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Fatal Illness.

375 Be pleased to inform me which you prefer. I shall be most happy to second your wishes in any manner you shall name. My constant occupation here has prevented my calling to see you. Should you determine to go in the Union, it is desirable that the captain should be informed as to what number of officers you take, and what preparation you wish made. "I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

"H. PAULDING, Commandant."

But by this time he was too ill for such matters. On the 18th and 19th he had rallied somewhat, awakening some hopes of his restoration; but he soon fell back, and he himself deliberately gave up all expectation of recovery. His wife, his daughter, his brother Augustus, with other members of his family and some of his naval friends, had now joined him, and with them he talked freely, and told them—as if the order to "cast off moorings" had been sent to him from a higher authority-"My disease is fatal; but I am prepared to meet death in this way, if God has so ordered it." Indeed, as his pastor, Dr. Budington, who was also present, writes: "It seemed as if the admiral, as usual, was the chief actor, discharging some difficult duty, and keeping all about him employed under his direction; but the work he had now in hand was to die, and this he went about as patiently and earnestly as he had ever cleared the decks for action. His life, the mainspring of which was a constant activity in the service of God and country, was closing in the energetic performance of his last commission-to die."

He said to his brother, when he first came into the room, "I'm glad to have one of my brothers with me;" and then, his face brightening up with almost a gleam of humor, he added, "I always told you I should go before you and John, and you see now I was right." His brother replied, "That is not so certain by any means." He rejoined, "You are certainly mistaken-I know I am right, and you will see." His brother remarked, pleasantly, "You are the same that you always were,

and you never will yield your point." The admiral then went on to say: "I wanted to go to Charleston and help the government all I could, but it is just as well. It is only as well. It is only a question of killing more men. I am perfectly resigned to the will of

God."

He was extremely anxious that the government should know the cause of his delay; and when he understood that an officer had returned from Washington with kind messages from the Secretary of the Navy, he seemed much relieved. He was also anxious that Admiral Dupont should be informed that it was no effort or intrigue on his part that had effected the change in the command of the squadron. After he was satisfied on these points, he quieted himself like a child, and appeared in a great measure to put away from his mind worldly things. He suffered severe pain from the rapid progress of his disease, which was a complicated affection of the liver and kidneys, that had been aggravated by his wound and his constant burden of mental anxiety; but he endured his pains with such unmurmuring patience as to draw praise from his attendants. He said once, "If 'twas God's will, I should like to have a little quiet and sleep."

The simple affectionateness and loving qualities of his warm sailor nature came out in all his words and looks. He greeted those who approached his bedside with a smile; and when his daughter, Mrs. Reese, was announced, he called her his dear child, and put his arms around her neck and kissed her.

He gave his last directions concerning his family and his affairs with entire clearness, and as apparently free from all excitement as if he were going upon a short journey.

Captain Sanford, his old ordnance-officer in the Western flotilla, and Captain Simpson were with him constantly, and from them and other brother-officers of the Navy, he received the most tender and unwearied attention. Captain Simpson writes: "His sufferings were so great that there were but few

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opportunities permitted him of saying words that could be stored up by his friends. His door was besieged by callers, but all were denied except a few family relatives. I told him of the frequent callers, but he said he could not see them-it was too much effort to speak. One day I told him that an officer, who had fought gallantly under him at the West, had asked to see him. He thought for a minute, and then said, 'Who knows what a dying man's word may do--I will see him.' The officer came to his bed, and Foote spoke to him. I know not what he said, but I saw the man's frame convulsed with emotion, and as he laid down Foote's hand he burst into. tears. At one time I was doing something for him, when he looked at me and said, 'Well, and what will you do?' I replied, 'I will try and follow you.' He put his arm around my neck and kissed me. I shall never forget that kiss. I spoke to him of his work on board the old Portsmouth, and he rejoined that it was little he had done. He dwelt on the worthlessness of worldly reputation, and said that such deeds as the world gave him credit for he valued now as nothing; and charged me that nothing would give peace at last but the consciousness of having resisted evil. All thought of worldly vanity, praise of men, and renown had disappeared from his mind."

He at length became more disturbed, and his speech at times grew incoherent; but he was rational at intervals. In one of these calm moments he said, "I thank God for all his goodness to me for all his loving kindness to me." He also said to a relative in the earlier stages of his illness, "God is dealing gently with me. He may bring dark hours; but thus far it grows brighter and brighter with me." He continued in this way, wavering between life and death—now growing stronger, and then sinking away again, like the ebb and flow of the tide-for some days.

His faithful colored man, Brooks, toward whom he had ever

manifested great esteem and kindness, testifies to his saying, with much earnestness, on the night of June 20, "We will have them, North and South"-repeating this several times.* Brooks asked him what he meant by this. He replied, "The colored people. Yes, we will have them ;" and he then added, "We must have charity-charity—charity."

For thirty-six hours immediately previous to his death he was probably wholly unconscious, and he gently expired at a quarter past ten o'clock on Friday night, the 26th day of June, 1863, at the comparatively early age of fifty-six.

Surgeon Bache, of the Navy, observed with emphasis to Admiral Foote's brother, as they were standing together in the chamber of death, "Your brother has literally worn himself out in the public service. He is as truly a victim of this war as if he had perished on the battle-field."

But now no more of wearing toil, anxiety, and care, of the uproar and confusion of battle, of the terrible mission of war and blood-he had at last found rest. The God whom he loved and served so well-who is the God of peace as well as the God of battles-had given his beloved sleep.

CHAPTER XXIX.

HONORS TO THE MEMORY OF ADMIRAL FOOTE. - FUNERAL OBSE

QUIES.

THROUGHOUT the land the illness of the generous, self-sacrificing sailor in New York, arrested as he was by a higher hand while on the point of throwing himself into a new and desperate service, excited unbounded sympathy. His death was a shock to the nation. In fact, his death at that time was the death of the greatest man who had yet fallen. The newspapers-even in that hurried period when important events were taking place and nothing held the public mind long— were filled with elaborate notices and eulogies of the departed hero. This official order of the Naval Department was published on the day succeeding his death :

"WASHINGTON, June 27.

"GENERAL ORDER No. 16.

"A gallant and distinguished naval officer is lost to the country. The hero of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, the indomitable spirit that created and led to successive victories the Mississippi flotilla-the hero and Christian sailor who, in the China seas and on the coast of Africa, as well as the great interior rivers of our country, sustained with unfaltering fidelity and devotion the honor of our flag and the cause of the Union, RearAdmiral Andrew Hull Foote, is no more. On his way to take command of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron-a position to which he had been recently assigned, and the duties of which were commanding the earnest energies and vigorous resources of a mind of no ordinary character he was suddenly prostrated by disease, and breathed his last at the Astor House in New York on the 26th instant.

"Among the noble and honored dead whose names have added lustre to our naval renown, and must ever adorn our national annals, few will stand more pre-eminent than that of the gallant and self-sacrificing Chris

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