DURING the month of March, Major-General Edwin V. Sumner was in Washington, apparently in vigorous health. He had just been appointed to the command of the Department of the Missouri. One Saturday evening, having received his final orders, he was about leaving for his home in Syracuse, New York, where he designed spending a few days before starting for St. Louis.

I went into his room to bid him adieu. Allusion was made to the allegations of speculation against General Curtis, his predecessor in the West. "I trust," said he, "they are untrue. No general has a right to make one dollar out of his official position, beyond the salary which his Government pays him." He talked somewhat in detail of the future, remarking, "For the present, I shall remain in St. Louis; but whenever there is a prospect of meeting the enemy, I shall take the field, and lead my troops in person. Some men can fight battles over a telegraph-wire, but you know I have no talent in that direction."

With his friendly grasp of the hand, and his kindly smile, he started for home. It proved to him Home indeed. A week later the country was startled by intelligence of his sudden death. He, who for forty-eight

328

HIS CONDUCT IN KANSAS.

[1863.

years had braved the hardships of campaigning and the perils of battle, until he seemed to have a charmed life, was abruptly cut down by disease under his own roof, surrounded by those he loved.

"The breast that trampling Death could spare,

His noiseless shafts assail."

For almost half a century, Sumner had belonged to the Army of the United States; but he steadfastly refused to be put on the retired list. Entering the service from civil life, he was free from professional traditions and narrowness. Senator Wade once asked him, "How long were you at the Military Academy?" He replied, "I was never there in my life."

The bluff Ohioan sprang up and shook him fervidly by the hand, exclaiming, "Thank God for one general of the regular Army, who was never at West Point!"

During the early Kansas troubles, Sumner, then a colonel, was stationed in the Territory with his regiment of dragoons. Unscrupulous as were the Administrations of Pierce and Buchanan in their efforts to force Slavery upon Kansas, embittered as were the people against the troops, generally mere tools of Missouri ruffians— their feelings toward Sumner were kindly and grateful. They knew he was a just man, who would not willingly harass or oppress them, and who sympathized with them in their fiery trial.

From the outbreak of the Slaveholders' Rebellion his name was one of the brightest in that noble but unfortunate army which illustrated Northern discipline and valor on so many bloody fields, but had never yet gathered the fruits of victory. He was always in the deadliest of the fighting. He had the true soldierly temperament. He snuffed the battle afar off. He felt

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A THRILLING SCENE IN BATTLE.

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"the rapture of the strife," and went into it with boyish enthusiasm.

In exposing himself, he was Imprudence personified. It was the chronic wonder of his friends that he ever came out of battle alive. At last they began to believe, with him, that he was invincible. He would receive bullets in his hat, coat, boots, saddle, horse, and sometimes have his person scratched, but without serious injury. His soldiers related, with great relish, that in the Mexican War a ball which struck him square in the forehead fell flattened to the ground without breaking the skin, as the bullet glances from the forehead of the buffalo. This anecdote won for him the soubriquet of "Old Buffalo."

At Fair Oaks, his troops were trembling under a pitiless storm of bullets, when he galloped up and down the advance line, more exposed than any private in the ranks.

"What regiment is this?" he asked.

"The Fifteenth Massachusetts," replied a hundred voices.

"I, too, am from Massachusetts; three cheers for our old Bay State !" And swinging his hat, the general led off, and every soldier joined in three thundering cheers. The enemy looked on in wonder at the strange episode, but was driven back by the fierce charge which followed.

This was no unusual scene. Whenever the guns began to pound, his mild eye would flash with fire. He would remove his artificial teeth, which became troublesome during the excitement of battle, and place them carefully in his pocket; raise his spectacles from his eyes and rest them upon the forehead, that he might see clearly objects at a distance; give his orders to sub

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HOW SUMNER FOUGHT.

[1862.

ordinates, and then gallop headlong into the thick of the fight.

Hundreds of soldiers were familiar with the erect form, the snowy, streaming hair, and the frank face of that wonderful old man who, on the perilous edge of battle, while they were falling like grass before the mower, would dash through the fire and smoke, shouting:"Steady, men, steady! Don't be excited. When you have been soldiers as long as I, you will learn that this is nothing. Stand firm and do your duty!"

Never seeking a dramatic effect, he sometimes displayed quiet heroism worthy of history's brightest pages. Once, quite unconsciously reproducing a historic scene, he repeated, almost word for word, the address of the great Frederick to his officers, before the battle of Leuthen. It was on the bloody field of Fair Oaks, at the end of the second day. He commanded the forces which had crossed the swollen stream. But before the other troops came up, the bridges were swept away. The army was then cut in twain; and Sumner, with his three shattered corps, was left to the mercy of the enemy's entire force.

On that Sunday night, after making his dispositions to receive an attack, he sent for General Sedgwick, his special friend and a most trusty soldier:

"Sedgwick, you perceive the situation. The enemy will doubtless open upon us at daylight. Re-enforcements are impossible; he can overwhelm and destroy us. But the country cannot afford to have us defeated. There is just one thing for us to do; we must stand here and die like men! Impress it upon your officers that we must do this to the last man-to the last man! We may not meet again; good-by, Sedgwick."

The two grim soldiers shook hands, and parted.

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ORDERED BACK BY MCCLEllan.

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Morning came, but the enemy, failing to discover our perilous condition, did not renew the attack; new bridges were built, and the sacrifice was averted. But Sumner was the man to carry out his resolution to the letter.

Afterward, he retained possession of a house on our old line of battle; and his head-quarter tents were brought forward and pitched. They were within range of a Rebel battery, which awoke the general and his staff every morning, by dropping shot and shell all about them for two or three hours. Sumner implored permission to capture or drive away the hostile battery, but was refused, on the ground that it might bring on a general engagement. He chafed and stormed: "It is the most disgraceful thing of my life," he said, "that this should be permitted." But McClellan was inexorable. Sumner was directed to remove his head-quarters to a safer position. He persisted in remaining for fourteen days, and at last only withdrew upon a second peremptory order.

The experience of that fortnight exhibited the everrecurring miracle of war-that so much iron and lead may fly about men's ears without harming them. During the whole bombardment only two persons were injured. A surgeon was slightly wounded in the head by a piece of shell which flew into his tent; and a private, while lying behind a log for protection, was instantly killed by a shot which tore a splinter from the wood, fracturing his skull; but not another man received even a scratch.

After Antietam, McClellan's ever-swift apologists asserted that his corps commanders all protested against renewing the attack upon the second morning. I asked General Sumner if it were true. He replied, with emphasis: