The last hours of Hon. S. A. Douglas.
--The Chicago Journal, of the 3d instant, in recording the decease of Judge Douglas, thus refers to his condition during the closing hours of his existence.For a week past the lamented deceased has been only semi-conscious. Though recognizing his friends he has been unable to locate them, and his mind gave out confused fragments of the great thoughts with which his giant intellect was want to grapple.
The last week was an anxious one of hopes and fears, and as we went to press on Saturday evening, more favorable symptoms inspired the belief in his friends that he had passed the crisis, and that he would again be spared in this hour when his country so much needed his strong arm and his experienced counsels. His physicians, men of experience and skill, used every resource of their profession to take advantage of these favorable symptoms, but in vain. At twelve o'clock, last night, he failed to recognize his most intimate friend, and became totally unconscious; at three o'clock he commenced rapidly to fail, and his unwilling physician pronounced him beyond hope. Their only duty left was the mournful one of easing his dying hours. He gradually failed, seemingly without pain, until eleven minutes past nine, when the lamp of life was extinguished without a sigh or struggle. His devoted and loving wife remained with him to the last moment, solacing him as best she could, buried under the weight of the deep affliction. Madison Cutts, his brother-in-law; Miss Young, of the Tremont House; B. G. Caulfield, and Dr. Hay, were also present.
His death was peaceful and tranquil as the melting away of a summer cloud at evening, and the mourning watchers were alone with all that was earthly of Stephen A. Douglas.
The Chicago Post says:
‘ Judge Douglas returned home quite unwell, and called his medical attendant on Thursday, May 2. His primary attack was acute rheumatism, which rapidly assumed a typhoid character, and continued from the first very unyielding. After some ten or twelve days his attack was complicated by an ulcerated sore throat, which soon yielded. Torpor of the liver and constipation of the bowels ensued, soon followed by a jaundiced condition, accompanied by poisoning of the blood, which prostrated his nervous system still more — Constant wandering and delirium accompanied his attack from its inception till he died. His utterances, though broken, gave evidence that he was conscious of his approaching dissolution.
Judge Douglas was to have been buried on Friday last, on the lake shore, at College Grove, near Chicago. The most extensive preparations were making for the funeral, at last advices.
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