On the same day he wrote home that he was "getting along swimmingly"; but the inevitable end drew nigh, and on the 10th of September all that was mortal of him expired.

His last days were consoled by his brothers and by kind friends, among whom was Mrs. A. H. Gibbons of New York, whose presence and motherly kindness were of inestimable comfort to the agonized young soldier. He sent for her a week before his death, and she instantly went to his bedside from Beverly Hospital, fifteen miles distant. She found him "in a very suffering condition," and afterwards wrote:

"In all he manifested a spirit of resignation and entire submission as to the final result, loving, kind, and considerate to the latest moment; and when he could no longer speak, he took my hand and pressed it to his forehead, giving me a look of recognition and of gratitude for the little I was able to do for him. A very short time before he died, he repeated the names of his brothers, the surgeon at his bedside, who was untiring in his devotion and interest, and my own. I never witnessed more terrible agony than his. He endured it with wonderful patience and fortitude.

His manly, heroic bearing was observed by all who were with him."

After his death, the body of Major Patten, clothed in the blue soldier's uniform he had so worthily worn, was taken to Kingston, his home. All the village gathered to the church at the obsequies. "There was universal sadness," writes his brother; "for all had known him, and every one had loved him." Amid tears, his friend, the clergyman, pronounced a simple, tender eulogy, and then all the people looked at his handsome face, still noble and firm as ever, as he lay in his coffin, every inch a soldier." From Kingston the body of Major Patten was sent to Cambridge, and there buried with impressive ceremonies, with services conducted by the Rev. Presidents Walker and Hill, and the Rev. Dr. Peabody. The solemn procession of the officers and students of the University, the personal friends and admirers of the dead hero, the brother officers of his regiment and other regiments, then bore him to his grave in Mount Auburn.

HENRY AUGUSTUS RICHARDSON.

Acting Assistant Surgeon, U. S. N., August 12, 1861; discharged, on resignation, June 5, 1862; died July 1, 1863, of disease contracted in the service.

DR

R. HENRY AUGUSTUS RICHARDSON was born in Boston, November 25, 1836, the son of George C. and Susan Gore (Moore) Richardson. In his childhood the family removed to its present residence in the adjacent city of Cambridge. In the schools of Cambridge he received his early education, and commenced his preparation for a college course. Having completed his preparatory studies at Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, he entered the Freshman Class of Harvard College in July, 1854. There his personal traits soon made him a general favorite among his classmates. He had many friends and no enemies in every circle, and in 1858 he graduated, bearing with him the hearty good-will of all.

The circumstances of his life did not drive him to laborious effort, but to a person of his practical nature indolence had no attractions. One of his best inheritances was a desire to be actively occupied amid the busy scenes of the world. Hardly had he left college, when he began his preparation for the labors of life, and chose the practice of medicine as his employment. Indeed, the bent of his genius had been manifest in his boyhood. Before and after he entered college he had enjoyed giving a part of his time, with a few congenial minds, to personal investigations in chemistry and comparative physiology and anatomy. During his Senior year he was a frequent attendant at the lectures of the Harvard Medical School, and treatises upon medicine and surgery constituted a large portion of his desultory reading. The views of his parents and friends coinciding with his own, he became, in October, 1858, a student in the United States Marine Hospital at Chelsea, then under the charge of Dr. Charles A. Davis. Here he re

mained three years. During this period he devoted himself to the study of his profession with great zeal and diligence. He came regularly to Boston to attend the lectures before the Harvard Medical School, and there received the degree of M.D. in July, 1861. The opportunity which his duties at the hospital presented for exact and certain information was well pleasing to the tendency of his mind, which always inclined toward practical rather than theoretical science. He delighted in close surveillance of disease and remedial experiments, and, though a true student of science in the best sense of the term, was not a great reader of scientific books. His natural self-possession and coolness, his quick sympathy with the sufferings of a patient, and his lively and constant interest in the malady and its development, his reassuring humor and cordial ways, never failed to win the confidence of the rough, warmhearted men to whom he ministered in the hospital, while at the same time they gave full promise of success among the more congenial associations of civil life. His faithfulness and his natural aptitude for the executive management of the institution soon brought him the principal control of its details; and a formal installation in May, 1861, as the assistant physician of the hospital, was but the recognition of services previously performed.

Dr. Richardson was not a mere student. He preferred the business and activity of the world to the cloister of the scholar. The enterprises of industry, no less than the theories of science, interested him; and upon all affairs of public concern he held decided and intelligent views. He was cautious, but independent and fearless in his conclusions, ready, although never forward, in his avowal of them. The dispassionate and reflective mood in which he considered all questions of duty or policy gave a conservative tendency to his opinions; but when fairly persuaded, he followed his convictions zealously and enthusiastically; for cool and impassive as was his brain, his heart was ardent and impulsive.

This contrast of character was exemplified in his conduct during the great civil strife which agitated the nation.

Before

the appeal to arms he had shown a strong 'preference for the security of ancient constitutional landmarks over the hazards of reform, and honestly deprecated much of the action of reformers. Undoubtedly, too, in the remembrance of hospitalities which he had received while sojourning with acquaintances at the South, his ingenuous, grateful nature influenced his mind in some degree. But when the sword became the arbiter of the destinies of the country, he eagerly arrayed himself among the active defenders of his established government. His politics never seduced him beyond the sound of Union music; his prejudices never carried him out of the shadow of the Union flag. When war came, his sympathies, guided by his judgment, led him irrepressibly toward the service of his country. Those who knew Richardson were sure that whither his sympathies tended his devoted action would follow.

In August, 1861, he passed the examination of the Naval Board, was commissioned Acting Assistant Surgeon, and soon after joined the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron as Acting Surgeon on board the United States steamer Cambridge. Thus at the commencement of hostilities he became the first volunteer in his position from New England, and the vessel in which he sailed was the first merchant steamer that left Charlestown Navy Yard, refitted as a gunboat.

Dr. Richardson had often declared naval superiority to be the force which would eventually decide the national conflict, and he entered the service in full expectation of active duty and perilous fortunes. But his steamer was assigned to the monotonous though important blockade off Wilmington and Beaufort. Deeply disappointed that his commander had not received a roving commission, Richardson still applied himself cheerfully and assiduously to the requirements of his position. The audacity of the blockade-runners, their familiarity with shifting channels and fickle currents, the speed of their craft, and the deficiency of the national government in both pilots and vessels, demanded untiring vigilance and constant exposure on the part of our crews. Ceaseless quest and toilsome traversing the same ocean wastes was the lot of the patient block

aders, watching and circling, like scattered sea-gulls, along their prescribed line of coast. When the notorious Nashville was waiting at Beaufort, ready to dart from her refuge and speed once more upon her hazardous voyage, tedious days and anxious nights of sentinel watch, anchored at the mouth of one narrow outlet, formed a part of the duty of the Cambridge. The lively, adventurous temperament of her surgeon chafed under this dreary experience. Gladly would he have sought more stirring scenes of duty, but he would not for a moment contemplate the abandonment of the service.

In consequence of exposure to wet and cold during the wintry season, and the restraint from habitual exercise, Dr. Richardson's health failed. These causes, with the bitter disappointment to his aspirations, induced the development of a disease which had proved fatal to his mother and elder brother. Once, when the Cambridge had put into Baltimore for repairs, he visited his home on a brief furlough. Then his decline was painfully apparent. His figure had become thin, gaunt, and bent, and his system was shaken by a racking cough. Friends and physicians besought him to resign his commission and seek the restoration of his health. But this he steadily refused to do, declaring that while the war lasted he should remain in the service of his country; that he could render the best service in her navy, and there he would stay so long as he had strength to perform his duty.

An incident which occurred at this time illustrates at once the changeless sincerity of his friendship and his uncompromising devotion to his government. Recounting one day the formality and coldness of a recent interview between himself and a Southern classmate, an intimate companion of college days, he said, sadly, regretfully, almost bitterly: "We parted, old comrades as we were, with bare civility, — and both knew that all which estranged us was the uniform I wore." Then in a moment, as if the refluent surge of his patriotic impulses had swept away all memory of personal considerations, he exclaimed spiritedly: "But, friends or no friends, our old flag must wave, and wave it shall so long as there's a halyard to hoist it.”