His spirit attached him to military life. He was early promoted to the rank of major-general. This experience turned to his account, when, during the trying years of our late war, in 1861 he was appointed adjutant-general, and subsequently provost-marshal, of New Hampshire. At this time his son Daniel E. Colby was appointed adjutant-general. The governor always alluded to this service as the saddest of his life,—to encourage and send forth to almost certain death the young men of the state whom he loved as a father. This was his last prominent office in state affairs; and so faithful was he in it, that, although nearly seventy years of age, he went often to the front to acquaint himself with the condition of the soldiers and share their hardships with them.
In 1850 he received from Dartmouth College the degree of A. M., and the same year was chosen one of the trustees of the college. He was interested in the best possible educational advantages of the young, and in every way promoted them. Through his energy, in a great degree, the academy in New London has arisen to its present flourishing condition. His son-in-law, James B. Colgate, of New York, has generously endowed it, and aided in placing it upon a solid basis. The trustees have conferred upon it the name of Colby Academy.
Gov. Colby's second wife, Eliza Messenger Richardson, of Boston, by her accomplishments and true Christian character embellished and enlivened his declining years, while the devotion of his children cheered the seclusion of his last days.
Said an illiterate woman, to strangers discussing his character in the cars, "Governor Colby carries the very demon of honesty in his face."
It was his unfailing sense of duty and trust in God that won for him the vast respect of the public, and esteem of a large circle of private friends.
Sunday evening, July 20, 1875, he died, peacefully, in the home of his father, at the age of eighty years, and was buried in the cemetery of his native town, by the side of his parents.
Very Truly
Wm E. Chandler
April 1882