was more important than the occupation of Cemetery Hill on the morning of July 1, 1863, by a Federal division.  I think that the credit of that act cannot be denied to Howard.  In a later time he passed under the control of Sherman in the West, a shrewd and relentless judge of men, and Sherman trusted him to the utmost.  To a group of officers in their cups who were chaffing Howard for being Puritanical, Sherman curtly said:  “Let Howard alone; I want one general who doesn’t drink.”

I saw General Howard at Gettysburg on the fortieth anniversary of the battle.  We were under the same roof, and during the evening I sat close to him in the common room and heard him talk,—­a strenuous old man, his empty sleeve recalling tragically the combats through which he had passed.  Close by under the stars could still be traced the lines occupied by Steinwehr’s division, the troops which with such momentous results Howard had posted on Cemetery Hill.  I might easily have talked with him, for he was affable to old and young, but I preferred to study the good veteran from a distance and let others draw out his story while I listened.

In the winter of 1861 I went to Port Royal, through the good offices of my friend Rufus Saxton, then a captain and quartermaster of the expedition under which Dupont had taken possession of the Sea Islands in South Carolina.  The capture of Port Royal had taken place a few weeks before and the army was encamped on the conquered territory.  Saxton was an interesting figure, who in an unusual way showed during the war a fine spirit of self-sacrifice.  At the outbreak, a high position in the field was within his grasp; he was second in command to Lyon in St. Louis, and being intimate with McClellan might have held a position of responsibility in the field.  He was indeed made a general.  Once in 1862 he was in command of a considerable force, and when Banks was driven out of the Shenandoah Valley by Stonewall Jackson he withstood at Harper’s Ferry the rush of the Confederates into Maryland.  But at the solicitation of Lincoln and Stanton he gave up service in the field, for which he was well fitted and which he earnestly desired, to act as Military Governor of the Sea Islands, where his work was to receive and care for the thousands of negroes who by the flight of their masters in that region had been left to themselves.  Here he remained throughout the war, while his old comrades were winning fame at the head of divisions and corps, a patient, humane teacher and administrator among the nation’s wards.  He was content to live through the stirring time inconspicuous, but he won the respect of all kindly hearts at the North and deep gratitude from the helpless blacks whom he so long and humanely befriended.