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He left us in the Summer term of Sophomore year, enlisting on June 24, 1862, for three months, in
Company B, Seventh Squadron, Rhode Island Cavalry. He was one of the company who
captured the famous Confederate spy Belle Boyd. He was mustered out of the Service on
September 26, 1862, the expiration of the term for which he enlisted. He seemed
especially to have enjoyed the venturesome part of a soldier's life, and on January 23,
1863, he. again enlisted for three years, in Company H of the Second Regiment, Rhode
Island Cavalry. He fully intended, if his life was spared, to resume his studies at the close
of that time. Very soon after his enlistment, he was made Sergeant-Major, with the
promise of further promotion, which he never lived to see. He was taken sick with a
fever while his regiment was on the way to Port Hudson, and was sent to the hospital at
Brashear City, now Morgan City, Louisiana, where he died June 6, 1863. That was the
message sent to his friends by the adjutant of his regiment, and that is all they have ever
been able to learn in regard to him. The city was captured by the Confederates soon
after, and all the hospital records were destroyed.
Every means have been employed to learn particulars regarding him after he left
his regiment, but all without avail. The absence of facts regarding his death has been
greatly lamented by his friends. The mystery surrounding it has been an especially great
grief to his mother, who depended upon him as few mothers do upon a son. He was a
very kind son and brother, always manly beyond his years.
The Principal of the Seminary where he fitted for college wrote to President Lord,
under the date of February 26, 1861, as follows: "* * * he is a young man of excellent
character and fine abilities, and if admitted, I've no doubt will soon rise to be among the
best in his class. I have found but few better or more faithful boys in a course of more
than twenty years of teaching. He has always been ambitious of doing his duty."
Source: "Memorialia
of the Class of '64 in Dartmouth College" complied by
John C. Webster, Shepard & Johnston, Printers, 1884,
Chicago
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