Powhatan, which made a part of Commodore Perry's famous Japan expedition. Doctor Wheelwright was not present at the signing of the treaty between the United States and Japan, for he was ordered to the Plymouth, which left for China before that ceremony took place. During this cruise he was promoted to a surgeoncy, his commission being dated April 5th, 1854. On his arrival at home, after being a few months in the receiving-ship at Boston, he was ordered to the Home Squadron in the Cyane, and visited Newfoundland and other places on the northeast coast of America. In 1859 he was again in the Gulf of Mexico, exposed to the bad influence which the climate now had upon his constitution.

In 1860, at Philadelphia, and again in 1861, at the Brooklyn Navy-Yard, he was a member of the Board to examine Surgeons for admittance to the Navy. In 1861 this service was very fatiguing, owing to the great increase of the medical corps required by the civil war. The Board sat for many hours daily during several months; and when he returned to the receivingship at Boston, where he was then stationed, he was much exhausted. Anxious, however, to perform his duty, and probably not aware of his own state of health, he applied for active servive, and was in consequence ordered to the steamer San Jacinto, which sailed March 5th, 1862, in search of the ship-of-theline Vermont, reported to be drifting about dismasted off the South Shoal. After a vain search (for the report afterwards proved incorrect) the San Jacinto returned to Boston, and had hardly arrived when orders were received (on March 9th) to sail at once for Hampton Roads, to assist in the expected seafight with the famous Merrimack. Dr. Wheelwright came on shore for an hour, on the afternoon of that day, to take leave of his friends. They never saw him again.

The San Jacinto remained in Hampton Roads until Norfolk was taken, and in May joined the Gulf Squadron. This squadron consisted of about twenty-three vessels, and for several weeks Dr. Wheelwright performed the duties of fleet surgeon. He was at this time much reduced in consequence of having had a severe attack of dengue, or break-bone fever, on

his passage from Norfolk to Key West.

It was evident from his letters that he looked forward with dread to another summer in the Gulf, and had a sick man's longing for home; but he did not ask to be relieved. Just at this time he received orders to go North in the Colorado, but most unfortunately the orders reached him forty-eight hours after she had sailed. This was a terrible disappointment. Surgeons could not be spared in those days, and new orders came for him to take charge of the Naval Hospital recently established at Pilotstown, a little village on the southwest pass of the Mississippi. This hospital received the sick and wounded from the squadron in the river; and as it had been established but a short time, and in a hurried manner, was poorly provided with the necessary articles for the suffering patients. The responsibility and labor of the post weighed heavily upon the surgeon. He had been there about a week when he thus wrote to a relative:

"My duties here are like those at Pensacola, only infinitely greater. I was young and strong then, and came away, as you remember, much shattered. There are about sixty patients, many terribly wounded, or sick with fever, and most limited means to treat them. Except beds, no furniture that we have not taken by force from the dozen or more houses here. Conflicting orders come to the captains of the transport steamers relative to receiving men from the hospital without their accounts, and these are not sent with them, to the hospital. So here I have to keep them, and many die in consequence. It is distressing to have those in charge who ought to be sent home; and yet my hands are tied, and I cannot send them. I have been here a week, have only one assistant, am weak from want of sleep and a diarrhoea. There is no way to get relief from my situation. I shall do my duty to the last."

He was not only weakened by a constantly increasing diarrhoea, and worn down by his incessant labor and want of sleep, but the feeling that he could not properly provide for those under his charge, and that many lives were lost on this account, depressed his spirits, and left him the less energy to resist his disorder. Till the 30th of July, however, he continued to perform his duties, but on the morning of that day he was unable to get up. He grew rapidly worse; and though all

means were used which the place afforded, it was too late to save him. Before the day closed he was quietly relieved of his post. His death, though far removed from his home and relatives, was in some respects such as he himself would have preferred; for up to the last possible moment that his strength permitted, and till within twenty-four hours of his death, he was engaged in the discharge of the most satisfactory duty which any man can perform, the relief of the sick, the wounded, and the dying; and he fell a sacrifice to his own exertions and anxiety in behalf of those whom his country had committed to his charge.

In his last letter he alludes to his being no longer young and strong, but years had made no change in the qualities of his heart or in the general characteristics of the man. He had still the same slender, erect figure, the same hearty, ringing tones in his voice, the same animated and confident manner, and the same kindness and good-will expressed in his whole bearing. Any one who saw much of him, even if not an intimate friend, must have perceived his strong, plain commonsense, his contempt for everything mean and underhand, his resolution, firmness, and courage in the performance of his duty, the great purity of his character, and, above all, a manly straightforwardness in his every action, word, and look; for 'there never seemed to be the slightest disguise about him. His friends, of course, understood the generosity of his character and the strength of his attachments; but few could know how devoted he was to the interests of some whom he looked upon as especially committed to his protection, what acts of generous kindness he was constantly performing for them, and how much they and their home mingled in all his thoughts and plans.

The following extract from a letter written by the distinguished commander whose vessel, the Cayuga, led the fleet in the famous passage of the forts below New Orleans, and who had known him since his first entrance into the Navy, indicates in what estimation he was held in that service where the best years of his life were spent.

"The character of Dr. Wheelwright was singularly free from reproach of any kind. He had the love and respect of all who ever sailed with him. He ranked high in his own corps as a skilful and thorough physician, and was distinguished always for his sympathy with, and careful attention to, the sick. He adorned our profession by many noble qualities. With winning and affable manners, he combined firmness, a high conscientiousness, a firm adherence to whatever was right, and an uncompromising resistance to injustice and wrong.

"He lived for others more than for himself; and this is proved by the manner of his death, which was caused by his devotion to our sick and wounded sailors after the battle of New Orleans. . . .

"No one who knew Dr. Wheelwright speaks of his loss without emotion; but to those who were intimately associated with him, his loss is beyond repair. His life was as gallant and costly a sacrifice as any which the Rebellion entailed on our country.”

Dr. Wheelwright was never married. His remains were buried at Mount Auburn, August 14, 1862.

1837.

JAMES RICHARDSON.

Private Twentieth Connecticut Vols. (Infantry), August 2, 1862; died at Washington, D. C., November 10, 1863, of disease contracted in the service.

IN

N portraying most of the younger men whose memoirs are contained in this volume, one is naturally led to compare them with what they would, perhaps, have been in times of peace. But in writing of the men of middle age, one compares them with what they previously were. To some the war only supplied a new direction for powers already developed and mature. To some, on the other hand, it brought a complete transformation; or if not quite that, yet a consummation so rapid and perfect as to seem like transformation, giving roundness and completeness to lives previously erratic or fragmentary. Of this there was no more striking instance than in the case of James Richardson.

"A prophet is never called of God until the age of forty," says the Arab proverb. James Richardson had all his life been loved and blamed, criticised and idolized, without ever finding his precise or proper working-place on earth. When at forty-five he left his preaching and his farm, to enlist as a private soldier, then his true and triumphant Christian ministry began, and he continued in it till his death.

I remember watching his college eccentricities when I was a boy in Cambridge, and was largely occupied, like most Cambridge boys, in studying human nature as exhibited among the undergraduates. Long after, I was associated with him in post-graduate studies at the same university, where he lingered long; and I have known him ever since. And any acquaintance with him came near to intimacy, because of his open and eager nature and his warmth of heart.

James Richardson was born in Dedham, Massachusetts, May 25, 1817. His mother's maiden name was Sarah Eliza