Following the Greek cross, or, Memories of the Sixth Army Corps

Front matter

EMORY UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Purchased from the

funds of

CHAPTER II. Bull Run. — Recruiting for the 7th Maine. — In Camp at

Augusta. — Election of Officers. — Start for the Front 11

CHAPTER HI.

Lunch in Faneuil Hall. — War Rumors. — Hostile Baltimore.— John Barleycorn our Worst Enemy. — The Romance of War 19

CHAPTER TV.

A Rebel Spy. — Camp Fare. — First Visit to Washington. Death of Colonel Marshall. — Kalorarna Hill. — Crossing into Virginia . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

CHAPTER V.

Camp Griffin. — Opossum Soup. — Irish Volunteers. —

First Independent Command ... ,30 vi CONTENTS.

CHAPTEE VI.

The Grand Review. — Start for the Peninsula. — Advance on Yorktown. — A Night Alarm. — Under Fire First Time 35

CHAPTEE VII.

Hard Tack, Mud, and Eain. — Building Corduroy Eoads. — A Picket Fight. — Old Generals and Young Volunteers. — Estimate of McClellan 43

CHAPTEE VIII.

Buried Torpedoes. — The Battle of Williamsburg. —

Hancock's Bayonet Charge. — McClellan's Speech . 48

CHAPTEE IX.

An Episode in the Enemy's Country. — Old Madeira. — The White House. — Skirmish at Mechanicsville. — No McDowell 54

CHAPTEE X.

A Grim Eebel. — Custer's First Skirmish. — Fair Oaks. —

In the Hospital. — Malaria 60

CHAPTEE XI.

Lee strikes our Eight. — Gaines's Mill. — Holding our

own. — Fight at Garnett's Hill. — An Anxious Night 66

CHAPTEE XII.

Savage Station. — White Oak Swamp. — Eout of the Germans. — Vermonters mark Time to the Shell Fire . 71

CHAPTEE XIII.

Malvern Hill. — Stealing the General's Dinner. — To

Harrison's Landing 76

CONTENTS. vii

CHAPTER XIV.

Fitz-John Porter. — A Mule disappears in Mud. — Home again. — Second Bull Bun. — Death of Sam Fessenden 81

CHAPTER XV.

Chantilly. — Glorious Deaths of Kearny and Stevens. — Falstaff's Army. — The Gallant Swede. — My Maryland 87

CHAPTER XVI.

Crampton's Gap. — Picket on the Mountain. — First Charge at Antietam. — The Germans redeemed. — Fine Sharpshooting 92

CHAPTER XVII.

Charging an Army. — Reaching the Farthest Point in the Enemy's Lines. — Vain Heroism. — " Rally, Boys, to save the Major ! " — Applause from the Vermonters. — Rebel Reports 99

CHAPTER XVIII.

Under Arrest. — Welcomed to Maine again. — A Winter

at Home. — Miss the Battle of Fredericksburg . . 108

CHAPTER XIX.

Back in the Field. — General Franklin. — " Baldy "

Smith. — In Clover at last. — General Sedgwick . . 115

CHAPTER XX.

Reorganizing the Army. — A Military Pageant. — Getting ready for the Assault. — A Southern Marksman. — A Government Contract 120 viii CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXI.

Storming Marye's Heights. — Salem Church. — An 111- Boding Night. — Lee attacks with Three to One, and is beaten off. — Over the River again. — A Movable Bed 127

CHAPTER XXII.

Fame of the Sixth Corps as bright as ever. — Guarding Southern Homes. — Whitworth Bolts. — Hooker relieved 135

CHAPTER XXIII.

To Taneytown for Orders. — Council of War in Meade's Tent. — Seventy-Mile Ride. — The Corps up the Baltimore Pike 141

CHAPTER XXIV-

Longstreet's Magnificent Attack. — The Corps directed toward the Heavy Firing. — Up Little Round Top. — Gloomy Rumors 146

CHAPTER XXV

Farnsworth's Charge. — Two Hundred and Ten Cannon dealing Death. — Pickett's Charge. — A Carnival of Death. — Sabre Flashes in the Dust Clouds . . - 151

CHAPTER XXVI.

The Morning after Gettysburg. — Our Capua. — Mount Misery. — The Funkstown Traitress. — The General's Forbearance 158

CHAPTER XXVII.

Across the Potomac. — Rebel Maidens of Warrenton. — After Mosby. — A Loving-Cup with " Jeb " Stuart. — A Brilliant Feat at Rappahannock Station . . . 164

CONTENTS. IX

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A Virginia Mansion of the Olden Time. — A British Contingent.— Locust Grove. — Mine Run. — Back to Camp, cold and disgusted 112

CHAPTER XXIX.

Our Winter City. — Ball Rooms of the Camp. — Romantic Ride across Hazel Run. — Enter Grant and Sheridan. — Torbert's Horse • 178

CHAPTER XXX.

Over the Rapidan. — Orders for Meade. — Alternate Victory and Success in the Wilderness. — Scouting round the Enemy. — A Good Samaritan 182

CHAPTER XXXI.

Down the Road to Spottsylvania. — Destructive Sharpshooting. — Sedgwick's Death. — In Memoriam . . 191

CHAPTER XXXII.

Upton's Assault. — Hancock's Assault. — The Bloodiest

Fight of the War 196

CHAPTER XXXIII.

A Woodland Fortress. — " How long, O Lord, how long ! " — A Cure for the Goitre. — The Battle of Massaponax Church. — General Mackenzie. — Dr. Fiske . . 203

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Carbine Fire. — In the Lines at Cold Harbor. — Photographed in Action. — Useless Assaults. — A Flag of Truce at Midnight .208

CHAPTER XXXV.

X CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Back to Washington. — Early on the War Path. — The President under Fire. — Ragged and Footsore Veterans meet. — Honors divided, but Washington saved 221

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Return to the Regiment. — The Snow Bivouac. — Sheridan takes Command. — Narrow Escapes. — Muster out of the 7th Maine 225

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

The First Maine Veterans. — Lose Sheridan's Ride. — Perils of the Valley. — A Brigade by Inversion. — A Land of Milk and Honey 233

CHAPTER XXXIX.

Box Cars with Fireplaces. — Our Dutch Gap Canal. —

A Star Chamber. — Picket Attacks 238

CHAPTER XL.

Gordon's Attack at Hare's Hill. — We attack in our Front. — Under the Fire of Thirty Cannon. — Our Vandal-

CHAPTER XLI.

The Wedge Assault. — A Camp Fire guides to Victory. — The Lines pierced. — Death of A. P. Hill. — Veterans take Colors, while Substitutes run 249

CHAPTER XLII.

Attack on Lee's Headquarters. — General Lee heads our Opponents. — Taking a Battery. — The Spires of Petersburg. — Penrose wounded 256

CONTENTS. xi

CHAPTEK XLIII.

Moses Owen. — Pushing on after Lee. — Under Sheridan's Eye at Sailor's Creek. — The Surrender at last. — Wild Rejoicing. — Refused a Sight of the Rebel Army 261

CHAPTER XLIV.

Lincoln's Assassination. — Occupy Danville. — Army

Journalism. — The Grand Review. — Home at last 266

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGB

Major-General John Sedgwick . Frontispiece Lieutenant-Colonel T. W. Hyde ... 14 Major-General William F. Smith . . .78 Colonel E. von Vegesack .... 90 General George B. McClellan .... 110 General William B. Franklin . . .116 Captain H. W. Farrar, A. D. C. . . . 130

General George G. Meade .... 142 Brigadier-General David A. Russell . . 168 Lieutenant-Colonel M. T. McMahon . . 192 Sixth Corps Headquarters at Cold Harbor . 210 Major C. A. Whittier, A. D. C. . . . 234

At the Welford House 240

General Philip H. Sheridan .... 262

FOLLOWING THE GREEK CROSS.

CHAPTER I.

" Our chief of men, who through a cloud, Not of war only, but detractions rude, Guided by faith and matchless fortitude."

Milton.

Whether it is worth while to preserve the personal recollections of those who lived and acted during the stirring days of 1860 to 1865, however humble may have been their position, is a question difficult for me to consider in an unbiased frame of mind. When we remember the large part of the population of the United States who have been born and have entered into active life since then, as well as the great numbers of our youth growing into manhood, it may, perhaps, seem probable that they might feel an interest in what an older generation then thought and did while the country was in the throes of the most gigantic war of modern times. Such an interest is best aroused by personal narration, however difficult it is to one who would prefer to be impersonal. A history of those times, now hardly to be called recent, is yet to be written, and when it is written it will stand, like the line of battle, behind personal narratives, the skirmishers which precede it.

In the fall of 1860, many signs and omens of a coming dissolution of the Union were visible, but boys of eighteen and nineteen were not much impressed by them.

Having been invited at that time by the Hon. J. Young Scammon, of Chicago, to make a part of the first senior class of the University of Chicago, a new institution in which he was deeply interested, I left Bowdoin College to spend a year in what seemed to us then almost the Western wilds. There were three of us in this class and we had the undivided attention of President Burroughs and some able professors. As our recitation hours were from nine to two o'clock, each of us had nearly two hours of personal attention. We usually followed this by an hour in the Chicago gymnasium, to which I attribute the sturdy health which enabled me afterward to brave four years of campaigning with but one day of hospital. The Chicago University was a Baptist college, and after some years of usefulness fell into a moribund condition. It has lately received an enormous gift from John D. Rockefeller, and will in time be one of the greatest seats of learning in the country. Chicago at that time had about one hun-

CHICAGO IN 1860. 3

dred thousand population, nearly seventy per cent, of which were of foreign birth.

The presidential campaign, which ended in the election of Mr. Lincoln, was going on. Night after night processions of Wide Awakes, many thousands in numbers, thronged its streets. Immense audiences at the Wigwam listened to the stirring oratory of the best speakers of the day. I remember best the powerful speeches of Owen Lovejoy, the greatest stump orator I ever heard. He would hold spellbound for two hours at a time nine thousand people in this vast hall, tearing his coat off and then his vest and cravat in the excitement of his invectives against slavery, though never alluding to the fact that but a short time before his brother had been shot by a pro-slavery mob.

Before the convention had declared the will of the Republican party, Seward seemed to be the popular candidate, especially among the young people ; though some of us from Maine talked all we could for the Hon. William Pitt Fessenden, our lamented Senator. Very few of us who had come from the East had heard of Mr. Lincoln, but when he was nominated, the perusal of his great speeches, and the many traditions extant of his political successes, taught us what kind of a man he was.

The first time I had the pleasure of seeing him was at a party given at the residence of Hon. N. B. Judd on Michigan Avenue. I lately saw this same house still standing. The great fire almost reached it. As I went upstairs, Mr. Lincoln was leaning against a door in the gentlemen's dressing-room, with his hands crossed behind his back, holding up the long tails of a very long dress-coat, and telling stories to several gentlemen who were gathered around. All who came in joined the party, and it was with difficulty that their ladies could get them to go downstairs. I tried to remember some of these stories, which seemed inimitably funny at the time, but was unable to catch them or carry them away. I have always thought since that Mr. Lincoln possessed the power of inventing stories as he went along, which were intended to illustrate whatever thought he wished to convey, and did so in the most vivid way possible. During that winter I saw Mr. Lincoln many times, as he often stopped at Mr. Scammon's, where I lived, when he came to Chicago.

Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Hamlin, the vice-president elect, met each other for the first time at Mr. Scammon's house. I saw them introduced, and it was with a deep look of interest that each regarded the other. Then they retired for a long personal consultation. When Mr. Hamlin went away, Mr. Lincoln remarked, " Well, Ham-

PRESIDENT-ELECT LINCOLN. 5

lin is n't half so black as he is painted, is he, Scammon ? " At that time, the story was current at the South that our Maine statesman was a mulatto, on account of his rich, dark complexion.

When the Illinois Legislature of that winter was in session, Mr. Scammon was a member of the House, and invited me to visit him in Springfield for three weeks. The night after my arrival, I went to the party given by Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln at their Springfield home just before they closed it and went to the hotel, where we were living, to board until his departure for Washington to be inaugurated* The house was not very large, as I remember it, but the party of guests was enormous. People from all parts of Illinois were there, and the guests passed through the rooms shaking hands with Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, who were surrounded by a bevy of beautiful girls from Kentucky, and then most of them passed out and went to the reception Governor Yates was giving the same night at the Capitol.

Becoming acquainted with Ellsworth, afterwards colonel of the Fire Zouaves and killed at Alexandria ; Mr. Hay and Mr. Nicolay, who were law students in Mr. Lincoln's office, and since his biographers, I often went there in the afternoon and assisted them in looking over his mail, which at that time filled several large baskets. Many packages would come with letters, some containing negro doll babies, some, dead rattlesnakes, and various tokens of that description from angry Southerners. Whenever a box looked particularly suspicious, we used to soak it in water, fearing some infernal machine. Mr. Lincoln received daily in his office many people from all parts of the country, and it was very entertaining to me to hear the bright way in which he would receive them, and the skillful way he met the office-seekers. Of all the witty things I then heard him say, only one remains in my memory to-day. Dr. Small, the leading homoeopathic physician of Chicago, who weighed nearly three hundred pounds, was presented to him. I remember Mr. Lincoln's taking him by the hand, turning him round, looking him over, and saying, " Small, Small? we have a man down in old Virginia that they call Wise ; " referring to Governor Wise, who had for some time been acting in an entirely different manner from what his name indicated. Just before the day came for Mr. Lincoln to take his departure for Washington, many distinguished people came to the hotel where we lived and many others who afterward became distinguished. One day I was introduced to Captain Pope and Major Hunter, of the regular

SEVEXTY-FIVE THOUSAND CALL. 7

army, afterward commanders of armies. Many stories were rife of the great dangers to be met in the journey to Washing-ton by Mr. Lincoln's party. Mrs. Lincoln was especially anxious upon this point, and almost in a state of nervous prostration. Mr. Lincoln was kind enough to invite me to join the party, but circumstances forbade my going. Our late distinguished Minister to England, a boy of about sixteen, was too young to realize his father's position, but I remember well what a universal favorite he was with all, and he certainly has continued to be a universal favorite ever since. Ellsworth was a black-eyed, handsome, enthusiastic boy. He had recently taken his company of Chicago Zouaves upon an Eastern tour, and had been received in all the principal cities with great applause, as it was the best drilled military company ever organized. They were all athletes, trained in the Chicago gymnasium, and their evolutions were novel and surprising.

Not long after the departure of Mr. Lincoln for Washington, the rumors and fears of war between the sections came thicker and faster, and when Mr. Lincoln issued his call for seventy-five thousand troops, the Chicago Zouaves undertook to raise a regiment, of which I had the honor to be a private in Company D. As I recollect it, the first three companies, A, B, and

C, were accepted, and went off to Cairo, leaving the rest of us very much disgusted at home, though we gave them a rousing send-off at the station. We might have easily raised then all the men needed for the war, as nearly all young men were full of patriotism. When the news came of the attack on the Massachusetts troops in the streets of Baltimore, we were still further excited, and I told my comrades I would give five years of my life to march a regiment through that city. The fulfillment of the wish came with almost alarming promptness, for only four months later, at the head of the 7th Maine Volunteers, I marched the whole length of Baltimore Street to the inspiring strains of Yankee Doodle. Events were hurrying swiftly, and boys aged very rapidly then, but I can even now hardly realize that the war was fought mostly by boys of eighteen to twenty-five years of age. But those who were so ardently seeking to serve their country had very little idea what was meant. Some of them had learned to read well enough to become excited over the bulletins of victory during the Mexican war, and others had fathers or grandfathers who had served against England in the war of 1812, either by land or sea. The great-grandfathers of very many of us had fought the English in the Revolution, or the French and Indians during the early settle-

SEVENTY-FIVE THOUSAND CALL. 9

merits, for then every ablebodied man from Eastport to Portsmouth was a soldier. Traditions and tales of martial deeds still had an influence on that young generation ; so it was not difficult to excite the warlike spirit, especially after the stars and stripes were fired upon at Fort Sumter.

About this time at a dinner party at Mr. Scammon's, several Illinois statesmen, among them Hon. Lyman Trumbull, being present, all expressed the opinion that the seventy-five thousand men raised by Mr. Lincoln would march through to the Gulf of Mexico with little difficulty. I modestly said that when a child I had seen five thousand splendid militia under arms at Charleston, South Carolina, receive Generals Quitman and Shields on their return from the Mexican war, and that the militia of the South would alone require many more than seventy-five thousand men to overcome them. The distinguished statesmen deigned no reply, but looked at me as if I was very impertinent, and perhaps I was.

All the West, as well as Chicago, was now at fever heat of patriotism, and many regiments were forming to march to defend the Union when Mr. Lincoln should call for more troops. Among these was a regiment to be commanded by the Hon. Owen Lovejoy, called the Yates

Phalanx, in which I enlisted, but hearing of the departure of the 3d Maine which contained two Bath companies and many of my friends and schoolmates, to the seat of war, and as the college authorities permitted me to take my degree, I concluded not to wait for commencement, but to go home and join some Maine regiment.

CHAPTER II.

"And blessed is a country with stout hearts like these, The tramp of her armies is swelling' the breeze ; They rush to her rescue, their lives freely give, 'T were better to die than in bondage to live."

Moses Owen.

On arriving home from the West, after a long journey by rail in cars whose discomfort we have almost forgotten, I found a lull in the war fever, and a general opinion that it was to be a short affair. After some weeks at Bowdoin College, where I taught the students the Zouave drill and directed as skirmishers many future generals and colonels down Main Street to capture the Topsham bridge, I went home for the last vacation, sadly feeling that my chance would never come. One day while working about the house, an acquaintance drove by and called out, " Our army has been badly beaten at Bull Run." Now or never seemed the time to go to war, as more troops must be wanted. That afternoon Sam Fessenden, who was the son of the Senator, and was killed at Manassas, George O. McLellan, soon to be killed at Yorktown, and George Morse, now living, joined me, and as there was no recruiting office in town, we thought the next thing to do was to be sworn into the United States service ; so we went to Lawyer Fred D. Sewall and were solemnly sworn into the service of the United States, and I took the next train for Augusta to obtain papers to recruit a company. Meeting H. S. Hagar, of Richmond, on the train, bound on the same errand, we agreed to join forces, and in a day or two a recruiting office was opened, and yellow handbills were distributed as follows :

ONE CHANCE MORE.

A few good men wanted for the Bath Company of the 7th Regiment. Pay and sustenance to commence immediately.

$22.00 bounty and $100.00 when mustered out of service. Apply at their recruiting office, opposite J. M. Gookin's store, Front Street. Bath, Maine, Aug. 6, '61.

The company was called the Harding Zouaves.

Col. E. K. Harding, of Bath, then quartermaster-general of the State, had a rare faculty of encouraging young men and winning their admiration, and to his kindly efforts and judicious advice I owed much then and afterward. Praise judiciously bestowed from those we look up to is so rare that I have preserved the memory of his kind words now many a year since ; in sorrow we said, " Peace go with him."

IN CAMP AT AUGUSTA. 13

The first accession gained in my new office, which had for furniture one chair and a table, was what we would now call a tramp ; the word was unknown then. He had but one eye, and claimed to have served in the British army ; so we looked on him with a certain reverence his appearance never could have claimed, and gave him of the fat of the land. He soon deserted, but he had fulfilled his mission : he had given us hope of success, so his brief tarry in the colonies was of some avail. But men began to come in and were sent to Augusta daily, and soon I followed them, anxious to taste the sweets of command. On the long, beautiful slopes between the State House and the river, Sibley tents were pitched. They were like an Indian tepee in shape. Hundreds of men of the 7th Regiment were already in camp, and I soon found Company D, and was received by Lieutenant Morse with all the honors, and a supper that no one can appreciate who has not eaten beans baked in a hole in the ground. Soon after supper it began to rain, and as our tents, though floored with planed boards and containing plenty of blankets, had no straw, it struck me that it was a cruel hardship to treat brave men so, and I mustered the company and marched them off to the nearest hotel and put them up at my own expense. I then invited the lieutenants to sleep in camp with me, so we could inure ourselves to campaigning ; but with the novelty and excitement we sat up and told stories till it was time to go the grand rounds, which thrilling peace-time military ceremony impressed us deeply. Before morning the rain ceased, but not the mosquitoes, and when the company sauntered leisurely down to breakfast they saw their officers looking as if they had been up all night watching with the sick.

The next day arms were issued to us : Winsor rifles, with plenty of brass trimmings to keep clean, and sabre bayonets. Very proud we were of them, and when we came to use them we found they shot pretty straight. Cumbersome as the sabre bayonets were, they were good to dig shelter with, and several times I have seen their long leveled lines carry consternation to the gray-clothed foe.

Fresh from my Zouave training, I soon had Company D in shape, and I loved every man in it. The delight of a first command was on me, and even now I can see the faces of all, from the tall man on the right to little Charlie Price, the shortest, on the left. I see them just as they looked then, enthusiastic and boyish, but of those eighty most are now with the silent majority. Four years in the 7th Maine did not prove favorable to longevity. They were going

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL T. W. HYDE

ELECTION OF OFFICERS. 15

to the call of duty, to brave they knew not what ; but as the flag had been insulted and the majesty of the United States defied, that was enough for them. Twenty-two dollars bounty and fifteen dollars a month was no inducement and little thought of. Even as the raw levies flocked to Washington's camp after Bunker Hill, so these fresher levies were coming from forest and forge to support Abraham Lincoln, who now, thirty years after, seems almost deified to us in his simple greatness. It is bard to imagine our forefathers of the Revolution as other than men gray and grave in homespun garb of the Continental cut ; but they were boys like these, ruddy and of cheerful countenance, like these, moved by a divine afflatus to fight for freedom. Then it was for the personal freedom of themselves and neighbors ; but now, though few realized it, for the freedom of the down-trodden and the lowly. So God bless the boys that carried a musket then, and His poor should ever bless them.

In a few days the company officers were summoned to the Senate chamber to choose field officers by ballot. Adjutant General Hodgdon presided. He is still living, and all Maine soldiers remember him, imperious and energetic, yet kindly, and doing great work for the cause. We looked at each other askance, being hardly acquainted as yet, and finally I proposed that we put some regular officer in for colonel, as none of us knew niucli about the business. This was seconded, and some one had the name, taken from an advertisement, of Edwin C. Mason, captain of the 17th Infantry, recruiting in Portland. So we chose him colonel. Then it was suggested by a man from Kendall's Mills that Selden Connor, about finishing his term of three months' service in the 1st Vermont, and soon coming home as sergeant, would know something about it, and would be a good man for lieutenant-colonel, so we chose him. We made no mistake there. Then they insisted on making me major in spite of my extreme youth, as I was the only man in the regiment who could drill a company. Even now I can recall the thrill of joy and dread and gratified pride that the unexpected vote gave me ; but the responsibilities were too huge and I promptly declined, and would probably have persisted in declining, had not Mr. John B. S wanton and Colonel Harding, by their encouragement and insistence, almost forced me into it. I did not know then that the principal duties of a major were to ride on the flank of the rear division, say nothing, look as well as possible, and long for promotion. The two lieutenants soon heard of my unexpected exaltation, and promptly took the train

START FOR THE FRONT. 17

for their homes, neither being willing to take the captaincy ; and it was only on my promising to be captain, too, till I could find a substitute, that I was able to get them back to camp.

It was intended that the 7th Maine should stay long enough in camp at Augusta to get some cohesion and be able to march together ; but long before they did it happened that orders came to send us to the front. Imagine my consternation on receiving them, when I reflected that the colonel had not yet been allowed by the war department to accept, that the lieutenant-colonel had not come, and that I, the newly fledged major, had to take this mob of one thousand men to Washington. To make it worse, when the order to break camp came, it was a literal copy of the one used by Colonel O. O. Howard, a West Pointer, to take the 3d Maine out of Augusta. He had taken one used at West Point for some grand function by the corps of cadets, and it was longer than one of Grant's orders moving the army toward Richmond. I remember the tent pegs were to be pulled in order at tap of drum, and the operation of taking care of them would take a week to learn.

Now I supposed all this had got to be done, and I was appalled at my ignorance and inefficiency. However, my good friends, Colonel

Harding and Governor Washburn, cheered me up, and the task was accomplished during an entire summer night ; but as I had not yet had time to get a uniform, and few of the regiment knew me, I think my personal interposition did not avail much. The gray of the morning found us in long line of battle, knapsacks packed, and fortunately for me it was not far to the cars ; and when we got there the boys were anxious to get on, so it was with a happy heart that I felt the long train start, in spite of the fact that for me, as for others, mother and sisters were waving their handkerchiefs and looking their last at us through weeping eyes.