ELIPHALET PEARSON

1752-1826

The First Headmaster

ONLY three years before Phillips Academy was founded the alarm had gone out that the British were on the move, and down the long, dusty country roads men had hastened to drive them back from Lexington and Concord and to besiege them in Boston. While the Minute Men were hastening from Andover to Lexington, another young man was fleeing from Cambridge to Andover. This youngster, Eliphalet Pearson by name, was by nature impetuous, belligerent, uncompromising, vitally concerned with the issues of the day; yet he lived, strangely enough, remote from war and ignored his military service. Most of his life was spent within twenty miles of Andover, and yet he became, without doubt, one of the great men in our nation's early history.

Eliphalet Pearson was an amazing individual and a good example of the way Puritanism could fill a man with that mental vigor and religious fervor characteristic of our town. Why he avoided military service we don't know, but after arriving in Andover one of his first undertakings, after starting a town grammar school, was to assist Samuel Phillips in the manufacture of gunpowder for the Revolutionary army. The problem was to find sufficient saltpetre, and Pearson, who knew considerable chemistry, experimented day after day, even covering the desks in his schoolroom with pans of chemicals and dismissing his pupils while he continued his researches. Finally, after thirteen successive tests covering a full twenty-four hours, he secured definite results which enabled Samuel Phillips to build his powder mill and supply the army with ammunition throughout the remainder of the war.

This effort was only a curtain raiser for Pearson, but before briefly sketching his accomplishments, let us digress a moment to speak of his stupendous energy and versatility. We who enjoy every labor-saving device often say that we have not time nor strength for anything much outside our routine activities. Compare the demands made upon a person's time in 1778. If our ancestors wanted water they had to go to the well for it; if they wanted heat, they had to cut wood and build a fire; if they wanted to travel, they had to feed and care for a horse. No pushbutton conveniences for them. Just think of the time it took to get from place to place---a full day to go from Andover to Boston, for instance. There is no need to go on, but it is obvious that just living must have taken a large percentage of a person's day. And yet under these conditions Pearson had found time to master six languages, not only the usual Latin, Greek, and French, but also Hebrew, Syriac, and Coptic. Even so, he was no intellectual recluse, because as a farmer and business man he was shrewd and capable. He had his graceful accomplishments, too, for he sang a good bass, played the cello, and wrote an authoritative hook on the art of singing psalms. Moreover, he was good with his hands and could take an engine apart or construct a violin. But all this merely occupied his spare time; it was his recreation. In his more serious moments he founded and was first president of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, was a founder of the American Educational Society, and was a prominent member of the Society for the Suppression of Intemperance. And after his ordination in later life he became a brilliant preacher. We may well wonder how he did it.

But his major accomplishments are still to be mentioned, deeds which did much to insure that the name of Andover would become known throughout the world. While still in his mid-twenties, he had begun to discuss with Samuel Phillips, Jr., his friend and contemporary, the founding of a new school which was to become Phillips Academy. There were points of difference between them; for instance, Phillips did not want to establish a school for the study of Latin and Greek, but after long arguments with Pearson he was persuaded to found a "classical academy." Phillips was not inclined to admit "charity students," but probably Pearson modified his ideas and fixed upon the school one of its strongest features, its democracy. Between them Pearson and Phillips produced a constitution which is one of the landmarks in American educational history. Then at the unanimous request of the Trustees Pearson became the first Principal of Phillips Academy, and by ruling it for nine years under rigid discipline, with perhaps harsh and severe regulations, he saw it through its infancy and securely established it as an educational institution.

In 1786 there began a brief interlude when he became Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Languages at Harvard, and became in 1804 President of Harvard College. But in 1806, displeased by the growing spirit of Unitarianism at the Cambridge institution, he resigned his position and returned to Andover to undertake his greatest work. Re-established here, in less than a year's time he made the necessary arrangements for the founding of a divinity school which would uphold orthodox beliefs against the encroaching liberalism just to the south. This was a task which required in nine months thirty-six trips by horse and buggy over the twenty long miles to Newburyport besides many trips to Boston, a task which required securing the promise of two buildings to house the Seminary and the raising of $20,000 for the Professorship of Christian Theology. It was Pearson's influence and power that made the Theological Seminary possible and that fixed its location in Andover. And it was the Seminary, without doubt the most famous center of religious energy in the world for nearly a hundred years, that, with the Academy, carried Andover's name to the remotest parts of the earth.

It was during the next few years while Pearson was serving as President of the Board which controlled both the Academy and the Seminary that he initiated the third undertaking that was to spread Andover's name abroad. It was through his enterprise that the Andover printing press was enlarged and established on the second floor of the "Old Hill Store" located behind the present gymnasium. This press was fortunate in having not only the first fonts of Greek and Hebrew type in America, but also in possessing such unusual types as, among others, Ethiopic, Coptic, Armenian, Syriac, and Samaritan, and thus was able to issue books that could not have been printed anywhere else in America. That the Press more than fulfilled Pearson's hopes for it is shown by the fact that as the years went on it published more than 100 books written by Andover professors, books which had a circulation of 400,000, and also printed the tracts of the American Tract Society, the Biblical Repository, the Bibliotheca Sacra and Theological Review, and the Herald of the American Temperance Society, all of them influential religious papers of that time.

Again we stand amazed at the energy of this incredible man whose influence was so widely felt. But as we try to visualize him, we are puzzled by the personality of one who did so much good. For Pearson was not a lovable character. His portrait shows his harsh, arrogant, impatient features. As a teacher he was the terror of his students. For instance, Josiah Quincy writes thus of his life under Pearson:

"The discipline of the Academy was severe, and to a child, as I was, disheartening. The Preceptor was distant and haughty in his manners. I have no recollection of his ever having shown any consideration for my childhood. Fear was the only impression I received from his treatment of myself and others."

Of course to a man of impetuous temperament the life of a schoolmaster was not easy. Pearson replies to Quincy, from the other side of the desk: "I have to keep my eye at the same time upon the idle and dissipated. I have only one room for sixty boys; much noise and confusion is going on. I have to listen to many requests, and stop and settle many difficulties." At another time he wrote: "I have been so long a teacher of boys it has ruined my temper." Adults did not find this inconsiderate, intolerant man easy to get along with, either, but the fact remains that having launched Phillips Academy, he then in nine months was able to force a compromise between the bitterly hostile adherents of Hopkinsian and Calvinistic dogma, that he brought over to his side men who were opposed to the Seminary, to its location in Andover, and to himself, and that he planted on Andover hilltop a theological institution established upon a broad and workable basis. Pearson died and was buried in Greenland, New Hampshire, in 1826. Perhaps we in this softer era attach too much importance to popularity and good nature. Perhaps the force of powerful convictions, exerted as it has been in Andover along intellectual and religious lines, gains more results in the end than the ability to win friends and social success.

 

MOSES STUART

1780-1852

Professor in the Theological Seminary

FOR one year Pearson held the Professorship of Sacred Literature in the Seminary which he had organized. He then retired, but as President of the Board of Trustees he had much to do with the choosing of his successor to the chair of Sacred Literature, a choice which fell upon the Reverend Moses Stuart, pastor of the First Church of New Haven. And again in Moses Stuart we notice that fierce energy so characteristic of the personalities of this town. For Stuart came to Andover to lecture on, among other aspects of Biblical criticism, "the original languages, including the Septuagint version; on the history, character and authority of other versions and manuscripts, on the authenticity of Scripture; on the Apocrypha; on modern translations." That would seem to be enough to daunt any person starting in as a professor for the first time. But to make matters worse, Moses Stuart knew neither Hebrew nor German, the two languages essential for Biblical criticism. To this problem he had a characteristic solution; it was simply to learn the two languages. This he did with such thoroughness that he gained a mastery of German scholarship such as few men of his time could boast. As to Hebrew, he found the language difficult to teach without a grammar, and no grammar was available in this country. He solved this problem by writing one. There was no Hebrew type-setter at hand, so he set it himself in the printing shop sponsored by Eliphalet Pearson. Thus he produced in 1813 the first Hebrew grammar published in this country and became "the father of Hebrew literature in America." It must have been a pleasure to attend the classes of a man who could make even the task of learning Hebrew interesting and under whose inspired teaching the Bible seemed to glow with new light and beauty. We must remember that in Professor Stuart's opinion, if Hebrew was not actually spoken in Heaven, it was at least worthy to be the celestial language.

Thanks to his daughter, Sarah Stuart Robbins, we get many a vivid little glimpse of Moses Stuart, "tall, lean, with strong, bold features, a keen, scholarly, accipitrine nose, a great solemnity of voice and manner," his air Roman, his neck long and bare like Cicero's. His tireless work was accomplished in spite of the fact that he suffered acutely from dyspepsia; when his malady interfered with his labors, his voice could be heard from his study, rising and falling in a wailing prayer for relief. We may well wonder if there were not occasions when, attacked by his uncomfortable illness, and confronted with a task so exacting and unfamiliar as setting Hebrew type, his prayers did not also resound from the windows of the printing shop. In the Seminary chapel Professor Stuart occupied the third pew. His daughter says: "Four-fifths of the year he carried his long blue cloak on his arm to church. Spreading it carefully over the back of the pew, and sitting on it, he was a most attentive but at the same time a most restless listener. To keep still seemed to be a physical impossibility for him. If the sermon was poor his impatience showed itself in shrugs, in opening and shutting his large white hands, in moving in his seat, and in a lengthened face pitiable to see. If it was good no one doubted his appreciation, or the social feeling that made him wish to share his enjoyment. At the utterance of any especially pertinent remark, he would often rise in his seat, and turning round upon the young men, his students, draw his red silk handkerchief across his mouth several times, expressing in every feature the keenness of his pleasure. If he differed theologically from the sentiments uttered, no words could have expressed his dissent more strongly than did his looks and gestures."

As has been intimated in connection with Eliphalet Pearson, in those early days the task of merely keeping body and soul together made great demands on the available hours of daylight. And Professor Stuart, even though he arose at four in the summer and five in the winter to work on his beloved Hebrew, still had to get in the hay. Dr. Wayland, who, as a student, once helped him with this task and while doing so commented on the poorness of the crop, will never forget the Professor's reply. "Bah! was there ever climate and soil like this! Manure the land as much as you will, it all leaches through this gravel, and very soon not a trace of it can be seen. If you plant early, everything is liable to be cut off by the late frosts of spring. If you plant late, your crop is destroyed by the early frosts of autumn. If you escape these, the burning sun of summer scorches your crop, and it perishes by heat and drought. If none of these evils overtake you, clouds of insects eat up your crop, and what the caterpillar leaves the canker-worm devours." The professor's deliberate and solemn utterance made his words sound like the maledictions of some Old Testament prophet.

It would almost seem that Moses Stuart was the answer to Eliphalet Pearson's prayer. It was Stuart's teaching, influence, and scholarly methods which gave celebrity to Andover as a seat of religious learning. And it was Stuart's persistence in setting his Hebrew type and producing his grammar which inspired many of the missionaries going out from Andover at that time to do likewise in their distant mission fields. For instance, Miron Winslow, of the class of 1818, translated the Bible into the Tamil tongue of India and compiled a Tamil-English dictionary. Just think of the energy required, the hours of time demanded for such a task. Samuel A. Worcester, of the class of 1823, translated parts of the Bible into the language of the Cherokee Indians in America. But these two men were just the beginning. From this point on, Moses Stuart's inspiration brought about incredible results. Fired by what they had experienced on the Hill, Andover graduates produced hundreds of volumes written in the tongues of the Mahratta of India, in Arabic and Syriac, in Armenian-Turkish, in Arabic-Turkish, in Chinese, Japanese, in the languages of Africa and the islands of the Pacific. These men not only wrote grammars and dictionaries, but invented alphabets where none existed before; they not only wrote books, but printed the books they wrote; they not only made the type, but set the type with their own hands. As a result, Professor Park proudly exclaimed in 1878, "There is no man now living who can read the alphabets of all the languages in which the Alumni of our Seminary have published their thoughts."

What a tremendous force he had started, that quiet, scholarly figure in a remote New England village. Moses Stuart's daughter pictures him for us:

"From his study to the chapel of the Theological Seminary, back and forth day after day, meeting no one, but in the silence and solitude through which he walked hearing and recognizing the song of every bird that caroled on the trees; noting the changes in the elms which he had loved ever since he had seen the tiny twig planted in the rough, new ground; watching through the brief summer days for the flowers that sometimes dotted his path; overlooking no slightest thing in earth or sky that God had given---such was his life."

And yet from that peaceful soul lines of magnetic force stretched out to vitalize with the Christian message almost every remote and backward corner of the world.

An amazing book came out of World War II. It was written by Dean Henry P. Van Dusen, it is called They Found the Church There, and it describes the experiences of our fighting men who happened, by the chances of war, to be cast away among the natives of the Pacific Islands. One letter describes how seven young airmen found themselves stranded on one of the Solomon Islands. For eighty-seven days the natives, whose first act was to give them a Bible, cared for them and hid them from the Japanese. "That and our (other) experiences made us Christians," one of the Americans wrote. "You can tell the world that I am now a devout Christian." Another lad wrote from New Georgia, "A handful of missionaries risked their lives and sacrificed the comforts and luxuries of home to teach these natives Christianity. It was because of this new found faith and their trust in these white men that they worked ceaselessly on behalf of the American army carrying ammunition and food, medical supplies and water, pointing out obscure trails to make the going easier. . ." A third American boy was present when a group of islanders conducted a celebration and a religious service in honor of what they had learned was the American Thanksgiving Day. After one of the natives had read from a native Bible, translating into English as he read, and had led the group in a prayer of thanksgiving, the American commented: "I don't suppose a group of whites has ever before been led in prayer by a man who is generally believed to be ignorant or termed savage. But a few short years ago his people were head-hunters and cannibals. When we look at the simple life and the love of God these natives display, it makes you wonder just which race is ignorant or savage."

Since these are only three of many similar accounts it would seem that Senator James M. Mead was right when he put it into a single sentence: "American doughboys are reaping heavily where the missionaries have so long and patiently sown."

I don't think it is stretching the point too far to say that where there is a happy Christian life on these remote islands, and where kindness was shown to our unfortunate service men, these conditions can be traced, in part at least, right back through the years to the 248 missionaries trained in the Andover Theological Seminary. Behind them we find the seven Seminary students whose prayer meetings on the shore of Rabbit's Pond led to formation of the first American society for foreign missions. And even behind that group we may discern the powerful impulse given by Eliphalet Pearson and Moses Stuart.

These two men, although the first was partly and the second was wholly concerned with the Theological Seminary, set the tone that still persists on Andover Hill. There has never been a time in the Academy's long history when either students or faculty failed to live up to the concept that one's job must be done and done well, no matter how hard. Perhaps that is one of the virtues our Founder had in mind when he inserted that famous phrase in the Constitution, "the principal object of this Institution is the promotion of true Piety and Virtue."

 

WILLIAM FRANCIS BARTLETT

1840-1876

Civil War general and early advocate
of reconciliation between the States

ON April 28, 1875, there was a stir of expectation about the railroad station at Richmond, Virginia. The bearded veterans of the First Virginia Infantry, drawn up on the platform, indicated that some one of more than usual eminence was expected. At length the train from the north pulled in. With a rush the former Rebels were on board, seized an astonished man, and crying, "We've got you again! General," bore him on their shoulders to his carriage, took out the horses, and cheering dragged the carriage to his residence.

Had this been a welcome to one of their own gallant leaders, such a demonstration would perhaps have been expected. But the man carried in triumph to his home was a Union general, who ten years before had been in arms against the South, and who had sacrificed his youth and his health in fighting against Secession. The one to receive such a signal honor was an old Phillips boy, William Francis Bartlett, P. A. 1858.

While the crowds gathered around Bartlett's porch, the ex-Confederate general, Bradley Johnson, spoke a few words of cordial welcome, and then cried, "And now, men, General Bartlett has often heard the 'Rebel yell' given in anger --- show him how it sounds in friendship." What followed is pictured by another Confederate officer who was present. "No one can describe the scene. As the heavens were rent by that shrill, wild yell, that rose and swelled in mighty volume and soared still higher, the northern hero who had not blenched at Ball's Bluff, or Port Hudson, or the lines in front of Yorktown, or in front of Petersburg, stood completely unmanned, the tears streaming down his thin, bronzed cheeks, while still that glorious yell rose and soared yet higher and higher and even higher, in wild crescendo, until its piercing note seemed to smite and shiver the very skies."

Probably no other soldier ever heard such an outburst of love and admiration from a people he had helped subdue. Most of those in the Richmond crowd knew something of Bartlett's gallant record in the war ---how in spite of repeated wounds and illness he had led his troops in battle after battle, until he emerged from the conflict a major-general at the age of twenty-five. But that was not the reason for their enthusiasm. They cheered him because he had been the first, in the still savagely resentful North, publicly to urge reconciliation with the South, and because he had voiced his respect and admiration for the heroic gray-clad soldiers even though their bullets had ruined his life at its very start.

A few years ago boys who entered the Registrar's office saw before them a full-length portrait of General Bartlett in uniform, slender, youthful, self-confident. Behind the serious dignity of his expression lay the story of a short life packed with as much romance as the most imaginative youngster could desire. Wounded in four of the five battles in which he took part, thrice leading his troops against the enemy despite the handicap of a wooden leg, captured and confined in Libby Prison, urged in the same year to accept in Massachusetts the nomination for lieutenant-governor by the Democrats and the nomination for governor by the Republicans, the events of his life read like a story of honor and accomplishment. Bartlett was in fact one of those born soldiers who in spite of youth and inexperience have the knack of controlling and inspiring men in camp, on the march, and under fire. And in his latter years he was rapidly developing a broad sanity of outlook and an eloquence of expression that would have carried him far as a peace-time leader. But, nevertheless, his story is not so much one of success as a bitter tragedy of thwarted ability. A nemesis seemed to pursue him so that he never in the army nor in civil life reached the position to which his powers entitled him.

William Francis Bartlett was born in Haverhill, June 6, 1840, the son of Charles L. Bartlett and Harriet (Plummer) Bartlett, and the descendant of soldiers who fought in the Colonial and Revolutionary wars. At the age of seventeen, he entered the Teachers' Seminary, at Andover, rooming at Mrs. Cheever's. There is no record of his career or interests at Andover, and even if there were, such information would throw little light on his subsequent personality. His mature life was passed among the unprecedented conditions of civil war and reconstruction, which called up unexpected traits of character to meet them. Bartlett's boyhood probably indicated his future abilities no more than Lincoln's days behind the counter of a country store foreshadowed a great president, or Grant's shiftless days on the farm near St. Louis foretold the qualities of a hard, relentless fighter. Even at Harvard, where Bartlett was a member of the class of 1862, he was somewhat immature in mind, not over fond of study, but far more interested in billiards, supper parties, outdoor sports, novels, the theater, and the company of young ladies. He was a typical carefree undergraduate, in whom nothing but a certain air of reserve and a dignity of carriage gave promise of greater things beneath the surface of frivolity.

But even the most thoughtless youngster could not escape the turmoil of conflicting opinions that troubled the nation in the months before the outbreak of the Civil War. Bartlett was as confused as anyone, but his tendency was to side with the South. In January, 1861, he maintained in a college theme that the demands of the South were just that she asked only for her rights under the Constitution. A few days later, he entered in his journal, "And to think that all these troubles have arisen from the interference of the North" yet during that same month he was practicing his first drill under Northern officers. On April 17, he wrote, "It (going to war) would be fighting rather against my principles, since I have stuck up for the South all along," and on the same day he joined the Fourth Battalion of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. We cannot blame Bartlett for his inconsistency. Older and wiser heads than his were puzzled over the right and wrong of the issue facing the country. But when once he was in the midst of the struggle, all doubt vanished from his mind.

Four weeks of garrison duty at Fort Independence, in Boston Harbor, filled him with martial fever. He wrote, "I value the knowledge acquired in the last month more highly than all the Greek and Latin I have learned in the last year --- I look back on the past month as one of the pleasantest and most useful that I remember." After a brief return to college, he accepted a commission as captain in the Twentieth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, and after a short period in camp was named senior captain of the regiment at the age of twenty-one.

By the fall of 1861, the Confederates, established since the previous July at Bull Run, had pushed forward their outposts and placed batteries along the Potomac until shipping on the river had to cease, and Washington was cut off from the sea. The capital was in a dangerous and ignominious situation. As a result, on September 4, the Twentieth Massachusetts was hurried to Camp Benton, on the Potomac, where it formed a part of the Corps of Observation under General Stone. For five weeks Bartlett thoroughly enjoyed himself, camping in the open, learning his duties, and having no contact with the enemy save when the Blue and the Gray pickets would lay down their arms, meet halfway across a ford, and swap newspapers and stories. But on the 21st of October came the first engagement in which he was to take part, the only one from which he was to emerge unhurt, and a disastrous one for the Union forces.

General McClellan was under the impression, only too erroneous as it proved, that a "slight demonstration" would cause the enemy to withdraw from the river. In support of this movement, five companies of the Twentieth Massachusetts, including Bartlett's, crossed the Potomac at Harrison's Island. The whole operation was conceived and carried out with a bungling inefficiency surprising even in inexperienced soldiers, and resulted in a bloody defeat, in the capture of Colonel Lee, commanding the Twentieth Massachusetts, in the death of General Baker, and in the arrest and disgrace of General Stone. More than a thousand men were placed on the far side of the river to face an enemy whose strength was unknown. Immediately behind them was a steep bluff 150 feet high, rising from a narrow strip of beach on the river. Their only means of retreat to Harrison's Island consisted of three boats carrying respectively sixteen, five, and four men. Of course the inevitable happened when the Confederates proved to outnumber the Federals more than three to one. Driven to the water's edge, hemmed in between the river and the bluff, the Union forces were in desperate plight. Bartlett describe what he saw at the end of the day.

"Here was a horrible scene. Men crowded together, the wounded and the dying. The water was full of human beings, struggling with each other and the water, the surface of which looked like a pond when it rains, from the withering volleys that the enemy were pouring down from the top of the bank. Those who were not drowned ran the chance of being shot."

Eventually not more than half of the men of the Twentieth Massachusetts got back to Harrison's Island and safety, and the gloom caused by the calamity at Ball's Bluff spread throughout the North.

But Bartlett cannot be blamed for the disaster of that day; he was only carrying out the orders of his superiors. In his first battle he showed soldierly qualities which with average good fortune would have carried him far. Luck was with him on this day, because he was one of the two captains in the regiment unhit. Never again, however, was he to see more than the very first stages of a battle.

In a letter to his mother Bartlett told of his experiences at Ball's Bluff. As his company lay in the little meadow above the bluff, awaiting the retreat of the Fifteenth Massachusetts, which was in touch with the enemy, hearing rumors that the Confederates were in greatly superior numbers, and yet, in spite of the tenseness of the moment, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion, the enemy opened fire from their concealed position in the wood. Bartlett describes his first experience of enemy fire, so heavy that if a man lifted his head or his foot, it was hit.

"I felt that if I was going to be hit, I should be, whether I stood up or lay down, so I stood up and walked around among the men, stepping over them and talking to them in a joking way, to take their thoughts from the bullets, and to keep them more self-possessed. I never felt better, although I expected of course that I should feel the lead every second, and I was wondering where it would take me."

Of the scene later in the day he wrote:

"The field now began to look like my preconceived idea of a battle field. The ground was smoking and covered with blood, while the noise was perfectly deafening. Men were lying underfoot, and here and there a horse was struggling in death. Coats and guns strewn over the ground in all directions. I went to the Colonel and he was sitting behind a tree perfectly composed. He told me there was nothing to do but 'surrender and save the men from being murdered'."

But Bartlett could not accept this apathetic view of his colonel while his men were struggling in the water at the foot of the bank, and the enemy bullets were raining down upon them from above.

"I called for Company I for one last rally. Every man that was left sprang forward as we reached the top we came upon two fresh companies of the enemy which had just come out of the woods; they had their flag with them. Both sides were so surprised at seeing each other they at seeing us coming up with this handful of men, we at seeing these two new companies drawn up in perfect order --that each side forgot to fire. And we stood looking at each other (not a gun being fired) for some twenty seconds and then they let fly their volley at the same time we did."

Being now driven down the bank to the water's edge, Bartlett first urged his colonel to escape, and thought, mistakenly, that he had reached safety. Then, as the senior officer present, although very likely the youngest in years, he took command of the regiment, and ordering those who could swim to strike out for the other shore, gathered those who remained of his own and other regiments and started up stream to escape from the enemy's fire. Not far away they came upon an old boat submerged in the river, and though some of the others urged surrender, Bartlett raised it to the surface, held off at the point of his pistol those who rushed for it, and finally got everyone across, thus saving eighty men and three officers from falling into enemy hands. Back in camp once more Bartlett found himself in temporary command of the regiment. After a few hours' rest (he had been without food or sleep from Saturday night to Tuesday morning) his first thought was for his men and the morale of the regiment. That night he "thought it best to have a dress parade as usual, both to let the men see that everything was not broken up, and to cheer them with the music."

For five months after Ball's Bluff Bartlett's soldiering was comparatively peaceful while the country waited for McClellan to forge the Army of the Potomac into a weapon which would strike the decisive blow. During this time Bartlett remained second in command of the regiment, busy with the exacting duties of drill and camp discipline, proving himself as capable at routine as he had been brilliant in the emergencies of battle.

Meanwhile McClellan had perfected the great army which he and everyone else believed was to end the war at once. The direct approach to Richmond was, he feared, too strongly held by the Confederate forces at Bull Run, so transporting his army by water to the peninsula between the York and James rivers, he began to march on Richmond from the east. Bartlett's regiment formed part of the invading force, and on April 15 arrived before the enemy defences at Yorktown. Here there was a long delay, McClellan being unwilling to attack until he had brought up the heavy siege guns, although persistent rains had made the roads impassable even for light artillery. Meanwhile the troops lived miserably in the mud and water, under constant fear of attack, and engaged in annoying skirmishes which provided plenty of danger but no glory. After one such encounter, when his regiment had been out all day exposed to rifle and artillery fire, and had returned wet, muddy, and exhausted to camp, Bartlett showed a touch of that thoughtfulness which endeared him to his men.

"We were pretty tired when we got back. The Colonel and I had a tent to sleep in, but the men had nothing to do but lie down in the mud and let it rain. Most of them stood up around the fires all night to keep warm. I managed to get two dozen bottles of whiskey from the sutler, which he had brought for officers, and distributed it so that each man got a small drink of hot whiskey and water."

On April 24 Bartlett's regiment was at the outposts in front of Yorktown. A Confederate sniper, whose position could not be located, was causing the men much annoyance, and Bartlett went forward in an effort to discover his hiding place. Kneeling behind a tree, he began to search with his glasses the enemy position when the sharp-shooter's bullet struck him in the knee, shattering the bone down to the ankle. As he was carried to the rear, he looked up to his best friend, Colonel Palfrey, and said, "It's rough, Frank, isn't it?" and this was the solitary word of complaint that escaped him. A consultation of surgeons decided that the leg must come off, it was amputated four inches above the knee at once, and he started for Baltimore that same afternoon.

A comrade of Bartlett's once wrote of him, "Somehow or other, we cannot tell why, we believe that he will not be the mere buffet of circumstances, but will ride over and lead us over all difficulties," and that sums up Bartlett's reaction to the misfortune which had befallen him. Back in his comfortable home, under the care of his mother and sisters, still suffering acutely from the pain in the stump of his leg and in his missing foot, which felt most of the time as if someone were "playing stick knife in it," he might have been forgiven had he, as most men would have done, sat back and let the war go on without him. But now two of his remarkable qualities intervened to prevent any such comfortable surrender to fate his determination to see the job through and his unusual powers of recuperation. Hence, in two weeks after the loss of his leg he was being measured for crutches. In three weeks he was writing, "But they can't occupy my mind so that it won't turn southward with a longing, homesick feeling, mingled with a vain regret at being snatched away just at the moment when we were about to see something of glorious and victorious war." And on September 20, six months after losing his leg, he assumed command of the Forty-ninth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, which was stationed at Pittsfield. The regiment was much impressed by the way he drilled it in the manual of arms, incredible as it may seem, standing upon one leg. An observer writes, "For two hours at a time he will stand on that remaining leg, till half of us believe he never had any need of the one buried at Yorktown, but it was only a superfluous member or mere ornament."

In November, 1862, the regiment left the state, passed through New York, where it paraded up Broadway, the Colonel, an impressive figure, riding at its head with his crutch strapped like a lance behind him, and encamped on Long Island. Here for several weeks Bartlett drilled and disciplined his men, and twice, in the absence of General Andrews, was left in command of the camp. On these occasions, the young colonel, still in his twenty-second year, was responsible for 8,000 men, ordered the various ships to sea, and much to his own amusement at the incongruity of it all, issued orders to Commodore Vanderbilt and other naval officers, and dealt directly with the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of War at Washington.

On January 24, 1863, the regiment set sail for New Orleans to form part of the army under General Banks, whose mission was to march up the Mississippi and capture Port Hudson from the south. At the same time Grant was to capture Vicksburg from the north, and thus open up the whole length of the river. For three months the regiment camped and maneuvered between Baton Rouge and Port Hudson while Bartlett continued the drill and discipline of his troops. To teach them cleanliness and self-respect he required each man to wear white gloves on parade and at guard mount. He was indignant at the lack of discipline which allowed other regiments to plunder and wrote, "My men think it hard that they are not allowed to go in and plunder, when everybody else does it; and it is. They not only steal poultry and other live meat, but in some cases even go into the houses and take food off the table, and steal jewelry and other valuables. I will shoot the first man I see doing it and take the consequences." At length his training bore fruit, and after one particularly good drill he wrote, "If they would only do as well, keep as steady, and fire as coolly in a real action as they did then they need not be afraid of anything under heaven in the shape of an enemy." And he added, rather pathetically, in view of what was soon to happen, "I only hope I shall not get shot until after I have had the regiment in one good fight."

Crippled though he was, Bartlett was physically very tough in those days. The ordinary hardships of a soldier's life, lack of food, excessive heat, a camp under water, he passed off with a smile. At times he was twelve or fourteen hours in the saddle, and commented rather scornfully on the other officers' complaints of weariness. It is true that once or twice he murmured, though he never let an illness interfere with his duties. Once after thirty-six hours of continual marching and anxiety he was threatened with typhoid and wrote, "I wonder if these men who go to the hospital and off duty feel half as weak and ill as I do just now. I suffer more in case of an attack of weakness or illness than when I had two legs. It takes all the strength and vigor of a healthy man to drag around this 'ball and chain' of a leg (his wooden leg). My leg has pained me more than usual lately."

Two months later, he was again unwell. "Never felt worse in my life. Never took so much medicine." But his iron will refused to yield, and when orders came for the regiment to march at five A.M., he, in deliberate disregard of the doctor's orders went, too, and was present to steady his troops at the small encounter of Plains Store. The enforced exertion seemed to do him good.

At last, after much vacillation, and too late to cooperate with Grant in his first and second assaults on Vicksburg, General Banks brought himself to attack Port Hudson. It was a movement of which Bartlett disapproved and whose failure he foresaw. On May 27, 1863, his regiment was lying in a wood awaiting the order to attack. Before them stretched for half a mile the ground over which they must charge, rendered almost impassable even for an able-bodied man by trees felled and ingeniously cut up so that they provided no shelter but were great obstacles to the advance. Bartlett wrote, "I knew it would be almost impossible to get through the fallen trees, etc., even if I was not shot at. I knew, being the only officer mounted, I should be much more conspicuous. I knew that my chances of life were small. But I had to go on horseback, or not at all. So prayed that life and limb might be spared and went in." Thus the crippled colonel led the attack on horseback, the only mounted man among the three thousand of the assaulting column. For fifty rods he advanced, his little horse leaping obstacles that seemed insurmountable to any horse flesh, the most conspicuous target on the field. Then, just as he was shouting to his men to close on the colors, he fell, a bullet shattering his left wrist, and a buck shot entering his good ankle. As friends rushed to help him, his first words were, "Did you see my Billy? He jumped like a rabbit." The Confederates' comment to a Union officer whom they met while burying the dead was, "the bravest and most daring thing we have yet seen done in the war. We thought him too brave a man to be killed, so we ordered our men not to fire at him."

Carried back to Baton Rouge, Bartlett was almost two months recovering from the wound in his wrist. It suppurated very freely, and the discharge weakened him extremely, the more so as the hot weather had arrived. His sufferings were increased by the medical ignorance prevalent at the time and by poor nursing. One evening the doctors had actually laid out their instruments to amputate his hand by candle light, but Bartlett persuaded them to wait until morning, and by daylight they found a slight improvement had taken place. He recorded that one evening he sat up till past ten "waiting for the doctors, who were to come but didn't. Learned this morning that one was very drunk, the other taking care of him."

On July 31 Bartlett reached New York again. For a second time the chance to lead in battle the men he had so carefully trained had been denied him. Nevertheless he enjoyed at his home in Winthrop one of the pleasantest periods of his life, all the more delightful after the fatigue, discomfort, and responsibility of his life in Louisiana. But in spite of his three wounds and the peace and security he was enjoying, the thought of resting on his honors never occurred to him. He had scarcely been at home a month when he accepted the colonelcy of the Fifty-seventh Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, which he raised himself, and over the formation and training of which he was much occupied. Two happy occurrences during this period were the presentation of a sword to him by the citizens of Winthrop and his engagement to Miss Mary Agnes Pomeroy, of Pittsfield. On April 18, 1864, he left Massachusetts for Annapolis, where his regiment became a part of the Ninth Army Corps, an independent command, under the direct orders of General Grant.

Although the Fifty-seventh Massachusetts was a green regiment and in no condition to take into action, it was about to enter the bloodiest battle of the war. By 1864 the Union leaders believed that Lee was so worn down he could not resist the sledge hammer blows Grant was prepared to deliver. Grant had already instructed Meade that Lee's Army, lying between him and Richmond, was to be his objective, and so began the fearful slaughter of the Wilderness. On the day the movement began Bartlett wrote, "Grant, I fear, does not appreciate Lee's ability, nor the qualities of his army," and such proved to be the case. As Grant advanced "forward by the left flank" he found Lee always in front of him, and gradually, with the loss of 70,000 men, his thrust was deflected to the south and east until on June 15 he withdrew from the disastrous field of Cold Harbor, crossed the James, and settled down to the long siege of Petersburg.

Bartlett advanced with his regiment on May 4 from Rappahannock Station, but as usual was to see little of the fighting. Two days of hard marching, and on the 6th he moved to the front at 3 A.M. "It will be a bloody day. I believe I am prepared to die. God bless my dear friends at home." He went into action at eight. At eleven a bullet hit him a glancing blow above the right temple, and he was carried, stunned, to the rear. For five days he lay among the dead and dying in dressing stations, or jolted from place to place in ambulances, living on hardtack and whiskey. On May 12, he reached Washington with one idea in mind --- to get his wooden leg and rejoin his regiment.

On September 26, just after his return from Louisiana, Secretary Stanton had expressed admiration of Bartlett's conduct, and had promised him a brigadier-general's commission. On June 20, two weeks after his twenty-fourth birthday, it was confirmed by the Senate.

It was an accepted opinion in recent wars that a wound was a blessing in disguise if it enabled one to leave the front, and still better if it made return there impossible. Such was not Bartlett's attitude. On July 20, he arrived in front of Petersburg, where Grant's great drive had become immobilized, to take command of the First Brigade of Ledlie's Division of the Ninth Army Corps. But we notice a change in his outlook on the war. Gone were his enthusiasm and exaltation, and a fatalistic dejection took their place. "I expect I shall be killed as soon as I go down to the, lines," is one of the first entries in his journal. He was much preoccupied with the rebel bullets which flew into his headquarters and struck against the stockade which protected his tent. "A bullet goes whizzing over my tent every few minutes as I write.. . The bullets patter like rain at times against the outside of this stockade of logs, the inside of which my elbows touch as I write.

I will count the shots in the next minute .. . . Eighty-one, and one heavy mortar shell.. . Thud; there go two ugly bullets into a tree nearby." Anyone who has been through a long spell under fire will understand his condition. The human organism can stand just so much of the nervous strain of constant danger and horror and then begins to give way until it reaches the state of shell-shock or even actual insanity. Bartlett was spared this misfortune by action, the weird and disastrous Battle of the Crater, which with his usual bad luck ended his active military career.

On July 29 Bartlett was informed that his Division was to lead the assault on the Confederate works at daylight. "I hardly hope to live through it. God have mercy -. If I could only ride, or had two good legs, so I could lead my brigade, I believe it would follow me anywhere. I will try as it is."

The plan of the battle in which Bartlett was now to take part was this. A mine had been dug under the enemy trenches and charged with 8,000 pounds of powder. With the explosion of this the Federals were to rush forward, taking advantage of the resulting confusion, and secure a foothold in the enemy lines. At 4.40 A.M. the great explosion took place. A mighty, mushroom cloud of earth rose slowly, carrying men and guns with it, hung suspended, and appeared to descend upon the Union lines. The waiting troops wavered, broke for a moment, then recovered and rushed across the open field. Orders were to charge through the crater made by the explosion and take the hill beyond. For a while the operation seemed successful. But after the first surprise the Confederates rallied and drove the attackers back into the crater. Gradually the enemy seeped down the trenches to right and left and pinned the Federals within the huge hole. Wave after wave of blue-clad men gained the enemy lines, only to be driven themselves into the crater. It became an inferno, a trap, its sides running with blood, its bottom covered with dead and dying, the scorching sun beating down into it until it steamed. It was impossible to retreat or advance. The Confederates crept almost to the rim and poured their fire into the struggling mass within. Those in the crater saw that the only chance of success was to seize and hold the enemy works on a wide front to right and left. But no officer of rank sufficient to change the plan of attack was present, and General Ledlie, safely sheltered in a dugout at the rear, was apparently indifferent to the facts of the situation.

Bartlett wrote in his journal, "I got up to the enemy's works about as soon as anyone. Got into the crater. Took the first and second lines of the enemy. Held them till after one when we were driven back by repeated charges. I fought them for an hour after they held the whole lines, excepting the crater where we were, their flag within seven feet of ours across the work. They threw bayonets and bottles on us, and we returned, for we got out of ammunition. At last, to save further slaughter, there being no hope of our being rescued, we gave it up. That crater during that day I shall never forget. A shell knocked down a boulder of clay on to my wood leg and crushed it to pieces, killing the man next to me. I surrendered to General Mahone."

Weak, sick, depressed, and almost helpless without his leg, Bartlett now had to face the ordeal of a Confederate prison, an experience dreadful enough to a man in full health and strength. He unwisely drank quantities of water, being "crazy with thirst," could not eat the raw bacon offered for food, and had to sleep for three nights without shelter. The effect of privation and exposure on a man in his weakened condition was to bring on a severe case of dysentery, so that the soldier who uttered no complaint at the loss of his leg, who merely mentioned his suffering in Louisiana and the Wilderness, seemed to have lost all his hope and courage. Although his illness procured him removal from the prison at Danville to the hospital, where he had a ragged tent to himself, he suffered acutely. "I could not eat anything; am feverish and so weak. No crutches. Ration issued, corn bread, thick loaf, and bacon. I can't touch either, still drink water. If I do not get away from here very soon, I never shall .. . . The past few days seem like horrible dream which I can never forget. The misery that I have suffered is more than I can ever tell .. . . I don't know how long I can endure this. It seems to be my lot to suffer. I must not be ungrateful for all God's mercies though, in sparing my life. Weaker every day. I cannot last long at this rate. If I could only live to get in our lines or to Baltimore, I would die contented. Mother would be there."

In spite of his depression, Bartlett's health suddenly began to mend. Saturday night, August 13, was the worst night he ever had; yet on Sunday morning he seemed better. From then his recovery was slow but certain, although he never regained his full health.

After four weeks he was sent to Libby Prison, where he lived comparatively well, and for some reason was treated with marked consideration. He found that "Libby was not half so bad as it has been represented." Perhaps the promise that he should be exchanged and go north by the first flag of truce boat gave a rosy aspect to his surroundings. But there was a bitter blow still in store for him. On September 1 he was told to embark for the north. With a light heart he distributed what money he had among his less fortunate friends, and with twenty other officers went on board. "I want to be in Baltimore by Sunday. Home and Saratoga by week after. A week at Saratoga would do me more good than all the medicine in the world." And then when he could already anticipate home and liberty just a few days ahead of him, orders came that he was to return to prison. It was a crushing disappointment. Once again he suffered a similar trick of fortune, and then at last set sail on September 24, and this time arrived safely under the Stars and Stripes.

Weak and sick, much weaker than he realized, he arrived at Baltimore, where his parents met him. There followed a trying trip to New York, where he found his fiancee. "Agnes came in the evening. I saw her in the little dining-room. It almost repays one for the misery and pain, this meeting. Can it be possible that I am here again?" On October 5 he reached home. "This being at home again is delicious; comfort and rest. May I never be separated from it again by such an impassable barrier as that line of hostile bayonets."

One would think that this boy of twenty-four had done and suffered enough for his country. The doctors promised him his health in six months if he was careful. But his spirit was still unquenched. On April 13, he applied again for active service, and on June 19 he took command of the First Division of the Ninth Corps at Tenallytown, near Washington. But Lee had surrendered in April, and there was little to do but maintain discipline among troops who knew the war was over and who were restless and dissatisfied waiting for demobilization. But even so the work and the heat were too much for him, and he left his command when the Division was broken up on July 14.

Bartlett was now faced with the same problem which confronted many young men after World Wars I and II. He had been a success as a soldier but was acquainted with no other line of work. What niche was he fitted to fill in civilian life? For a while he postponed the decision by securing leave to visit Europe while still in the service. But before sailing two events occurred: he was brevetted major-general for "gallant and meritorious conduct" before Petersburg, and he was married on October 14, 1865, to Miss Pomeroy. He thoroughly enjoyed the eight months in Europe with his wife, and was received everywhere as a distinguished American soldier. He was particularly pleased by a night spent in the home of Garibaldi, whom he had met years before in his father's house and who now welcomed him as an old friend, and by a run with the English fox hounds. The latter was characteristic of the man. His first intention was not to follow the hunt, as he felt it would be very foolish to try to ride an English saddle with his wooden leg, but when the hounds streamed away, he found he was close behind them; he followed for twenty miles, and was in at the death. This exploit aroused great admiration on the part of his hosts, and as an honor they presented him with the fox's brush.

Bartlett reached home again in June, 1866, and now the problem of employment had to be met. Various openings offered themselves which he refused because he was waiting, on his uncle's advice, for some position in manufacturing. But his opportunities showed what a remarkable impression he had made upon a community which knew him only as an undergraduate or as a sick and wounded soldier. Among other positions he refused that of the Collector of the Port of Boston, the presidency of a new bank and insurance company in New York, and the nomination for governor of Massachusetts on the ticket of the Constitutional Union Party. He was also recommended for the position of United States Marshal for the District of Massachusetts, but he did not sufficiently push his interest in Washington, and nothing came of it.

In 1867 he took charge of a paper mill in Dalton. Late in the same year the death of his uncle, Edwin Bartlett, left him close upon $200,000. But Bartlett was young and hopeful; he did not realize what a drain upon his strength his sufferings had been. He also felt that his uncle's wife, of whom he was very fond, was inadequately provided for, although she had received well over $100,000, and with a gesture almost foolishly chivalrous surrendered all his legacy to her.

In 1868 he became treasurer and general manager of the Pomeroy Iron Works, at West Stockbridge, and moved to Pittsfield. At first his new venture proved very successful, but gradually its profits fell to zero. At the same time he had a return of his old prison dysentery, and for four years he was little better than an invalid, spending much time in bed, and when he was up devoting himself to his work with such energy that even his wonderful powers of recuperation could not restore his strength. At times in the words of his wife "he longed for the rest of heaven." But even in his days of black discouragement his letters show a playfulness and a humorous outlook on life that must have made him a charming companion. His description of a Sunday morning service in the Tinkling Spring Church, at Fisherville, Virginia, is like Irving in the delicacy of its humor.

At this time Bartlett, in common with many soldiers, felt that there was an alarming disintegration of the Republican Party under Grant, brought about by the selfish group of politicians who controlled the President. He was convinced that Charles Francis Adams could save the party by rising above faction and honestly striving for better things, and consequently, in April, 1872, he went, at a great sacrifice of time, money, and strength, to Cincinnati in an effort to secure Adams's nomination for President of the United States. But in this, as in so many of his hopes, he was defeated. Adams was not nominated, and to complete Bartlett's discouragement, during the next month the iron furnace of which he was superintendent and personally a large owner was destroyed by fire.

In looking about for a new position and at the same time seeking a climate that would benefit his health, Bartlett's attention was attracted to Virginia, and he decided to take the adventurous step, for a Union officer, of moving his family to Richmond, where, in 1872, he became treasurer and manager of the Powhatan Iron Company. His life had now become a struggle against his growing weakness, but for a time the warm southern sun and the kindness of the Virginians, who were friendly and cordial, did much to cheer him.

On April 19, 1875, came one of the great days of his life. He had been asked to speak at the Centennial Celebration of the Battle of Lexington, but hesitated to accept, fearing that his strength would not be equal to it and that he could not speak on the assigned subject, "The North and the South," without embarrassing the guest of honor, President Grant. The previous June he had been Chief Marshal at the Harvard Commencement and had spoken at the dedication of Memorial Hall, expressing his heartfelt conviction that the two sections of the country should become reconciled. "I firmly believe that when the gallant men of Lee's army surrendered at Appomattox they followed the example of their heroic chief, and, with their arms, laid down forever their disloyalty to the Union. Take care, then, lest you repel, by injustice, or suspicion, or even by indifference, the returning love of men who now speak with pride of that flag as 'our flag'." His words, the first that had been publicly spoken to urge a return of friendship between the North and the South, had been enthusiastically approved, and he at last decided that his address at Lexington should be along the same lines.

The 19th of April proved a bitterly cold, disagreeable day. Bartlett was utterly unfit to endure the exposure, the crowds, and the discomfort, and he rose to speak late in the day, chilled through and weak from want of food. After stating that he shared the prejudice of all soldiers in favor of peace, and that between the soldiers of the two great sections of the country, fraternal relations had long before been established, he said, "As an American I am as proud of the men who charged so bravely with Pickett's Division on our lines at Gettysburg, as I am of the men who so bravely met and repulsed them there. Men cannot always choose the right cause; but when having chosen that which conscience dictates, they are ready to die for it, if they justify not their cause, they at least ennoble themselves. And the men who, for conscience's sake, fought against their government at Gettysburg ought easily to be forgiven by the sons of men who, for their consciences' sake fought against their government at Lexington and Bunker Hill." His words, sent all over the country by the United Press, created a sensation; people realized that in the worn and suffering soldier was true eloquence, idealism, and love of country, and he found himself more honorably conspicuous than ever.

It was on his return to Richmond after this speech that he was welcomed by the Virginia veterans. He thanked them briefly, expressing his conviction that the heroic soldiers of North and South would prove invincible in their united efforts to secure peace and mutual esteem between all sections of the country in spite of selfish and belligerent politicians.

But his strength was fast ebbing, his business was declining, and he began to realize that his end was not far off. In his weakness and discouragement death was not an unpleasant thought to him. Referring to a speech he had been asked to make at the Harvard Commencement in 1875 he wrote, "They ask me to represent those who died in the war. I sometimes feel quite ready to be sent as an ambassador to them."

There was still one great honor in store for him, an honor which is perhaps unique, and which indicated the remarkable impression this young man of thirty-five had made upon the people of Massachusetts. And yet it was an honor which was to cause him even more worry and embarrassment than gratification. In September, 1875, he was offered the Democratic nomination for lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts. He had never been a strict party man, but was ready to follow that group which, in his words, should "lead the way of true reform, pure administration, and intelligent progress." He thought, however, that Charles Francis Adams, for whose character he had conceived great admiration, might be nominated for governor on the Republican ticket, and on the assumption that his own name would lend strength to the Democratic slate, he was unwilling to contribute to the defeat of the man whose election he ardently desired. Yet in spite of his refusal, the Democratic Convention, when it met on September 23, nominated General Bartlett for lieutenant-governor with great enthusiasm and with flattering resolutions. Here was a dilemma, and in his perplexity he decided to wait until officially notified of the nomination, hoping that by that time the Republican Convention would indicate the course it was likely to pursue. If Adams were nominated, he resolved not to run against him; if Loring were nominated he would run in the hope of defeating him. But in the midst of his uncertainty, he was summoned to Washington, where to his added confusion, the most powerful managers of the Republican Party in Massachusetts desired him to take the nomination for governor on the Republican ticket. Gratifying as these simultaneous honors were, and as much as he inclined toward accepting public office as a release from the grinding cares of his failing business, he looked at the problem with a rare moral delicacy. He decided that if he took the Republican nomination, it would appear that he had been delaying his answer to the Democrats in the hope of receiving a better offer. Hence, he refused to be a candidate. Whether he should run against Alexander H. Rice, who had finally been nominated by the Republicans, perplexed him for some time, but at length on the advice of his most trusted friends he also refused the Democratic nomination. Before he could be offered another position of dignity and trust, his health had so far declined that he was a hopeless invalid.

For a little more than a year he lingered on, and at length passed quietly away, surrounded by his family and friends on December 10, 1876, in his thirty-sixth year.

It is the thought not of what he did, but of what he might have accomplished that adds an undeniable note of tragedy to General Bartlett's life. It is true that in many ways he was a brilliant success a general officer at the age of twenty-four, besought by three parties to accept the highest political office in the state, and applauded from one end of a divided country to the other for his few public utterances. His statue has a place of honor in the Hall of Flags in the State House, in Boston, and he has been called the most conspicuous soldier of all that Massachusetts sent to the field. But the element of disappointment and misfortune was always present even in his success. He never shared a triumph with the troops he had trained so thoroughly and so well. Unfortunate combinations of circumstances, through no fault of his own, denied him the political honors he might have had, and even withheld the modest business prosperity that would have given peace of mind and a sense of security to his last years. But above all there is tragedy in the gradual failing of his glorious physical strength, until worn out by his war-time privations, by worry, and by constant pain from his wounds, even his courageous spirit welcomed the repose of death.

But in a larger sense Bartlett lived a life of the fullest accomplishment in the inspiration his character gave to others. A friend who knew him well sums up the true value of his example: "Some men do their best life-work in the influences of nobler manhood that go forth from them the vague, unrealizable, but most potent of all works. How many are better and truer men for your influence, my dear friend, you may not know. Your life is already in many another man."

 

GEORGE BASSETT CLARK

1827-1891

Astronomer and telescope maker

IN the middle years of the last century an old-fashioned dinner bell was used to summon Andover students to meals in the farm house on the corner of Phillips and Main Streets. It is fortunate for those youths of today who complain so bitterly about the food served in our present Commons that they did not attend school in the 1840's, even though the price of board was only ninety cents a week. Here is a contemporary account of what the boys of that hardy generation ate, and in this case at least, apparently liked. "Our diet consists of milk both morning and night all the time. at noon we have for monday warm pudding and bread with cold warter or bread and molasses, Tuesday beans and pork with bread and water, or bread and butter just which you like, wensday cold bread pudind and a sauce, or bread and molases, Thursday have fish and potatoes, or bread and butter and molases, Fridays have pudings and Saturday likewise or bread and molases, we have no tea or coffee. I mist it some at first but I should schoose water in preference to it now I think."

One day in 1844 the youth whose duty it was to ring the bell was swinging it with unusual exuberance. Perhaps it was Tuesday, and the special treat of pork and beans justified an emphatic summons to the boys at work in the Stone Academy. Or perhaps, boylike, he merely enjoyed the noise. At any rate he gave one more mighty effort, and to his horror the bell fell in pieces at his feet. Ruefully he gathered up the fragments and, fearful of the wrath of "Uncle Sam" Taylor, he tossed them into a corner.

Among the boys who came hurrying to dinner was seventeen-year-old George Bassett Clark, of the class of 1846. In spite of Dr. Taylor's conviction that "a study of the classics was important for the welfare of the republic" his own mind turned to physics and mechanics, and he was already skillful with the lathe. He had been studying telescopes and astronomy under Mr. Wells, and his mind was full of the possibility of making a telescope for himself. As the glint of the broken dinner bell caught his eye, like a flash the idea came to him. Here was just the material he needed to make the reflector of a small telescope.

At home in Cambridge with his treasure George melted the fragments of the bell on the kitchen stove and cast them into the required form. It proved no easy task. The molten metal had to be shaped into a parabola and then polished to extreme brilliance without destroying in the slightest degree the perfection of the curve. When the problem seemed almost beyond his powers George appealed to his father, Alvan Clark, for help. Although Alvan, a successful portrait painter, had never seen a reflector nor a lens ground in his life, he combined his efforts with George's, for as he afterwards said, "A father tries pretty hard when a child asks for help." At length they succeeded in producing a five-inch reflector with which they could see the satellites of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn. It is probable that thus encouraged they then attempted the far more difficult task of grinding a telescopic lens.

Seemingly trivial as this incident was it led to stupendous results. The broken dinner bell at Phillips Academy was the direct ancestor of the greatest telescopes in the world today, and through these mighty instruments we have been enabled to extend our researches beyond the confines of the solar system into the vast spaces of the sidereal universe outside, and have learned countless secrets of the heavens which were not even guessed at in 1844.

So far as George and his father knew they had merely carried out an interesting experiment. Alvan went back to his portrait painting, and George went back to school. After graduation he worked for a short time as civil engineer on the old Boston and Maine and the Ogdensburg and Lake Champlain Railroads. Then in 1848 came the first news of gold in California, and George was one of those who set out for the West, crossing the Isthmus of Panama by boat up the Chagres River and by difficult trails over the hills beyond. But his luck on the Pacific Coast was no better than that of most of his fellow adventurers, and he soon returned to the East, never caring to recall in later life the painful experiences and privations he suffered on that expedition. A far better setting for his retiring, studious nature and his skillful hands was the shop for repairing and making instruments which he now opened in East Cambridge.

But all this time the seed planted by the dinner bell telescope had been germinating, and discussions on the theory of telescopes had been frequent between father and son. They had reached the conclusion that reflectors, in which the image of the star is reflected to the eyepiece by a mirror, offered insuperable difficulties. The refractor, or familiar form of telescope, in which a lens at the far end of the tube gathers the light and forms an image which the eye-piece magnifies, seemed in spite of many problems involved, to offer better possibilities. During George's absence in California his father had been quietly experimenting in the grinding and polishing of lenses, and in 1850 he and his younger son, Alvan Graham Clark, associated themselves with George's business, thus forming the firm of Alvan Clark and Sons, which was in time to become the world's most famous maker of telescopes, and whose members were to become astronomers of distinction.

From this time George's personality merges with that of the firm. So like his father was he that one friend has stated, "to write of one includes both." Moreover, George was so retiring and self-effacing that even the two friends who have written briefly of him can find little to say beyond extolling his "elevated sentiments," his charming personality, and the fact that "he loved truth, and duty was ever the keynote of his character." Admirable as these qualities may be they do not enable us to construct an all round picture of the man. However, since George was so like his father, a glimpse at the latter's background will help us not only to understand the son, but to appreciate the marvel that such men, without any training or instruction beyond what they could pick up by their own unaided efforts, should have become preeminent in one of the most difficult techniques and famous in one of the most exact sciences.

Alvan Clark was born in 1804 on a farm in Ashfield, Massachusetts, where the stumps of the primeval hemlocks still made cultivation difficult. Until the age of twenty-two he was merely a farm laborer, though at eighteen he had begun to respond to that instinct which led him and his sons to combine the skill of eye, hand, and intellect in careful, painstaking work, and from that time he devoted his spare moments to the study of engraving and drawing. This enabled him to find work as a calico engraver and designer at the Merrimac Works in Lowell, and later for short periods in New York and Fall River. During this time he had become interested in portrait painting, and in 1835 he set up a studio on Tremont Street, in Boston, where he became known as the best portrait painter in New England, and counted Daniel Webster among his distinguished sitters. A vivid little character sketch of Alvan, naively disclosing his pride in his Puritan rectitude, is found in his biography. No doubt it applies in its broad outlines equally well to George.

"I have never been a church member, nor had either of my parents, but my faith in the universality of God's providence is entire and unswerving. My Grandfathers died one at 87, and the other at 88 .. . . Both had been engaged in killing whales ... . I have never heard of one of my progenitors --- Thomas Clark, of the Mayflower, was one as being a bankrupt, or as grossly intemperate. I was never but once sued... ; I never sued but one man. I never studied music or attended an opera in my life, and know nothing of chess or card playing. I never learned to dance, but was a good swimmer, though lacking generally in the points which go to make an expert gymnast."

Though he modestly does not mention it, the courage of this man must have been amazing. His education, beyond that afforded by the village school of 1815, was limited to his own reading and thinking; he never had an influential friend or patron; and he had never thought of making a telescope until he was forty years old and surrounded by a growing family of children yet with the aid of his equally unequipped sons he set out to solve a problem which was still puzzling the great optical scientists of Europe, and whose solution had never been attempted in America.

Since Galileo's first use of the refracting telescope the great difficulty had been to construct an achromatic lens, or a lens which would produce the image without a surrounding border of various colors. Dollond, an Englishman, had in 1758 taken the first step by constructing a lens of crown glass combined with flint glass. For almost a hundred years thereafter the theory of achromatic lenses had taxed the powers of the greatest mathematicians, and the art of shaping one had been confined to a few artists, like the German, Fraunhofer, who were prepared by a long course, both in investigation of mathematical formulae and the practical manipulation of opticians' tools. Even so the success of the famous Continental opticians was largely a matter of chance. Sometimes they succeeded and sometimes failed. But the most remarkable feature of the Clarks' work, aside from the fact that they could do it at all, was its unerring certainty. Without any apparent difficulty, and with less time and trouble than the older artists, they brought their lenses to the highest standard of perfection by a process that never failed them.

Before Alvan had studied the construction of lenses for any great length of time, he was permitted to examine the new Harvard fifteen-inch telescope, an instrument which was undoubtedly one of the finest so far produced. He said of it, "I was far enough advanced in knowledge of such matters to perceive and locate the errors of figure in their fifteen-inch glass at first sight, yet those errors were very small." In spite of this evidence of Alvan's uncanny skill, the few men of science who knew anything about the efforts of the Clarks regarded them with indifference or incredulity. An amusing anecdote illustrates this attitude. Alvan once tried to start a conversation on telescopes with Dr. Jacob Bigelow, the famous Boston physician and botanist.

"If you wish to learn to make telescopes, you must go where they make them," answered the Boston Brahmin, shortly, as he turned his back.

A few years later the Rumford prize was awarded Alvan for a method of local correction. Although he had never seen a telescope made outside of his own shop, Alvan was already becoming internationally famous. As it happened, Dr. Bigelow was among those present, and after the ceremony Clark mischievously reminded him of his remark, saying that he had followed Bigelow's advice and had gone to where telescopes were made.

"Have you? Where?" asked the doctor, now all interest and attention.

"Cambridgeport," was the answer, and Clark turned his back.

Of course, the innate shrinking from publicity which was characteristic of all the Clarks did not assist the firm to overcome this indifference to their efforts among scientific men. With peculiar modesty the Clarks never sought an order, nor would they exhibit their telescopes, even at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Astronomers the world over sought for a price list, but the Clarks seemed to look on an increased demand for their work as something to be avoided rather than sought. They appeared glad to find a customer who wanted only a lens and would get the mounting done elsewhere.

In spite of discouraging indifference towards their early work the three men persisted in their endeavors. As each lens was finished, they tested it in a novel way by searching for new double stars of the last degree of difficulty rather than by examining objects already known. Before long Alvan had made several discoveries, and he wrote in 1851 I to the Reverend W. R. Dawes, the famous double star observer in England, asking him to confirm these observations. This was the turning point of the Clark fortunes. Dawes was impressed by what Clark had done, and eventually ordered two lenses whose eminently satisfactory performance Dawes reported in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Geographic Society. This, together with a visit which Clark paid to Dawes in 1859, during which he met among others Sir John Herschel and Lord Rosse, was of great service to him in procuring orders.

It has always been something of a mystery how the Clarks, who had never seen an expert lens polisher at work, should be able to make telescopes which in regard to accurate vision were the best ever produced. It is all the more astonishing in view of the fact that a lens is of such extreme delicacy that a few minutes' rubbing with tip of the finger may ruin it, while the detection of faults in a nearly finished glass involves optical tests of truly wonderful refinement. The answer seems to be that Alvan Clark and his sons possessed a marvellous acuteness of sight such as is enjoyed by few mortals, and this enabled them to distinguish the slightest shades in the colors of light refracted through their lenses. Perfect vision, combined with an unusual accuracy of the sense of touch and unlimited patience, probably explain their great success.

Whatever the reason, success now began to come to he Clarks in full measure. At least six times they executed orders for the greatest refracting telescopes that had ever been made, all of which are still actively at work. In the little Cambridgeport shop were produced in 1860 the 18-1/2-inch lens made for the University of Mississippi, which on the outbreak of the Civil War was sold to the Chicago Astronomical Society; in 1870 the 26-inch glass at the Naval Observatory in Washington, and later another of equal size for the University of Virginia; in 1879 the 30-inch lens for the Russian Government Observatory at Pulkowa; in 1886 the 36-inch object glass for the Lick Observatory in California; and in 1895 the great 40-inch glass at the Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin. The accomplishments of the Clarks are all the more remarkable when it is realized that up to 1800 it was thought impossible to make a good disc of flint glass of more than four or five inches in diameter, and when this was accomplished no optician could polish the lens so as to bring all the rays of light into approximately the same focus until the Clarks mastered that difficult technique.

As the fame of the Clarks spread, their unpretentious workshop became the resort of distinguished men, who enjoyed dropping in for a short chat. Longfellow was a frequent visitor, and Dom Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil, is reported to have said previous to visiting America in 1876 that there were three men he wished to meet, Longfellow, Agassiz, and Alvan Clark. Each of the three Clarks seemed glad to drop his work and to enjoy the pleasures of conversation at such moments, but at other times the industry in the shop was intense. George, in particular, seemed incapable of allowing himself reasonable time for rest and relaxation. When his workmen enjoyed a holiday, he usually spent the day in labor, testing and improving the instruments in the course of construction, or consulting with some scientific customer. When an order was in the hands of the firm, he could not rest until the work was finished. For instance, when the instruments for the observation of the transit of Venus were ordered in 1874, and very little time allowed for their completion, George Clark labored so incessantly to finish the task that he was prostrated by an illness, from the effects of which he probably never fully recovered. Although George was thoroughly familiar with the purely optical portion of the work, his particular field was to provide the mountings of telescopes, and to plan and make the metallic parts of scientific apparatus of various kinds. In this work he was highly ingenious, frequently contriving means to carry out the ideas of astronomers even when they seemed to involve insuperable mechanical difficulties. At the time when the equipment of the Harvard Observatory was being largely increased George, in whom Professor Pickering and the Harvard astronomers had unlimited confidence, was called upon to devise and construct numerous instruments to be used for new forms of observation, such as spectroscopes, photometers, and photographic apparatus. It is not too much to say that the discoveries made at Harvard are very closely related to the life work of George Clark, while the most striking astronomical discoveries made since 1860 are associated with him through the great telescopes, whose construction was inspired by the Andover dinner bell, and in whose production he was so closely associated.

Intense application to a most exacting form of work, which allowed hardly a moment for normal relaxation, was certain to demand its toll. In 1889 he suffered an attack of aphasia; in March, 1891, he again broke down; and on the next December 24 he collapsed once more. Unconsciousness soon intervened, and on December 30, 1891, he died at the age of 65. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of the Count Rumford Committee.

The few facts we can discover about George Clark hardly suffice to lift the veil that hides his real personality. Though we know something of the surroundings in which he lived, the crude, disorderly conditions of life at Andover, the bitter hardships of the trip to California in 1848, the struggles of his firm for recognition, and its ultimate distinguished services to the oldest and most exact of sciences, we know almost nothing of George's reaction to his experiences nor of his outlook on life. He appears to have been one of those shy, self-effacing scientists, whose thoughts, activities, and whose very lives are completely absorbed in their work. He had too little time to record his impressions and too little vanity to suppose they would be interesting to those who came after him. Gentle, kindly, upright, modest, he left his record not on earth, but among the stars.


Isaac Ingalls Stevens

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