DEATH OF THEODORE WINTHROP.

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The location of the regiments at this time was a perilous one, in the extreme front of the Union centre; and, night after night, the men expected to be awakened by the longroll and the enemy's advance. They were menaced, but not attacked; and the Third Regiment immediately joined them.? Col. Terry, who had been left in Washington ill, rejoined his command at this time, and was received" by the cheers of the entire regiment." Private property was sacredly respected, and the men lived in the midst of luxuries they were forbid den to share. The keeper of the Oak-hill Tavern was a rebel, and refused to sell a single pig, fowl, or vegetable to "the Yanks;" yet he never complained of the loss of a cent's worth of property. On April 27, Brig.-Gen. J. K. F. Mansfield, a Connecticut soldier, was placed in command. of the troops in Washington."

10

While our three regiments were holding the picket-line in Longstreet's front, one of the most brilliant sons of Connecticut, Major Theodore Winthrop, fell in the skirmish at Big Bethel, in Lower Virginia. This fiasco was called a battle in those early days, and it excited a degree of interest far beyond its actual importance; and Winthrop's name became a watchword as Ellsworth's had been, and his heroism an example.

Theodore Winthrop, son of Francis R. Winthrop, was born in New Haven in 1828; and was a thoughtful, delicate, serious child. He entered Yale at sixteen, and was graduated at twenty, taking the Clark scholarship, and dividing with another the honor of the Berkeleian. He traveled much, making a tour of Europe, which was not the conventional one, going much of the way on foot; also to South America, California, and Oregon, Puget's Sound, and the Saskatchawan districts of British America. In 1855, he was admitted to the bar; but his roving habits, and an experience full of picturesque episodes, unfitted him for a sedentary life, and he was restive in the profession he had chosen.

of allegiance was administered even to rebels taken with arms in their hands. The first prisoners retained were committed for contumacy, they refusing to take the oath.

↑ On June 24.

This circumspection and rigid regard for meum and tuum was considerably relaxed before the war was over, even among Connecticut troops.

* On June 26, he reported 27,846 men present for duty.

10 June 9.

He had strong administrative talent; for he sprang straight from John Winthrop, who was the first governor of Connecticut. He would have made an enterprising and dauntless explorer. He wrote short tales and magazine articles with great success; and the sketches which he contributed to the Atlantic Monthly had a certain dash and briskness of style that won instant favor. He wrote several books, but never published them, being deterred by a morbid sensitiveness, which shrank from the criticism of his own maturer self. Most of these have been published posthumously.

Winthrop was buried at New Haven, to which place large numbers of his old comrades followed his remains. In the funeral-procession were more than a thousand persons, including the veteran Grays, Governor's Foot-Guards, Emmet Guards, Russell's School Battalion, National Blues, officers of the Horse Guard, City Government, and the faculty and students of Yale.

George William Curtis, under whose auspices his books have been brought out, says of his friend,

"A wide reader, he retained knowledge with little effort, and often surprised his friends by the variety of his information. Yet it was not strange; for he was born a scholar. His mother was the great-grand-daughter of old President Edwards; and, among his relations on the maternal side, Winthrop counted six presidents of colleges. . . . The womanly grace of his temperament merely enhanced the unusual manliness of his character. In walking and riding, in skating and running, in games out of doors and in, no one of us all in the neighborhood was so expert, so agile, as he. Often, after writing a few hours in the morning, he stepped out of doors, and, from pure love of the fun, leaped and turned summersaults on the grass before going up to town. . . .

"There is an impression somewhat prevalent that Winthrop planned the expedition to Great Bethel. It is incorrect. As military secretary of the commanding general, he probably made suggestions, some of which were adopted. The expedition was the first move from Fort Monroe, to which the country had been long looking in expectation. These were the reasons why he felt so peculiar a responsibility for its success; and, after the melancholy events of the earlier part of the day, he saw that its fortunes could be retrieved only by a dash of heroic enthusiasm. Fired himself, he sought to kindle others. For one moment, that brave, inspiring form is plainly visible to his whole country, rapt and calm, standing upon the log nearest the enemy's battery, the mark of their sharpshooters, the admiration of their leaders; waving his sword, cheering his fellowsoldiers with his bugle voice of victory,-young, brave, beautiful: for one

DEATH OF CAPT. WARD.

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moment erect and glowing in the wild whirl of battle; the next, falling forward toward the foe, dead, but triumphant.

"On the 19th of April, 1861, he left the armory-door of the Seventh, with his hand upon a howitzer; on the 21st of June, his body lay upon the same howitzer, at the same door, wrapped in the flag for which he gladly died as the symbol of human freedom. And so, drawn by the hands of young men lately strangers to him, but of whose bravery and loyalty he had been the laureate, and who fitly mourned him who had honored them, with long, pealing dirges and muffled drums, he moved forward.

"Yet such was the electric vitality of this friend of ours, that those of us who followed him could only think of him as approving the funeral pageant, not the object of it, but still the spectator and critic of every scene in which he was a part. We did not think of him as dead. We never shall. In the moist, warm, midsummer morning, he was alert, alive, immortal."

Two weeks later, a spirited engagement took place between the defiant rebels on the right bank of the Potomac and the United-States gunboats Pawnee and Freeborn, stationed in the river. Among the losses, the Union forces had to deplore the death of Capt. Ward, the gallant commander of the Freeborn.

James Harmon Ward was the eldest son of Col. James Ward, commissary-general of our army in the war of 1812; and was born in Hartford, Conn., in 1806. He studied for two years at a military academy in Vermont, and entered the navy as a midshipman on the old frigate Constitution in 1823. He was promoted to be lieutenant in 1831, and sent to the Mediterranean, where he compiled his Manual of Naval Tactics. In 1842, he delivered a course of popular lectures in Philadelphia on Gunnery, in which he urged the establishment of an American naval school. When the school was founded at Annapolis, he became one of its professors, and shortly after published a book on Naval Ordnance and Gunnery, - a work highly esteemed. At the commencement of the Rebellion, he was summoned to Washington to aid the government by his counsel; and he soon showed his efficiency by organizing the Potomac flotilla, of which he was placed in command May 16, 1861. This was our first war-fleet, and was a terror to rebels while he directed it. On the 31st, he attacked the rebel batteries at Acquia Creek, silencing three of them; and, on June 1, resumed the cannon

ading, burning the dépôt and all the stores. On June 27, with the Freeborn and Pawnee, he attacked the batteries at Mathias Point, and landed a party of men to burn the rebel ambush. The Freeborn kept up a constant fire to cover the landing, hotly replied to by musketry from the woods. One of the gunners was wounded; and Capt. Ward, taking his place, was shot in the breast by a musket-ball, and killed, while in the act of sighting the gun. One of his acquaintances wrote, "His death is a shock; but we have expected it. He was always at the post of danger." He was a gentleman of thorough education, and in religion a devout Catholic. He was buried from St. Patrick's in Hartford with all the honors of the Church, the State, and the Army. A eulogy was delivered by his personal friend Father O'Reilly, and the burial-service was read by Bishop McFarland. The governor, State officers, and legislature, the Fifth Regiment, and the Hartford military companies, joined in the last tribute of respect for the brave and patriotic man.

In the mean time, the three Connecticut regiments held the aggressive point, eight miles farther into Rebeldom than any Union troops had before been stationed. By either Ball's or Bailey's cross-roads, the rebels could throw a force in their rear, so that officers and men lay down in the nightlyexpectation of being aroused by an attempt to cut them off. Their situation was too critical to be entirely pleasant; and the question of withdrawing them was discussed earnestly in the War Department. Gen. Scott telegraphed to Tyler, "You are too far in advance. Better draw back. You will be gobbled up." Gen. Tyler replied, that Falls Church was the place that ought to be held; that there was no other point so naturally defensible; that the rebels would seize it if he should abandon it; and that he would take the responsibility of holding it. Every evening, he consulted with his officers as to the preparations for a night-attack.

During all this time, the loyal States were impatiently demanding a forward movement against the enemy. About the 4th of July, an advance on Richmond viâ Manassas Junction was anticipated; and from day to day thereafter the rumor assumed more defined and exact proportions, until, at dress

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parade on the afternoon of the 15th, the fact was made certain by an order for a movement the next day. The three Connecticut regiments were now brigaded with the 2d Maine, under command of Col. E. D. Keyes of the 11th regulars. The estimation in which Gen. Tyler and the Connecticut troops were held is shown by the fact that to him was assigned the command of the first and largest division, consisting of twelve thousand men; while they were made the first brigade of that division, and were thus, in regular formation, the advance of the entire force. On the afternoon of the 16th, the division left Falls Church, the Connecticut brigade ahead, and led the way past Vienna towards Centreville. He halted his division on the heights, and with Richardson's brigade pushed forward, and encountered Longstreet's division at Blackburn's Ford of Bull Run. He felt out with a battery to test the opposing strength; and the rebels showed fight with a spirit that proved an intention to contest the run. In the slight conflict that resulted, the Union losses were nineteen (official), the rebel loss sixtyeight; the former having largely the advantage of ground. The object of the reconnoissance was gained, and the ford was held during the two successive days of the tardy advance. If this success had been immediately followed up by the attack along the whole line, which did not come until three days afterwards, it seems almost certain that the result would have been a victory; for Johnston's army of eighteen thousand had not yet stolen away from Patterson's front, and the systematic treachery at Washington, which so soon betrayed us, had not yet done its work.

Gen. Tyler advised the continuation of the battle next day. During the afternoon of the 18th, and the 19th and 20th, McDowell's whole army was grouped in the rear of Centreville, and might have been hurled on the enemy in two hours at any time; and Bull Run was fordable at all points. Tyler insisted that he could whip the rebels with his own division: and such a result was more than possible; for he had sixteen regiments and two batteries, while Beauregard had not more than ten thousand effective men during Thursday and Friday. Col. Chrisholm, aide-de-camp to Gen.