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 acknowledged 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.

SIDN

IDNEY WILLARD, the eldest son of Joseph and Susanna Hickling (Lewis) Willard, was born 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 out-door 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 a fair rivalry in exact scholarship with Eton or Harrow, taught him by degrees to know his own powers of study; and though he did not

attain eminence in mere rank, yet he learned those habits of thoroughness which it is the pride of the school to convey. It was good seed in good ground. But his ambition went beyond this; and while he gradually gained in scholarship, his conscientious and singularly systematic habits made the wide general reading in which he indulged an education in itself. His moral and physical development, moreover, were steadily pursued. Naturally quick-tempered, he held this impulse under the curb, until, even in extreme provocation, no sign of anger could be detected, save a passing flush, which testified to the struggle and the victory; and he conformed to the precept which he wrote in a Greek book daily used by him in school, "He that ruleth himself is better than he that taketh a city." Out-door sports attracted his companions, and gave them health rather than strength; but Willard, even at this early age, trained his powers at the gymnasium with the method and success of a Greek athlete.

While the school thus did its office in promoting the growth of his character, and his admirable home influences produced their due effect, he was, after all, to an unusual extent, his own teacher. Inborn and growing as he grew, his controlling moral sense made the duty of the moment the law of his action, and his guiding motive of conduct to find in what shape that duty lay. His judgment was too sound ever to allow his sense of duty to become morbid; and he held with admirable moderation and singularly clear perception the balance even between the opposite requirements of his nature. His purity of mind was remarkable. He was incapable of vicious companionship, not more from a conscious repugnance to depraved natures than from the unconscious rebuke which such natures felt in his presence. He was not phlegmatic or hard. The sensitive, shy, proud nature which underlay his calm exterior, but seldom suspected to exist except by those who knew him well, became very noticeable by its contrast with the outer man, and gave an added charm from that contrast. He was indeed

"To the soul that loved him sweet as summer."

Yet he was very slow to form friendships or impart confidences, and with all his self-reliance came a certain self-distrust, from his inability to give and receive that ready show of outside friendliness which is the every-day coin of social intercourse; and this produced a certain coldness of manner, as of one not open to every comer. He rarely asked for sympathy or aid in the accomplishment of a task, even though intruding doubts of his powers made the effort of achievement almost heroic. Still less did he seek applause for his performance. In all his self-culture, his labor of preparation was quiet and unnoticed, and the effort was never suspected until it became achievement. His culture and accomplishments were as sure. and reliable as if hewn out of rock. He acquired considerable skill-for he had excellent taste — as a musician; and his nice touch as a draughtsman still has enduring shape in many a graceful figure or vigorous sketch in the portfolios or on the walls of his friends,

In 1848, at the age of seventeen, he entered Harvard College. He brought to the training of the college a vigorous physical frame, exact and methodical habits of study, and a keen sense of duty; but with these a certain solitariness of nature that held him much aloof from his Class, and tastes that the college course did not satisfy. He was no negligent loiterer; he was neither unable to acquire, nor unaware of the golden time for progress which he was enjoying. Life meant duty to him, and duty and its performance were the law of his existence; but he must needs make his progress mainly in his own way. Perhaps it is not too much to say, that, at the time of his graduation, he was the equal in general culture of any one in his Class, and had laid the foundations of his knowledge deep and broad.

Of that subtle discipline which the democracy of a college enforces on its members, he felt much. A perfect Nazarite in the law of the body, hardly knowing vice even in thought, he was far removed in ordinary companionship from the idle or the luxurious; yet his character won the respect and confidence even of those with whom he could not readily associate;

and those who did not appreciate his finer qualities could yet. perceive his solid steadiness of purpose, or admire the regularity of his physical life, and the perfection of his athletic strength. The ordinary opportunities in college life for vigorous exercise are many, and Willard made the most of them. He became a tough and expert rower; he was the best walker, leaper, and vaulter of his Class, or perhaps of the college during his day; and in fencing and boxing, his coolness and perfect self-control, his untiring muscular strength, his supple frame, and great length of limb, made him a most formidable antagonist.

These were qualities sure of appreciation in college; but this always a little annoyed him. He could not but feel the unthinking injustice done to higher qualities by the exclusive applause bestowed upon humbler ones; and it was not his aim, in the education of his body, to be praised as a gymnast. In his last year at Harvard the boating contests between Harvard and Yale began, and in the first-on Lake Winnipiseogeehe was selected to pull the heaviest oar. The victory gave a great stimulus to boating at Cambridge, and to that hardy culture which formed a school for the war, and sent forth many of those who had contended manfully together for the prize of endurance and strength, to fight and die side by side on the battle-field.

He graduated in 1852, in the same class with Paul Revere and Foster Haven, the former a companion at the Latin School, the latter an old acquaintance before college days, and a friend almost as it were by inheritance. Endeared by many ties, and often familiarly associated, Willard and Haven met their end on the same bloody field of battle, and almost at the same moment.

After graduation, Willard entered the Law School at Cambridge, coming to the study of the law in pursuance of longsettled plans. He was eminently fitted for this career. His judgment was cool, and he inspired all who dealt with him with confidence. He was able to meet every emergency that might arise, not by immediate preparation, but from acquire