rit. He
was crippled with wounds in the first important battle in which he
was concerned. The two brigadiers at Port Royal, Horatio G. Wright and
Isaac I. Stevens, both became soldiers of note. Wright was a handsome
fellow in his best years, whom I recall stroking his chin with an
amused quizzical expression while Jonathan Saxton poured out his
Garrisonism. His brigade lay well to the south and his headquarters
were at the old Tybee lighthouse which marked the entrance to the
harbour of Savannah. I climbed with him up the sand hill, from the top
of which we looked down upon Fort Pulaski then in Confederate hands
and within short range. We peered cautiously over the summit, for
shells frequently came from the fort. Wright held in his hand a
fragment of one which had just before exploded. "How well it took the
groove!" he said, pointing out to me the signs on the iron that the
rifled cannon from which it had come had given the missile in the
discharge the proper twist. Wright's after-career is part of the
war's history, always strenuous and constantly rising. The fame
which attaches to the Sixth Corps is largely due to the leadership of
Wright. If he fell short at Cedar Creek in 1864 it was a lapse which
may be pardoned in the circumstances. Sheridan retrieved the day
and magnanimously palliated the misfortune of Wright. "It might have
happened to me or to any man." The good soldier deserves the fine
monument which stands by his grave in the foreground at Arlington.

I had at Port Royal a long and friendly talk with Isaac I. Stevens. He
was already a man of note. After achieving the highest honours at West
Point he had gone to the West, and in the great unexplored Pacific
Northwest had conquered, built, and systematised until a fair
foundation was laid for the fine civilisation which now sixty years
later has been reared upon it. He was modest in his bearing, with
well-knit and sinewy frame, and possessed at the same time refined
manners and a taste for the higher things of life. Before the year had
passed, his life went out in the second battle of Bull Run. In the
end of that terrible campaign, he essayed with Phil Kearny to stem at
Chantilly the rush of Stonewall Jackson upon Washington. The attempt
was successful, but Stevens died waving the colours at the head of
his men. It is said that Lincoln had marked him for the command of the
Army of the Potomac. He had made good in all previous positions, and
perhaps would ha