his last words were, "Oh that I might have died in battle! But not my will-thine, O Lord, be done."

He was a pious professor of the Christian religion, and died triumphant in the faith. Rev. G. W. Burns, of Cumberland, accompanied the father, with the remains of the brave sergeant, to his home in Ohio.

The more I have seen of this war, and the more I read of others, the more fully am I persuaded that the deeper a man's religious convictions become, the sublimer will rise his heroism. Macaulay well said, "Many a man has sneered at the Puritans; but no man ever did it who had had occasion to meet them in the halls of debate, or to cross swords with them on the field of battle."

XXXII.

A Well-Known New York Boy.

THE 9th N. Y. State Militia, 83d Volunteers, went to the war eight hundred strong. On their first muster after the first bloody field of Fredericksburg, they numbered one hundred. Many of the bravest and best young men in New York were in the ranks of this regiment. Among others, some of my readers will remember Henry Osgood, as a tall, athletic, handsome, and accomplished young man, living in 24th Street. Filled with patriotic fire, he started with his musket, and was with his regiment in all its fights, distinguishing himself by his gallantry and daring. At Fredericksburg he was wounded, -but slightly, as was supposed. He so represented it to his friends. Growing worse, however, he was sent with his wounded comrades-of his company only two being left-to the Lincoln Hospital in Washington. He wrote often to his home, concealing, if he knew, his real danger. His surgeon must have known from the beginning that the wound was mortal. But the soldier "preferred to suffer alone, without making those who loved him suffer unnecessarily;" and thus he continued his correspondence up to within a few hours of his death. His last letters were as cheerful as his first. They were all glowing with the sunlight of cheerfulness and hope; for his coming had always dispelled every shadow of sadness, and gloom could not live where he was.

I have seen many such cases, where young soldiers who knew they must soon die refused even to let any correct account of their state go to their friends. It was a far more admirable sight to witness such examples of magnanimous

self-forgetfulness, in the indescribable tortures of wounds and amputations, than to look on any deed of courage on the field. In nearly all such instances, the fire of pure patriotism seemed to blot out all other considerations. I have seen that high sentiment rise into the full glow of an all-absorbing passion, and leave its impress on the face after the heart had stopped beating. "My country! my country! I wish I could do something more for thee before I die!"

I have seen many who had seldom thought about their own death-boys who had left homes of luxury, fondled by sisters' caresses and mothers' love-brought from the battlefield and laid down in a hospital to die. When the fading twilight of a joyous youth was going into the deep eclipse. of Death's shadow, as it moved out, with unrelenting sternness, from the unknown Land, those who had thought of the last hour, so sure to come, and grown familiar with what cannot be seen till we reach it,--who had been introduced to the far-off Future till their Father's House became their home, -such boys, and the thoughtless ones, all had one solicitude alike:"Land where my fathers died,-save her, O God!" ***

*** Young Osgood was buried at the Soldiers' Home. In recovering his body, they had to open seven coffins before they found the sacred dust of the loved one; and on the coffin was inscribed another name! Oh, to gather the ashes of a stranger when the breaking heart can be healed only after the last act of affection has been done to the departed! I speak of soldiers' burials elsewhere.

XXXIII.

Border-State Men and Border-State Loyalty.

THIS great struggle to save the life of our nation has had to encounter obstacles hard to overcome, and prejudices almost insurmountable. The calm judgment of the thinking and patriotic head and heart of the North was all the time at work in concert with the corresponding class of men in the border States.

We at the North stood far enough away from the mine to feel safe whenever the explosion might come. Our borderState brothers had not so easy a time. To us it was only the howl of a tempest which could not reach us; with them it was the precipitation of doom at their very hearth-stones. The serenity of the Northern millions was unbroken. slept calm; we waked free from all care except the national trouble.*

We

*In his strong and eloquent speech in the Senate-House, before the National League, Tuesday evening, March 31, Mr. Carrington, U. S. District Attorney, remarked, "I love my native State with a pure and a holy love. When I stand upon her sacred soil, the very air around me is redolent with the sweet and solemn memories of the past. There lie entombed the bones of my ancestors, and there lingers in helpless age and poverty my beau-idéal of human perfection and the dearest object of my heart's affection. Oh, have a motive and cue to passion which our brethren of the North can never feel. They fight for their Government, their country, and their flag. We fight for the same Government, country, and flag, in which we have a common interest with them: in addition to this, we fight for our homes and firesides, and the green graves of our forefathers. For my own part, all I regret is that the time I have spent in the court-house was not spent upon the field of battle. I have deferred to the judgment of my friends, who my voice is stronger than my arm."

But in this matter seem to think that

They suffered with another trouble. They loved our country as well, and many of them better than we. But what could they do? No voice or pen can tell. They could not gird the national armor on to go out to fight for our cause; for the first step they took from their threshold would be to the grave.

The "iron mask" was put on the face of every man who lived south of "Mason and Dixon's Line." He could speak; but his utterances would be smothered, perhaps,―nay, to a dead certainty. For Genius, which is contraband sometimes even in civilized nations, could have no chance to illuminate the ill-guided, misjudging, and deluded South.

The South, as a South,- —as a whole, is gone. This South has died of Negrophobia. This complaint has been charged on New England, the real eagle's nest of the republic. But it is a great mistake. New England never had it; the North never had it. The North has put forth its best efforts to save the South from rushing on to and into her own ruin.

Who ever heard of such a noble offering as was made to the South, when a million of Northern men tried to put Fillmore again in the chair, when not a national tongue wagged against the effort? At that hour the South, as "a South," deserted us!

Let us go on. They asked for Pierce: we gave him to them. Again, they asked for Buchanan. By hard work and doubtful scratches, this poor emasculated traitor got in. And the result we all know. Buchanan! a man, or a thing,—who, after doing what harm he could to his country, tried in vain to hurt us abroad, where even the statesmanship of our enemies discovered in advance that he was either a puling fool in power, or a very Benedict Arnold (without his genius), to work what ruin he could, in leaving an office he had disgraced by his incapacity and perhaps outraged by his treason.

Yes! The chances were altogether against any show for border-State loyalty.

Those homes were as dear as ours. They were threatened;