barrels. Then there are various packages for the hospital, and the donors will have to be written to and told separately that they have selected just the article we needed."

"

WASHINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA, March 16. "On the 14th, at evening, orders come to start at once from Newbern for this place. We were off in about two hours, and are now nearly arrived. It was feared that Pettigru, who made the attack on the fort on Saturday, being foiled in that, may join with Pryor, who is up here somewhere, and attack this place, which has about twelve hundred men in it; we being five hundred (only eight companies)."

April 2.

"The face of events has greatly changed since last I wrote, and at present we are regularly besieged; cut off from the world outside, and surrounded more or less by batteries, which boom away at intervals, to keep us constantly aware of their existence. Everything remained quiet till Monday, though warnings had come in various shapes that an attack was to be made. General Foster arrived in the morning, much to our surprise and delight. Two companies were sent across the river on a reconnoissance. We soon heard a few cannon-shots, then musketry, and pretty soon a man ran to the river, and told the gunboat whose guns are trained up the road to open fire. One party soon appeared, and came back over the bridge, bringing with them Captain Richardson, wounded, who withdrew his men, as it was evident that the force there was pretty large. . . . . We had an anxious and uncomfortable night; for there was no knowing at what hour an attack might be made. Just about daylight we heard musketry down the river; and I learned that a company had gone down on a flat-boat, and fire was opened on them from the bank. . . . . The next day firing began again down below. I got up and went to the point below the town, where, from the way in which the shot whistled, it was evident that something lively was in progress. The Commodore Hull was close down at Rodman's Point, fighting the battery there. . . . . Several houses in town were struck ; the enemy fired Whitworth shot, and banged away as if they had plenty of ammunition. We are obliged to pull down houses for fuel; but whether we shall get as far as short rations or not, I don't know."

"

April 3. "The enemy opened two new batteries this morning; one nearly opposite the market, and the other somewhere up the road from the bridge. Their shot were mainly thrown at the boats. The gun opposite the market was soon dismounted; and when the enemy came up with horses to take it off, a well-directed shell from the Louisiana pitched horses and men into the air. . . . . The other battery and the gunboat fired for some time; but after about three hours, the battery stopped..... About two, a fleet of six gunboats made their welcome appearance below, and engaged the battery for about three quarters of an hour. ... Now the great question is, whether or not the boats will attempt to pass up or not to-night; a boat was to go down to-day to buoy out the channel, so that perhaps they will come up. Shot and shell are as plenty as blackberries; and I pity the unfortunate townspeople, whose houses now and then get holes knocked in them, and whose women are frightened. Many of them have taken refuge in their cellars. One family had a Whitworth shot through their house yesterday; and this morning, just as they were getting up from the table, another shot landed plump upon it. The streets are empty and still, the shops all shut, and it seems like a perpetual Sunday."

These were the last lines he wrote before his illness. He and Dr. Fisher, in whom he found a most congenial coadjutor, appreciated very highly the extraordinary opportunities for surgical and anatomical study that the condition of things afforded, and spent night after night, till the small hours, studying special topics, -the great mortality among the blacks affording large material. It was this, and his practice in the black camps, quite as much as his regimental duties, that pulled him down. On the 5th he was seized with typhoid pneumonia, the disease which, as he had told a medical friend, he feared he should not escape in the spring. "For several days he wandered in his mind, talking about the experiments he and Dr. Fisher had in hand, or imagining himself on the battle-field. The day that he died was the critical one. . . . . A violent cannonade from the Rebel batteries, nearer and more continu

ous than any that had preceded, excited him to wildness. It was with difficulty he could be kept to his pillow, and the slender thread that bound him to us was rudely broken." On the 10th he died "perfectly tranquil, with an inspired, happy look in his eyes." They buried him privately in the afternoon of the following day, at Washington, North Carolina; General Foster and his staff, and the officers of the two regiments, attending. The body remained at that place till the siege was raised. It was then disinterred for removal to the North; and as it passed through Newbern, funeral services were held there at the request of the regiment. The final interment took place at Mount Auburn on the 1st of May following.

His assistant, Dr. Fisher, wrote:

"I cannot but think that the anxiety and fatigue of his assiduous and unremitting labors for the regiment, which he had previously borne so well, by a cumulative process predisposed him for the fatal attack. For the first three weeks at Washington, he was the senior medical officer at the post; and after, the Rebel investment added to this responsibility the fatigue of frequent alarms and much professional labor. He performed several capital operations among the wounded negroes, all of whom I found on my arrival doing well, and bearing evidence of his kindness and foresight in their after treatment. . . . . His anxiety for the safety of the regiment occupied his last thoughts. I cannot conceive a nobler death, nor one I should more envy. It was entirely consonant with what I know of his life, which seemed guided at every moment by honor and duty. Courageous on the field of battle, he was equally so in the insidious dangers of the camp and hospital."

From the mass of testimonials to Dr. Ware's memory, the resolutions of his classmates, the votes of social and scientific organizations to which he belonged, and letters of personal friends, I select the following from a letter of Rev. Edward H. Hall, then Chaplain of the Forty-fourth:

"You could hardly tell whether to admire most his remarkable skill or his wonderful fidelity. His professional skill was acknowl

edged on all sides in the department; but we, who saw him every day, were even more struck by the readiness and cheerfulness with which he answered every call. A surgeon's office, at best, to a conscientious man, is the most laborious in the regiment. Yet I never saw the time, during the hardest marches or at the most untimely hours, when Robert hesitated for a second to go to those who needed him, and give them all the time that was required. If you knew the prevailing standard of official duty in the army, you would understand how striking such single-minded fidelity must be.

"But the feeling of the men towards Robert is still more touching and even more honorable to him than that of the officers. . . . . He certainly never sought popularity; he exacted stoutly the respect that was due to his office, and was most unsparing in unmasking the shams by which a surgeon is sure to be beset. Yet in spite of all this, his real kindness, his tenderness and sympathy, impressed them so deeply, and revealed his true nature so plainly, that they could not help feeling more attracted to him than to any other officer. They feel his loss deeply and speak of it sadly. So true a man always finds himself appreciated by simply acting out the promptings of his nature."

"We who remain," says another friend, "and have been in the way of looking forward to his future, and imagining what he would some day become, find with some surprise that he was already all we had ever looked for. He had not to wait for added years to fill a place, and to perform work, which, being done, makes his life already one of the finished lives."

SIDNEY WILLARD.

Captain 35th Mass. Vols. (Infantry), August 13, 1862; Major, August 27, 1862; died December 14, 1862, of a wound received at Fredericksburg, December 13.

IDNEY WILLARD, the eldest son of Joseph and

Lewis) was February

3, 1831, at Lancaster, Massachusetts, where, nearly two hundred years before, Major Simon Willard, the earliest New England ancestor of the family, leading a hardy band of Puritans, had planted the little town upon the frontier. Sidney Willard was but an infant when his parents removed to Boston, and his boyhood and manhood were wholly passed in the city.

At an early age he showed a love for outdoor activity, in marked contrast with a certain quiet and reserve of nature, and an aptitude (but imperfectly perceived by himself) for the sober pursuits of a scholar. To him, as to every lad whom the watchful care and gentle influences of home surround, a knowledge of himself and ready use of his own powers came but slowly. Shy and yet self-possessed, respectful to age and authority by nature and education, yet singularly fearless and independent, and with a frame of whose boyish awkwardness he was conscious, knowing not that it was the sign of great coming strength, he was slower to develop the natural points of his character than most of the companions of his early years. But through all this somewhat tardy growth there worked a steady and ripening purpose of self-development, which seemed almost to have been born in him, and which gradually brought order out of the chaos of his boyish nature.

He became a pupil of the Latin School of Boston at the age of ten. The good influences upon his nature here were twofold.

The admirable drill which gives this school