soon after exhumed by one of our surgeons, placed in a rude coffin made from a door of the church, and delivered to the father at the ford. After resting awhile in the Governor's room in New York City, it was transported to Dunkirk, where it lay in state, under guard, till the day of the funeral.

All classes and ages assembled to do honor to him whose sympathetic nature, kindly to all, was in turn beloved by all. Resolutions of honor had been previously adopted by the officers of the Excelsior Brigade, by the Supreme Court, by the members of the bar in that county, and by the citizens of Dunkirk. And just before the burial, the grim Arsenal was the scene of a most touching ceremony. The infant son of Colonel Stevens, held over his lifeless body, was baptized with the customary forms of the Church, assigned the name of his father, and sanctified to the cause in defence of which that father had sacrificed this world's ease and successes, friends, wife, child, and the immeasurable opportunities of life.

1849.

EVERETT PEABODY.

Colonel 13th (afterwards 25th) Missouri Vols. (Infantry), September 1, killed at Pittsburg Landing, Tenn., April 6, 1862.

1861;

ΤΗ

HE Rev. William B. O. Peabody, D. D., of Springfield, Massachusetts, was the son of Judge Oliver Peabody of Exeter, New Hampshire, and was born July 7, 1799. He married Eliza Amelia White, daughter of Major Moses White, who served in the army through the Revolution. Rev. Dr. Peabody was settled in Springfield, Massachusetts, in October, 1820, and remained with the same parish until his death, which took place in 1847. He was well known as a preacher, essayist, naturalist, and poet, and was universally respected for the pure and elevated character of his daily life. Those who remember the Springfield of forty years ago speak of Mrs. Peabody as lovely in person and manners, full of energy and public spirit, and taking a leading part in all schemes for doing good.

Their eldest son, Howard, died in infancy. The rest of the family consisted of one daughter and four sons, of whom Everett was the oldest. He was born in Springfield, June 13, 1830. There is little to be told about his childhood. He was a tall, athletic boy, fond of out-door sports, and excelling in them. He was particularly skilful as a swimmer. Once, while swimming across the Connecticut, at Springfield, he was taken with the cramp when half-way across. One of his schoolmates swam out to him with a plank, by the aid of which Everett reached the shore. It is a curious circumstance that this schoolmate (since dead) was in the Rebel army at Shiloh, and afterwards said that as he was marching into the Federal camp he saw Everett's body on the field, and recognized it at once.

Everett was remarkably quick to learn, and was regarded as

the most gifted boy of the family. He was fond of poetry, and would repeat page after page of Scott's poems, which were great favorites with the household. His father had a strong desire to send him to college, but had not the means to do so. Assistance was at last volunteered in such a manner that he could not refuse; and in 1845 Everett entered as Freshman in Burlington College, Vermont. He remained there but a year, and in 1846 entered Harvard as Sophomore.

At first his standing was very high, - so that one of his letters expresses the hope that he shall prove to be among the first eight scholars; and although he afterwards seemed to care less about his rank, he had a part at commencement when he graduated. He was fond of fun and frolic, and was rusticated, in 1847, for helping to make a bonfire on University steps. He was sent home to study with his father, and was at home when his father died, — his mother and only sister having died three years before. He finished the term of his suspension in the family of Rev. Rufus Ellis, then of Northampton.

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While in college he never was a plodding student, but learned with singular ease and facility. I remember his asking me once to hear him recite a lesson of several pages, which he had been studying for half an hour; and I was surprised to hear him give the substance of page after page, having evidently fixed in his mind every point of importance in the lesson clearly and distinctly, while he troubled himself little about the precise phraseology. He had at this time acquired a good deal of facility in French and German, and had a great deal of miscellaneous information. His wit and love of fun made him a favorite companion at social entertainments; and he enjoyed such things himself, although not to

excess.

During his last winter vacation, he made a visit to Philadelphia and Washington, and in the latter place gained an acquaintance who seemed to fascinate him a good deal,-Colonel Baker, then in Congress, and subsequently killed at Ball's Bluff. Colonel Baker confided to the young man a project

of taking a party of fifty or a hundred men to California, for two years' service in the mines. Everett was delighted with the prospect of adventure involved in such an enterprise, and wrote home to his friends for aid and advice; but the project ultimately failed.

He graduated in 1849, and at once found employment at engineering on the Boston Water-Works, under Mr. Chesborough. Soon afterwards, he obtained a leveller's place on the Cleveland, Columbus, and Ashtabula Railroad. He thus describes his first experience of out-door life :

"February 3, 1850.

“Thank Heaven, I can support myself now; and if it is a pittance I live on, it is at least earned by my own right arm, which does not snarl and tell me I am extravagant, whenever I ask it therefor. And so au diable with money matters. Well, it's glorious, after all, going about in these old woods, with trees which seem to have borne the brunt of the tempests for a thousand years. Huge shafts, with buttress-like roots, and a flooring of Nature's own mosaic. Though our feet are wet and our hands cold, though we anticipate the sun and work like hodmen, there's a luxury in it which I can feel, but not analyze. You might not think it poetry, but it is, this wading through the swamps watching the clouds. We have nothing at the East to compare with these glorious clouds. We left off work last night about a mile and a half from the tavern where we now are. I started, along with about six of the party, and trudged through the swamp for a mile and a half or two miles, and then found ourselves four miles from the tavern, in a driving snow-storm, dark, and the walking not fit to be called walking. We came home very much fatigued."

This was the beginning of a Western residence of more than ten years, with but a few short visits to the home of his youth. He was successively employed on the Pacific Railroad (St. Louis), the Maysville and Lexington, Kentucky, the Maysville and Big Sandy, the Louisville and Frankfort, — always as assistant or resident engineer, but with always increasing salary and responsibilities.

At this time he was in splendid physical condition. His frame was large and powerful, his health was always good, and he was almost always very light-hearted and careless

about the future. Except that he had a very strong ambition to rise in his profession, I never saw a man who troubled himself less about what the morrow might bring forth. At this time, the Hon. James Guthrie told the Hon. Edward Everett, if I remember his words correctly, that he thought Everett Peabody was "the best field engineer in the West." He was soon after appointed Chief Engineer of the Memphis and Ohio Railroad, with a salary of three thousand dollars. At a later period, for everything connected with Western railroads was then fluctuating and uncertain, - he was employed as engineer of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, and then of the Hannibal and St. Joseph's (Missouri) Railroad. Here he remained for three years.

Up to this time his letters to his brothers, which were numerous, showed simply the professional enthusiasm which might have been expected from his energetic and buoyant nature. As he grew older, however, the wearying effects of rough border life began to tell upon him, and the desire for home and for cultivated society became stronger and stronger. One of his brothers was married about this time; and his many letters to his new sister-in-law showed a tenderer side of his nature, and exhibited a plaintive longing that was almost pathetic. For a man of education and cultivated tastes to find himself at twenty-seven the permanent resident of a "boarding car" at the unfinished extremity of a new railway track, in the midst of an unbroken wilderness, in the dead of winter, was rather a dismal experience. The following letters speak for themselves.

"BOARDING CARS, February 20, 1858. "This Sunday evening, wearied out by a day of the most listless laziness, I can think of nothing to do, unless it be to write to you, my dear The heading of this letter may puzzle you. As it is well to have the snow off the track before we pull the engine wide open, I will explain.

"A train of cars is kept at the end of the track, and pushed forward as the track progresses. These migratory dwellings contain cars for the accommodation of the men who work, a car for cooking and one for eating, and at the end of the train, a blue car, with