tian sailor and gentleman whose loss we now deplore. Appreciating his virtues and his services, a grateful country has rendered him while living its willing honors, and will mourn his death.

"As a mark of respect, it is hereby ordered that the flags at the several navy yards, naval stations, and on the flag-ships of squadrons, be hoisted at half-mast; and that thirteen guns be fired at meridian on the day after the receipt of this order. GIDEON WELLES, Secretary of the Navy."

To show how events marched on in that time, and how sternly in earnest was the government, it should here be mentioned, and also as completing the official naval biography of Rear-Admiral Foote, that on the day before his death, the 25th, he was detached on account of sickness from his command of the South Atlantic squadron, and Rear-Admiral Dahlgren was appointed to fill his place.

On Saturday afternoon, the day succeeding the death, the vestibule and parlors of the Astor House were thronged by a concourse of people, among whom were many distinguished men of the nation and intimate friends of the deceased. Visitors poured into the room of death for two hours, and passed out with thoughtful and saddened faces. As the hour approached for the transportation of the remains to New Haven, a large crowd assembled in front of the hotel to witness the scene. Two companies of marines, detached from the receiving-ship North Carolina, arrived from the Navy Yard, and a great many citizens also joined the escort. Just before the body was removed, a lady stepped forward and laid a cross of white flowers and immortelles upon the coffin-lid. With dirgelike music the train moved on, the bearers who accompanied the body to the boat being Admiral Storer, Admiral Stringham, Captain Sands, Captain Drayton, Captain Mead, Captain Leslie, Captain Eagle, and Dr. Truslow. On the same day civic honors were paid by the city of New York, and resolutions were passed by the municipal government to the memory of the departed hero.

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In New Haven the remains of Admiral Foote lay at his home until Tuesday, the day of the funeral, when they were deposited for a while in the rotunda of the State House. There they were viewed by thousands, and it was remarked that the face, while it was more worn and thin than in life, had a natural look, though with a singular expression of majesty.

Rarely has there been in this land a more impressive funeral scene than was witnessed on Tuesday, June 30th, in the beautiful city of New Haven. The day was a calm and bright June day; the stately elms of the city were in their first luxuriance of foliage; flags drooped from all the public buildings and many of the private residences; business was suspended; and the entire city and the neighboring towns, and it might be said the whole state, flowed in toward the place where the last honors and religious rites were paid to him whom all mourned. Although all felt his loss profoundly at this critical hour of the country's history, yet his life had been so pure and his task so well done-nothing to human eye imperfect or wanting in that life of obedience to duty and of loyal selfsacrifice that it was impossible to grieve or to be sorrowful overmuch; therefore a sober cheerfulness pervaded the scene, and men's burdened hearts were purified by this grand example of a true life brought before them, and were lifted above their personal sadness into a kind of calm joy. The human soul, even the most selfish, is so formed that it takes pleasure in goodness, and pays unconscious tribute to true worth-that worth, above all, which has in it the elements of love and sacrifice for others. At the religious services in the Center Church, an address was made by Dr. Leonard Bacon, which, after recounting the incidents of the good admiral's career, closed thus:

"Where or how he was to die he had cared but little; he had thought much of the privilege of dying among his friends, though he had expected to meet his end in the din of battle. Around his bedside, strong

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and warlike men, who had been and soon will be again in the crash of battle, were assembled in tenderness and sympathy. His last words were but few. Once he said: 'God is dealing kindly with me; he has brought me through dark hours, but thus far it grows brighter.' Again he expressed a wish that his life might be blessed to the conversion of many in the Navy; 'but not only in the Navy,' he added, ' but to all.' To an officer who said to him, 'You must not leave us; your place can not be supplied,' he replied: 'God will supply a better one.' His last words were: 'I thank God for all his goodness to me-for all his loving kindness to me; he has been very good to me; I thank him for his kindness.' We are all here as mourners; yet this is only a representation of the Government and Navy, which together mourn the loss of our naval Hercules. The nation is the chief mourner of all. Shall we not, in its name, bless God for such an example-such a stimulus to thousands of hearts yet to be-in the love of country, man, and God?"

The procession which followed the body to its last restingplace was a host for multitude, and was composed of large bodies of state military, of two companies of marines, and a detachment of midshipmen from Brooklyn, of the civil anthorities of the principal cities of Connecticut, of the faculty and students of the University, and a great number of citizens. Four admirals acted as pall-bearers-Gregory, Smith, Storer, and Davis accompanied by Captain Glynn, Commander Simpson, Lieutenant Marven, and Ensign McGregor. Admirals Smith and Davis-both his life-long and tried friends, and the last his trusted successor in the command of the Western flotilla-were specially deputed by the government to attend the funeral; and the officer under whom he made his first voyage, and who now went with him on his last brief journey-Admiral Gregory--was there. The bowed heads and sorrowful faces of these war-worn veterans showed that they felt his loss deeply. His faithful colored man, Brooks, walked behind the hearse carrying his sword.

Under the shadows of the overarching elms and through the calm sunshine, silently, except when the stillness was broken

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at intervals by the firing of artillery and the tolling of bells, the long procession moved slowly on to the old cemetery; and, after the brief and solemn Episcopal service had been read at the grave, the body was laid down in the ground where slept the dust of many great and good men, and some of more recent fame, who were the first martyrs of the war for the Union, among whom was the brilliant young Theodore Winthrop—but none nobler and truer than he who had now come to ask a place to rest beside them.

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CHAPTER XXX.

CONCLUDING WORDS AND LETTERS OF FRIENDS.

It would seem superfluous to add aught to the simple record that has gone before-certainly not in the way of bestowing praise; for it has been a constant embarrassment to repress the uniform flow of eulogistic remark that has permeated these pages, because it has pervaded almost every letter, document, and public notice that has fallen into our hands. We are conscious, too, of the American fault of exaggeration; and it must be confessed that were the subject Washington himself, hardly nothing more could be said in the way of encomium than has been said by this one and that one of the subject of this memoir. Much doubtless has been said indiscriminately, and of the nature of mere rhetoric; but yet, when all this is deducted, there remains a residuum of pure gold.

Admiral Foote, if not a great man when judged by the highest intellectual standards—and how few there are that are truly great in every sense of that word!-surpassed common men in some things. He surpassed them in moral force. The central element of his character was this-an immutable resolution, under a religious sense of duty, to pursue the right. The principles he had deliberately chosen he carried to sea with him and into public life, and into his intercourse with men every where and under all circumstances. He was an ardent believer in the Christian faith and a believer in prayer -these had been wrought into his spirit in his youth, and he sailed under that flag to the day of his death. He wrote to his wife after the capture of Fort Henry that "he had agonized in prayer for victory." Another man might have won