## SMALL MEMORANDA.

Mr. Lincoln thought deeply over the whole matter. He was in more than usual tribulation on the subject. Let it be enough to say that though Mr. Harlan finally receiv'd the Secretaryship, Col. Dubois came as near being appointed as a man could, and not be. The decision was finally made one night about 10 o'clock. Bishop Simpson and other clergymen and leading persons in Mr. Harlan's behalf, had been talking long and vehemently with the President. A member of Congress who was pressing Col. Dubois's claims, was in waiting. The President had told the Bishop that he would make a decision that evening, and that he thought it unnecessary to be press'd any more on the subject. That night he call'd in the M. C. above alluded to, and said to him: "Tell Uncle Jesse that I want to give him this appointment, and yet I cannot. I will do almost anything else in the world for him I am able. I have thought the matter all over, and under the circumstances think the Methodists too good and too great a body to be slighted. They have stood by the government, and help'd us their very best. I have had no better friends; and as the case stands, I have decided to appoint Mr. Harlan."

### NOTE TO A FRIEND.

[Written on the fly-leaf of a copy of "Specimen Days," sent to Peter Doyle, at Washington, June, 1883.]

Pete, do you remember—(of course you do—I do well)—those great long jovial walks we had at times for years, (1866–'72) out of Washington City—often moonlight nights—'way to "Good Hope";—or, Sundays, up and down the Potomac shores, one side or the other, sometimes ten miles at a stretch? Or when you work'd on the horse-cars, and I waited for you, coming home late together—or resting and chatting at the Market, corner 7th Street and the Avenue, and eating those nice musk or watermelons? Or during my tedious sickness and first paralysis ('73) how you used to come to my solitary garret-room and make up my bed, and enliven me, and chat for an hour or so—or perhaps go out and get the medicines Dr. Drinkard had order'd for me—before you went on duty?........ Give my love to dear Mrs. and Mr. Nash, and tell them I have not forgotten them, and never will.

W. W.

WRITTEN IMPROMPTU IN AN ALBUM.

GERMANTOWN, PHILA., Dec. 26, '83.

In memory of these merry Christmas days and nights—to my

LAST OF THE WAR CASES.

soldier of seventeen, Charles Cutter, of Lawrence City, Massachusetts, 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, Battery M. He was brought to one of the hospitals mortally wounded in a domen. Well, I thought to myself, as I sat looking at him, it ought to be a relief to his folks if they could see how little he really suffer'd. He lay very placid, in a half lethargy, with his eyes closed. As it was extremely hot, and I sat a good while silently fanning him, and wiping the sweat, at length he open'd his eyes quite wide and clear, and look'd inquiringly around. I said, "What is it, my boy? Do you want anything?" He answer'd quietly, with a good-natured smile, "Oh, nothing; I was only looking around to see who was with me." His mind was somewhat wandering, yet he lay in an evident peacefulness that sanity and health might have envied. I had to leave for other engagements. He died, I heard afterward, without any special agitation, in the course of the night.

*Washington, May 26, '63.*—M., I think something of commencing a series of lectures, readings, talks, &c., through the cities of the North, to supply myself with funds for hospital ministrations. I do not like to be so beholden to others; I need a pretty free supply of money, and the work grows upon me, and fascinates me. It is the most magnetic as well as terrible sight: the lots of poor wounded and helpless men depending so much, in one ward or another, upon my soothing or talking to them, or rousing them up a little, or perhaps petting, or feeding them their dinner or supper (here is a patient, for instance, wounded in both arms,) or giving some trifle for a novelty or change—anything, however trivial, to break the monotony of those hospital hours.

It is curious: when I am present at the most appalling scenes, deaths, operations, sickening wounds (perhaps full of maggots,) I keep cool and do not give out or budge, although my sympathies are very much excited; but often, hours afterward, perhaps when I am home, or out walking alone, I feel sick, and actually tremble, when I recall the case again before me.

*Sunday afternoon, opening of 1865.*—Pass'd this afternoon among a collection of unusually bad cases, wounded and sick. Secession soldiers, left upon our hands. I spent the previous Sunday afternoon there also. At that time two were dying. Two others have died during the week. Several of them are partly deranged. I went around among them elaborately. Poor boys, they all needed to be cheer'd up. As I sat down by any particular one, the eyes of all the rest in the neighboring cots would fix upon me, and remain steadily riveted as long as I sat within their sight. Nobody seem'd to wish anything special

8

LAST OF THE WAR CASES.

the question, very slowly and soothingly. He could not tell
whether he had or not—things of late seem'd to him like a
dream. After waiting a moment, I said: "Well, I am going to
walk down the ward a moment, and when I come back you can
tell me. If you have not written, I will sit down and write."
A few minutes after I return'd; he said he remember'd now that
some one had written for him two or three days before. The
presence of this man impress'd me profoundly. The flesh was all
sunken on face and arms; the eyes low in their sockets and
glassy, and with purple rings around them. Two or three great
tears silently flow'd out from the eyes, and roll'd down his tem-
ples (he was doubtless unused to be spoken to as I was speaking
to him.) Sickness, imprisonment, exhaustion, &c., had con-
quer'd the body, yet the mind held mastery still, and call'd even
wandering remembrance back.

There are some fifty Southern soldiers here; all sad, sad cases.
There is a good deal of scurvy. I distributed some paper, en-
velopes, and postage stamps, and wrote addresses full and plain
on many of the envelopes.

I return'd again Tuesday, August 1, and moved around in the
same manner a couple of hours.

September 22, '65.—Afternoon and evening at Douglas Hospital to see a friend belonging to 2d New York Artillery (Hiram W. Frazee, Serg't,) down with an obstinate compound fracture of left leg receiv'd in one of the last battles near Petersburg. After sitting a while with him, went through several neighboring wards. In one of them found an old acquaintance transferr'd here lately, a rebel prisoner, in a dying condition. Poor fellow, the look was already on his face. He gazed long at me. I ask'd him if he knew me. After a moment he utter'd something, but inarticulately. I have seen him off and on for the last five months. He has suffer'd very much; a bad wound in left leg, severely fractured, several operations, cuttings, extractions of bone, splinters, &c. I remember he seem'd to me, as I used to talk with him, a fair specimen of the main strata of the Southerners, those without property or education, but still with the stamp which comes from freedom and equality. I liked him; Jonathan Wallace, of Hurd Co., Georgia, age 30 (wife, Susan F. Wallace, Houston, Hurd Co., Georgia.) [If any good soul of that county should see this, I hope he will send her this word.] Had a family; had not heard from them since taken prisoner, now six months. I had written for him, and done trifles for him, before he came here. He made no outward show, was mild in his talk and behavior, but I knew he worried much inwardly. But now all would be over very soon. I half sat upon

NOTES (such as they are) founded on

ELIAS HICKS.

*Prefatory Note.*—As myself a little boy hearing so much of E. H., at that time, long ago, in Suffolk and Queens and Kings Counties—and more than once personally seeing the old man—and my dear, dear father and mother faithful listeners to him at the meetings—I remember how I dream'd to write perhaps a piece about E. H. and his look and discourses, however long afterward—for my parents' sake—and the dear Friends too! And the following is what has at last but all come out of it—the feeling and intention never forgotten yet!

There is a sort of nature of persons I have compared to little rills of water, fresh, from perennial springs—(and the comparison is indeed an appropriate one)—persons not so very plenty, yet some few certainly of them running over the surface and area of humanity, all times, all lands. It is a specimen of this class I would now present. I would sum up in E. H., and make his case stand for the class, the sort, in all ages, all lands, sparse, not numerous, yet enough to irrigate the soil—enough to prove the inherent moral stock and irrepressible devotional aspirations growing indigenously of themselves, always advancing, and never utterly gone under or lost.

Always E. H. gives the service of pointing to the fountain of all naked the-
ology, all religion, all worship, all the truth to which you are possibly eligible
—namely in yourself and your inherent relations. Others talk of Bibles,
saints, churches, exhortations, vicious atonements—the canons outside of
yourself and apart from man—E. H. to the religion inside of man’s very own
nature. This he incessantly labors to kindle, nourish, educate, bring forward
and strengthen. He is the most democratic of the religionists—the prophets.

I have no doubt that both the curious fate and death of his four sons, and
the facts (and dwelling on them) of George Fox's strange early life, and per-
manent "conversion," had much to do with the peculiar and sombre ministry
and style of E. H. from the first, and confirmed him all through. One must
not be dominated by the man's almost absurd saturation in cut and dried biblical
phraseology, and in ways, talk, and standard, regardful mainly of the one need
he dwelt on, above all the rest. This main need he drove home to the soul;
the canting and sermonizing soon exhale away to any auditor that realizes
what E. H. is for and after. The present paper, (a broken memorandum of
his formation, his earlier life,) is the cross-notch that rude wanderers make in
the woods, to remind them afterward of some matter of first-rate importance
and full investigation. (Remember too, that E. H. was a thorough believer in
the Hebrew Scriptures, in his way.)

The following are really but disjointed fragments recall'd to serve and eke
out here the lank printed pages of what I commence'd unwittingly two months
ago. Now, as I am well in for it, comes an old attack, the sixth or seventh
recurrence, of my war-paralysis, dulling me from putting the notes in shape,
and threatening any further action, head or body.

—W. W., Camden, N. J., July, 1888.

(119)

ELIAS HICKS.

began to feel that the manner in which I sometimes amus'd myself with my
gun was not without sin; for although I mostly preferr'd going alone, and
while waiting in stillness for the coming of the fowl, my mind was at times so
taken up in divine meditations, that the opportunities were seasons of instruc-
tion and comfort to me; yet, on other occasions, when accompanied by some
of my acquaintances, and when no fowls appear'd which would be useful to
us after being obtain'd, we sometimes, from wantonness or for mere diversion,
would destroy the small birds which could be of no service to us. This cruel
procedure affects my heart while penning these lines.

In his 23d year Elias was married, by the Friends' ceremony,
to Jemima Seaman. His wife was an only child; the parents
were well off for common people, and at their request the son-
in-law mov'd home with them and carried on the farm—which
at their decease became his own, and he liv'd there all his re-
maining life. Of this matrimonial part of his career, (it con-
tinued, and with unusual happiness, for 60 years,) he says, giving
the account of his marriage:

On this important occasion, we felt the clear and consoling evidence of
divine truth, and it remain'd with us as a seal upon our spirits, strengthening
us mutually to bear, with becoming fortitude, the vicissitudes and trials which
fell to our lot, and of which we had a large share in passing through this
probationary state. My wife, although not of a very strong constitution, liv'd
to be the mother of eleven children, four sons and seven daughters. Our
second daughter, a very lovely, promising child, died when young, with the
small-pox, and the youngest was not living at its birth. The rest all arriv'd
to years of discretion, and afforded us considerable comfort, as they prov'd to
be in a good degree dutiful children. All our sons, however, were of weak
constitutions, and were not able to take care of themselves, being so enfeeb'l'd
as not to be able to walk after the ninth or tenth year of their age. The two
eldest died in the fifteenth year of their age, the third in his seventeenth year,
and the youngest was nearly nineteen when he died. But, although thus
helpless, the innocency of their lives, and the resign'd cheerfulness of their
dispositions to their allotments, made the labor and toil of taking care of
them agreeable and pleasant; and I trust we were preserv'd from murmuring
or repining, believing the dispensation to be in wisdom, and according to the
will and gracious disposing of an all-wise providence, for purposes best known
to himself. And when I have observ'd the great anxiety and affliction which
many parents have with undutiful children who are favor'd with health, espe-
cially their sons, I could perceive very few whose troubles and exercises, on
that account, did not far exceed ours. The weakness and bodily infirmity of
our sons tended to keep them much out of the way of the troubles and tempta-
tions of the world; and we believ'd that in their death they were happy, and
admitted into the realms of peace and joy: a reflection, the most comfortable
and joyous that parents can have in regard to their tender offspring.

Of a serious and reflective turn, by nature, and from his read-
ing and surroundings, Elias had more than once markedly devo-
tional inward intimations. These feelings increas'd in frequency
and strength, until soon the following: