ask no better death than to fall next week before Sumter. I am not better than other men. You will find that patriotism is not dead, even if it sleeps." When the news came that South Carolina had begun the war, he did not wait an instant. He threw up his commission in the regulars, took all the money we both had, which was not much, and thus insufficiently equipped, started for New York, and raised, with incredible celerity, the New York Zouaves, a regiment eleven hundred strong.
This unique organization filled so large a space in the public mind while Ellsworth commanded it that it seems hard to realize that its history with him is only a matter of a few weeks. He brought his regiment down to Washington early in May, arriving thin as a greyhound, his voice hoarse with drilling; but flushed and happy to know he was busy and useful at last.
There was no limit to the hopes and the confidence of his friends. We had grown to admire and respect him for his high and honorable character, his thorough knowledge of his business, ardent zeal for the flag he followed, and his extraordinary courage and energy. We fully expected, relying upon his splendid talents and the President's affectionate regard, that his first battle would make him a brigadier-general, and that his second would give him a division. There was no limit to the glory and usefulness we anticipated for him. How soon all these hopes were dust and ashes!
