AN ADDRESS 
 
 Spoken in the College Chapel, Cambridge, 
 October 2%, 1864, 
 
 AT THE FUNERAL OF 
 
 BRIG.-GEN. CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL, 
 
 WHO FELL AT THE BATTLE OF CEDAR CREEK, 
 October 19, 1864. 
 
 By GEORGE PUTNAM. 
 
r^ 
 
 
AN ADDRESS 
 
 spoken in the College Chapel, Cambridge, 
 October 28, 1864, 
 
 AT THE FUNERAL OF 
 
 BRIG.-GEN. CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL, 
 
 WHO FELL AT THE BATTLE OF CEDAR CREEK, 
 October 19, 1864. 
 
 By GEORGE PUTNAM. 
 
J- 
 
 to 
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 THE body of Charles Russell Lowell, 
 brought in honorable and affectionate cus- 
 tody from the distant valley where he fell, lies 
 here before us for the customary rites. 
 
 His one brother (and what a pair was that 
 in endowments and character to be the posses- 
 sion and the crown of a single household !) sleeps 
 at Nelson's farm on the Peninsula, and no fu- 
 neral words were said over him. It was the same 
 with his almost brothers in the flesh, and quite in 
 the heart's affections, Robert G. Shaw and Cabot 
 Russel, buried in the sands of Fort Wagner ; — 
 the same with his near relative, Warren Russell, 
 and his well-beloved classmate. Savage, and his 
 life-long friend and compeer, Stephen G. Perkins, 
 all buried in Virginia. We need not grieve for 
 them on this account. The soldier, if he might 
 choose for his own sake alone, would naturally 
 prefer to have his resting-place on the spot 
 
where death found him in the way of honor and 
 duty, and would ask no funeral honors but those 
 of a comrade's tear, and the witnessing stars, 
 and the whispered requiem of the trees ; — yet 
 we will remember those dear and noble ones 
 in this day's solemn service of love and religion. 
 If these marble lips could move, they would 
 bid us couple their name and memory with his. 
 And they, if they still have sympathy with earth- 
 ly doings, would gladly have his funeral rites 
 made theirs, and their only ones, by any thought 
 or mention of their names with his. They loved 
 him so much, and looked up to him with such 
 ardor of admiration and affection ! 
 
 William Lowell Putnam, who fell at Ball's 
 Bluff, had his burial, just three years ago this 
 day, from amid the endearments of his home, 
 yet his name forces itself upon my lips in 
 this connection, for he was verily one with 
 this kinsman, in blood, in spirit, and fraternal 
 love. 
 
 And besides these near ones, may we not 
 spare a moment's space in these solemnities to 
 bring to mind with him, in a comprehensive 
 kind of All-Saints commemoration, the many 
 who followed him, and fell with him on that 
 field of glorious daring and achievement, vm- 
 known to us, but valiant and faithful men, our 
 
5 
 
 friends and champions all, who gave up their 
 lives with him, and for us and ours. 
 
 I think I had better not cumber this burial- 
 service with dates or minute biographical details 
 of Colonel Lowell's life,* of little less than thirty 
 years. These will be recited in other more du- 
 rable records of him. The lesson of his life and 
 of his death is what we have to contemplate 
 here to-day. 
 
 One of his most intimate associates, knit to 
 him in a friendship true, tender, and lifelong, 
 tells me that in his friend's childhood there was 
 in him all the strength and beauty and manifold 
 pre-eminence that marked his matured char- 
 acter. 
 
 Of what he was to his very own, — to the 
 home of his birth, or that to .which a year ago 
 he bore his young bride in joy and hope, — I 
 dare not in this presence say a single word. 
 
 His college classmates, if the proprieties of 
 the hour and the bursting fulness of their hearts 
 would permit them to speak out here in a body, 
 as they do elsewhere individually, would tell us 
 
 * The title "Colonel" was used in the Address, and is the 
 one most familiar and endeared to his family and friends. It 
 was known, however, on the day of the funeral, that his com- 
 mission as Brigadier-General had been issued before his death, 
 on the recommendation and request of General Sheridan. 
 
how they all, without a dissenting mind or voice, 
 regarded him in college days and ever since as 
 their foremost man, — first in almost every good 
 gift and acquirement, — his name the brightest 
 on their page of the catalogue, — his leadership 
 in the things of the intellect, and in the things 
 of the heart and soul, their pride and honor. 
 They would tell us how his superiority was so 
 distinctly marked, so unanimously confessed, yet 
 so graciously borne, that it never stirred an emo- 
 tion of envy or rivalry ; but that the moments 
 when they noted and felt that pre-eminence 
 were moments of elevation and delight, — as 
 waking up to consciousness and setting aglow 
 whatever was best and noblest in themselves. 
 And they would not tell us, but we know, that 
 amid the memories and griefs of this hour, they 
 will lay new vows of pure and noble living on 
 the altar beneath which the form of their best 
 man lies garlanded for the grave. 
 
 He graduated here in 1854, with the highest 
 honors, and that not only in the technical sense 
 of that phrase ; but leaving in the minds of the 
 instructors such respect for him, and such ex- 
 pectations concerning him, as they have seldom 
 entertained in an equal, and never perhaps in 
 a higher, degree for a young alumnus. 
 
 With the world before him, and competent 
 
for whatever career he might choose, his bias 
 was for practical life, for doing things rather 
 than for writing or talking about them, for busi- 
 ness rather than literature. He connected him- 
 self successively with two or three large indus- 
 trial establishments, and, with the exception of 
 two years' travel in Europe for health and im- 
 provement, devoted himself with his wonted zeal 
 and energy to the labors and studies befitting 
 his vocation. 
 
 In April, 1861, at the first alarm of war, he 
 hastened to Washington, and offered his ser- 
 vices to the Government. He was accepted, 
 and henceforth his brief history identifies it- 
 self with that of the Army of the Potomac, and 
 its auxiliary forces and adjacent departments. 
 I must omit the • incidents of his career as a 
 captain in the United States Cavalry service, as 
 commander of the Second Massachusetts Cavalry, 
 and finally of a brigade. I must not indulge 
 myself in following him through his long cam- 
 paigning and his numerous battles, except to say 
 that wherever was the most active and perilous 
 service, there he most wished to be, and full 
 often had his wish. 
 
 When he entered the army, he was determined . 
 in his choice, no doubt, by the exigency of the 
 time. The controlling motive with him, as it 
 
8 
 
 has been with so many of our noblest, was a 
 lofty and unselfish patriotism. He would live 
 for his country, and die for it, if so it should 
 be ordered. But apart from this high motive, 
 those who knew him best judged that he had 
 chosen wisely, as being admirably fitted for a 
 military career. Perhaps their sense of the 
 manifoldness and completeness of his mental 
 and moral forces and furnishings would have 
 led them to the same prejudgment of him in 
 connection with any other mode of activity 
 that he might have chosen. At any rate, they 
 so judged in respect to this which he did 
 adopt. 
 
 He had a lithe and intensely vital frame, 
 with not an ounce of superfluous weight, and 
 every fibre of it on the stretch, as with a self- 
 moving activity. He had a flashing quickness 
 of intellectual perception, a keen, exhaustive 
 power of analysis, and intense concentrative- 
 ness of mind, which would give him a rapid 
 and thorough mastery of military science, and 
 in the field would enable him to form rapid 
 and extended combinations, and make him 
 quick and sure in devising expedients for the 
 exigencies of the moment. With all the fervor 
 of his make, he had a self-possession absolutely 
 imperturbable by temper or any passion. He 
 
had a high degree of executive ability for car- 
 rying straight out a pre-arranged plan or a sud- 
 den purpose. There was born in him the spirit 
 of command, which made him a ruler of men, 
 not by assumption of power, but by the anoint- 
 ing of God. He bore sway in the private friend- 
 ly circle, where he claimed and exacted nothing, 
 and would bear it not less, we might be sure, 
 in a sphere where authority became a duty. He 
 was endowed with that magnetic, inspiring pow- 
 er, which we cannot define or trace, but know 
 it when we feel it or observe its working, by 
 which he could communicate with a flash his 
 thought, his will, his impulse, to those in con- 
 tact with him, whether one man or a thousand ; 
 so that where he led he would be followed, 
 through whatever storm of fire and death. 
 With all his rigor of will and absoluteness of 
 command, he had what is becoming in a com- 
 mander, — great sweetness, gentleness, tender- 
 ness of spirit, that softened away all harshness. 
 His men, we are assured, loved him as a broth- 
 er ; and perhaps those men, rough and hard it 
 may be, but with hearts in them, and feeling 
 the warmth of his, know better than most of 
 us, or than we need tell if we did, what he 
 must have been as son and brother and hus- 
 band in his home. 
 
lO 
 
 He carried into the army the same principle 
 that he had acted on in the mill and the mine, 
 that of doing his utmost to raise and enlighten 
 those about him. He gathered around him the 
 men connected with his head-quarters, to give 
 them, in leisure hours, systematic instruction in 
 matters improving to themselves and useful to 
 the service. This was in the spirit of a plan 
 formed by him while in college, and elaborated 
 even to its details. He was deeply impressed 
 with the value of the peculiar advantages of 
 education which he had enjoyed, as compared 
 with the less favored classes. He felt that he 
 owed a great debt somewhere, and must pay 
 it somehow, and this was to be his way of pay- 
 ing it, — to devote the best efforts of his life to 
 raising the standard of knowledge and charac- 
 ter among working men. 
 
 Of his personal bravery I know not what 
 would have been predicted, but what it proved 
 to be in fact is known to all who have watched 
 his course. Let those thirteen horses shot un- 
 der him in this single glorious campaign of the 
 Shenandoah bear their dumb testimony, and 
 tell us where their rider was to be found when 
 the fight waxed hottest on the perilous edge of 
 battle. It was in him far more and higher than 
 the mere courage of the heated conflict ; it was 
 
II 
 
 the valor of a predetermined and unreserved 
 self-devotion ; it was the calm, complete renun- 
 ciation of every thought of the chances of life 
 or death, whenever a military duty or a military 
 opportunity pointed out his way. He was the 
 man to lead a charge. He could not falter ; nor 
 hardly could one man in his ranks falter, with 
 him at the head. In his last gallant and suc- 
 cessful charge, he would not heed his first 
 wound, which struck him speechless, and prob- 
 ably would have proved fatal. He would not 
 retire, but pressed on, till the second came, and 
 then there w^s no choice for him. He lingered 
 some hours without pain, and then yielded up 
 his life, with a certain tenderness of regret it 
 must have been, for he knew the hearts that 
 yearned toward him from afar ; yet submis- 
 sively, for it was God's will ; cheerfully, for it 
 was for his dear country ; triumphantly, for it 
 was in the arms of victory. 
 
 O friends, I leave it to you to fill up, from 
 your own memories and affections, my poor, 
 faint outline of the character and life of this 
 true man and soldier. Fill it up for yourselves, 
 young men, and release me from further at- 
 tempts ; for I am of another generation, and too 
 old to do it in such colors and proportions as 
 are claimed for it by your better knowledge. 
 
12 
 
 quicker sympathies, and more ardent appre- 
 ciation. 
 
 And now, has this fair spirit fled too early, — 
 this fresh, strong life closed too soon ? Too 
 soon, we say, when we think of the high earthly 
 possibilities and promises contained in it. Too 
 soon, we say, when we think of our country's 
 need of such as he. Too soon, we say, when we 
 take counsel only with the aftections. Our poor, 
 fond hearts do so cling to their beloved, and 
 demand the sight of the eyes, and the contin- 
 uance of these visible ties, and do feel so des- 
 olate in the anguish of parting. 
 
 And yet not too soon, friends ! From the 
 highest plane of thought and feeling, — the 
 plane above the senses, the understanding, and 
 even the heart, — from the plane of the soul, the 
 serene heights of faith, we must say, and we will 
 and do, Not too soon ! There is an all-wise 
 Disposer of the issues of life and death, and 
 present being opens into the life eternal, and 
 therefore it cannot be too soon. 
 
 And, moreover, in the supreme believing 
 moods of the soul, we know that the value of a 
 life consists not in its length, but in the character 
 attained and the work done in it. A short life 
 may be very complete, and a long one may be 
 all shapeless and ravelled. To the good and 
 
13 
 
 faithful, there is no such thing as untimely 
 death. The fruits of the spirit are always ripe 
 for the heavenly garners, and though the reaper 
 come before the harvest-time, it is not too 
 soon. 
 
 "He livetli long who livclli well; 
 All other life is sliurl and vain." 
 
 Says the Book of Wisdom : " Honorable age is 
 not that which standeth in length of time, nor 
 that is measured by number of years. But 
 wisdom is the gray hair unto men, and an un- 
 spotted life is old age. He pleased God and 
 was beloved of him, so that he was translated. 
 And, being made perfect in a short time, he 
 fulfilled a long time. For his soul pleased the 
 Lord ; therefore hasted he to take him away." 
 The divinest life the All-Father ever sent into 
 this world, — I will make no irreverent compar- 
 ison, — the life of his best-beloved Son, inspired, 
 guided, kept by his own Holy Spirit, for his own 
 highest designs, continued here but a little over 
 thirty years ; yet was it not long enough for its 
 own perfecting and readiness to be glorified, 
 long enough for doing all the Father's will, and 
 long enough for sending light, comfort, and a sav- 
 ing power over the world and through the ages .-' 
 Arid those who have most resembled that high- 
 est one, how often do we see them fade in death, 
 
or rather flower up into immortality, in the dew 
 of their youth, or the prime of their beauty and 
 power ! Heaven wants them, and opens its 
 pearly gates for them ; and they go up in the 
 light of the morning sun, to be crowned and 
 forwarded on their eternal course. 
 
 And this life, over whose close we meditate, 
 and pray, and weep to-day, — do not murmur that 
 it has been short in the reckoning of our earthly 
 calendar. Think, rather, how rich, how beauti- 
 ful, how highly inspired and nobly spent it has 
 been, — and still is; for is it not here still, here 
 in its dear and sacred memories, here in its good 
 fruits and energizing influences, and all the 
 sweet companionships of the spirit .'' Was he 
 ever so dearly loved as to-day .-' Was he ever so 
 near as now to those to whom he has been 
 always nearest .'' Was he ever before so wholly, 
 so unalterably, so inseparably, their very own .-' 
 
 O, we must have patience with our poor 
 frail hearts, if they keep yearning on to have 
 their precious treasures present to the eye and 
 the embrace, and if they bleed and break in 
 the seeming separation, and refuse to be com- 
 forted at once in that unutterable pain and 
 loneliness, — patience and forgiveness, — for the 
 heart cannot see afar, and would fain keep its 
 earthly home and joy unbroken, — Patience! 
 
IS 
 
 And yet we would learn, in devout and up- 
 lifted thought, to go up often and high into 
 the mount of God, the mount of the soul's 
 wide vision, where we may see and know that 
 the true life is imperishable ; and that it stays 
 most vital when it seems to go away ; and 
 that death, though it come to such as he, so 
 loved and so yearned for, comes of God's love, 
 and not untimely, — that it must be right, best, 
 happiest, as it is. 
 
 The frequency with which we are called to 
 follow to their graves, or else are denied by 
 the harsh exigencies of war the privilege of 
 so following, our best and bravest, cut down 
 so many in the flower of their age and the 
 ripeness of their promise, may force on us at 
 times painful misgivings as to the price we are 
 paying for our country's salvation, and whether 
 it is not paying too much. But no, not too 
 much ! Think it not ! If ever we might be 
 permitted to think it, it would be here and 
 now. But far from us be the unworthy thought. 
 It would profane this solemn hour, and mock 
 this sacred presence. 
 
 This mighty mother of us all, our country, is 
 indeed just now severe and exorbitant in her ex- 
 actions upon us. She summons from the homes 
 of her domain their best and dearest, and ap- 
 
i6 
 
 points to them toil and hardship and peril. She 
 steeps her soil in her children's most precious 
 blood. She tears her brightest jewels from her 
 own forehead, and flings them in the dust. She 
 sends daily her swift messengers of grief and 
 desolation from heart to heart, and from house 
 to house, throughout her borders. She does all 
 this ; but she does it not in cruelty, but in love, 
 that she may preserve her own glorious life, 
 her own imperial sovereignty, and her benig- 
 nant power to bless her children, and fold them 
 under her brooding wings, to nourish and keep 
 them, as she only can, in freedom, in honor, and 
 in peace. And thus she pays the stupendous 
 debt she owes to her afflicted people. 
 
 And she pays it not only in the promise of 
 future blessing and protection, but she pays it 
 now, daily, amply, and that in a higher currency 
 than that of the mortal life and blood which 
 she exacts. She pays it over and over in the 
 ennobling loyalty which she awakens in mil- 
 lions of souls ; by the high inspiration of sac- 
 rifice and devotion which she in her needs 
 and distresses sends thrilling, mounting, blaz- 
 ing through her children's hearts ; by the ener- 
 gies she calls forth ; by the manhood she creates 
 to meet her exigencies ; and by the opportu- 
 nities and the stimulants she provides for an 
 
17 
 
 earnest life and noble heroiKms. Oh ! she pays 
 all the debt and more. She takes but mortal 
 life, she gives the soul's life : she takes but 
 perishable treasures, she pays back the durable 
 riches. 
 
 The young life which so lately animated the 
 form that lies shrouded there, — she, the great 
 mother, has scarcely claimed and taken one 
 more precious ; but she has paid for it, — 
 paid Jiim, and that in advance, and he knew 
 it, felt it, — paid him in the splendid sphere 
 of duty and sacrifice she opened to him, always 
 to the ingenuous and nobly aspiring mind, the 
 dearest boon that heaven or earth can grant, 
 — in the loftier spirit she breathed into him, 
 whereby to do valiantly, to live greatly, to die 
 willingly. 
 
 And those who loved that life better than 
 their own, — she pays them ; pays them in a 
 hero's sweet and glorious memory, made their 
 own forever, and to be to them henceforth, 
 though amid raining tears and unutterable 
 griefs, the divinest beauty, the sacred pride 
 and joy and hope of their lives. 
 
 So we must not grudge what our dear coun- 
 try has required of us, but must give more, 
 and take back her infinite compensations, — 
 give all she asks and needs, — give ourselves 
 
and our dearest, — and give on, and to the 
 uttermost, till she is redeemed, rehabilitated, 
 re-enthroned, the fairest, freest, benignest, most 
 majestic among the empires of the earth. 
 
 And now let the young men take up tenderly 
 this dear burden of their friend's body, and 
 bear it forth to yonder garden of the Lord, and 
 lay it reverently down in its place to rest in 
 that sleep which God giveth to his beloved. 
 The soul, already ascended, lives the new life 
 with God, — to live and grow forever in power 
 and love and blessedness, — and yet abides here 
 also, more living than ever, for example, for 
 inspiration, and all comforting and uplifting 
 influence. 
 
 Farewell, thou sleeping form ! All hail, thou 
 glorified and ever-living spirit ! 
 
 Cambridge : Printed by Welch, Bigclow, and Company. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 013 700 856 7 §