treble our sick-list, and are back here in the old camp, but expecting every day to leave. I understand our division is ordered to Helena, Arkansas, and will leave as soon as transportation can be furnished us. Helena is not the most eligible place in the world to go to; but we shall be glad to get away from here, for we can hardly go to a worse place, unless it should be Vicksburg. That is now the hottest, dirtiest, most unhealthy, and in every respect the most undesirable place within our lines. The regiment marched back here, but I was put in charge of over a hundred sick and convalescents belonging to our brigade, to bring them around by railroad from the Big Black to Vicksburg, and from there to this place by boat, and a nice time I had of it. The heat was intolerable, and the sand on the levee, over ankle deep, fairly scorched one's feet through boots. We had to stay there more than twentyfour hours before we could get a boat to take us on board, though there were half a dozen lying across the river, with steam up ready to go anywhere on the receipt of orders. We got off at last, however, and brought all the men safely through. Our sick-list is larger now than it has been for over a year, but there are very few serious cases. Intermittent fever is the prevailing disease; and as long as we can get quinine enough, we can manage that. We have not lost a man since we came here, which is more than any other regiment I know of can say; in fact, we have only lost one man by disease (and that was small-pox) since last November. The new regiments suffer most, as would of course be expected.....

"I wish I could daguerreotype our camp for you. I have thought that very often you could have so much better an idea of our situation here than from any description. The position of the army here would be interesting too, I should think, to you folks at home. From the pictures in the papers of scenes that I know, I am satisfied they can seldom approach the truth, and are not at all trustworthy. If you could see the whole side of the high bluff covered with tents for miles, tents now empty, for most of the soldiers that were here are out at the Big Black, or in that vicinity; the Rebel rifle-pits running all along the edge of the slope, and ours too, sometimes parallel, sometimes crossing theirs; the places for guns on every commanding summit; the Rebel ports partly grassed over now, with the charred remains of gun-carriages, shot and shell lying among

the weeds and brush; the exploded magazines; the caves the Rebs lived in, dug in the side of the bluff! Then if you could go to Vicksburg, in the miles of captured works; the big guns that have killed so many of our brave soldiers, some dismounted, some still in position and guarded by blue-coats; then if you could go into the town, see almost every building torn by shot and shells, some with clean round holes through and through, some with great holes in the roof, and the interior knocked into ruins by the explosion of shell; the streets full of filth, mingled with musket-balls, grape, cannon shot, and every species of missile; and above all, the old stars and stripes floating from the cupola of the proud old CourtHouse, the crown of the city, like the State-House at Boston; the gunboats in the river; the chartered transports, miles of them lying at the levee; if you could see all these things, or if I could only give you a pen-picture of them, you would get some idea of the war, of its magnitude, and how it is conducted, how much it is costing every day."

The results of these labors and exposures soon became apparent. In August he was attacked by chills and fever, followed by camp diarrhoea, and still later by ulcerated sore throat, terminating in bronchial consumption. Early in December he obtained leave of absence, and returned to Detroit, very weak and unable to speak above a whisper, but still retaining his courage and hopeful of ultimate recovery. In the words of his guardian: "When he was told, a few hours before his death, that he could not live, he received it without a fear, and looked on death calmly as his spirit went out, even after he had ceased to move a muscle, being still conscious, seemingly to the last breath. He fully believed God would do rightly with him, and did not fear to trust Him." He died on the last day of January, 1864.

Eells had previously written as follows, from the camp near Brownsville, Arkansas, September 5, 1863, to Dr. F. H. Brown of Boston, who was then collecting information as to the Harvard military record:

"I enlisted as Hospital Steward in February, 1862, and in Feb

ruary, 1863, was promoted to Assistant Surgeon. Being with the Army of the Tennessee all the time, I have had but little opportunity to learn what was going on at the East, and particularly in Cambridge. I shall be glad to get any information with regard to my Alma Mater and the doings of her sons, especially in the war, and shall be happy to pay any sum which may be necessary for this purpose."

Before the letter could be answered, he himself had added, in his own modest and silent way, another act of sacrifice to those noble deeds of which he wrote; and the sum which he contributed was his life.

JAMES JACKSON LOWELL.

First Lieutenant 20th Mass. Vols., July 10, 1861; died at Nelson's Farm, near Richmond, July 4, 1862, of a wound received at Glendale, June 30.

AMES JACKSON LOWELL was the younger brother of General Charles Russell Lowell, whose brilliant career has been narrated earlier in this volume. He was born at Cambridge, on the 15th of October, 1837, at the house of his grandfather, the house now occupied by the raciest of American poets, his uncle. He came of the best Massachusetts stock, being descended on the father's side from John Lowell, one of the framers of the Constitution of the State, and a Judge in the United States courts, whose son, Francis Cabot, was one of the two founders of American cotton manufactures, and father of the founder of the Lowell Institute of Boston; and on the mother's side from Patrick Tracy Jackson, co-founder with Francis Cabot Lowell of the city of Lowell, and brother of Charles Jackson, Judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. His lineage is referred to for no trivial purpose. Both branches of his family have been long conspicuous for public spirit and the sense and love of justice, -qualities which were peculiarly marked in James Lowell's character.

Lowell passed his early youth in Boston, and went through the course of the public Latin School. His family had taken up their residence in Cambridge before he entered college, which was in 1854. In 1858 he was graduated, first scholar, as his brother had been before him. His Class contained men of excellent abilities, with whom he could be closely joined by intellectual and moral sympathies; among these were Patten and Spurr, who served with him, the one in the same regiment, the other in the same brigade, and met

the same fate; nunc ipsa pericula jungunt! His classmates were proud of him; he was certainly one of the brightest minds that had appeared in College for a long time. He was liked quite as much as he was admired. His exterior was very engaging, both his looks and his manners. His figure was light and agile, his face radiant with intelligence and moral sweetness. He was full of life, enjoyed keenly and pursued eagerly, and crowded every hour with work or pleasure. While he would walk a dozen or eighteen miles for wild-flowers, skate all day, and dance as long as the music would play, he found no study too dry, and would have liked to embrace all science and all literature. He was, moreover, habitually meditative, and loved to ponder deep questions of philosophy and of life. His pale, oval face, and his dark, thoughtful eyes, with their drooping lashes, gave an impression of a poetical nature, and the question was often asked in his early days whether he was a poet. But his expression was more spiritual and his bent more practical than poetical: practical in a sense opposed to imaginative, not to philosophical, for, as already indicated, his inclination to speculation was marked. He always sought to see things as a whole; and though he liked to view every subject in its great features, and in the best light consistent with truth, he loved reality and hated illusion and exaggeration.

That Lowell should have begun early to take an interest in public affairs and public men will readily be supposed from what has been said. He thought it a duty to study and act on all questions of public concern. In one of his books he had written down these words of Marcus Antoninus: "Every action of yours which has not a near or remote relation to the public good as its end, destroys the harmony and uniformity of life." It is true that boys often copy out these fine things in a glow of feeling, but nothing was more unlike Lowell than superficial enthusiasm. In an oration on "Loyalty," delivered at the College Exhibi