[489] but whether writing to this journal or to his own family, he usually says little about himself beyond the mention of his health, which seems to have remained good almost to the last.
On the 20th of July, a fortnight after the arrival of the army at Harrison's Landing, he writes from that place:—
Dear Sister Louisa, and good friends at home. . . . . My health is good as usual, though I should be stronger were I in Maine. You ask if I was in any of the battles. Not exactly, but nearly in two or three, but fortunately did not get hurt . . . . As I have told you before, have no fears for me. I shall return to Maine. May not this year . . . . We shall have peace some time. Our country can have but one government, but whether that will be a Republic or a Monarchy is more than I can determine. Good by, and God bless you all.
This was the last letter received from him.
Of the short remainder of his life but little has been learned. Not long after the date of his last letter he appears to have been attacked by diarrhea, and, after remaining a few days in the Rest Hospital, he was, with others of the sick, sent North while the army was preparing to evacuate the Peninsula. The steamer in which he was embarked bore the name of his native ‘State of Maine,’ to which, in his last letter, he had so confidently predicted his return. The prediction was indeed fulfilled to the ear, but not to the sense; for, on the arrival of the vessel at her destination, he was found dead on the deck. He is supposed to have died on the 17th of August, 1862, as the steamer was entering the port of Philadelphia. His remains were hastily interred with those of some thirty others, all in unmarked and unnumbered graves, at Oak Grove Cemetery, about forty miles from Philadelphia; and when a brother, on the news of his death, hastened to the scene of its occurrence, it was too late to reclaim his body, or to obtain more than the few facts above recorded relating to his last moments.
The date of his death as given above is that which has been adopted by his family. According to the Report of the Adjutant-General of the State of Maine for the year 1862, it occurred a few days later.
He died unmarried.
