rgency, but of which in
ordinary times there is only a consciousness as of a latent source of
strength, the sound and enduring pith beneath many accretions of
questionable fibre and tenacity. General Bartlett may very well stand
for a type of the "heroes" produced by our civil war--men who, neither
bred to the profession of arms nor inspired by military or political
ambition, quitting their homes and chosen vocations at the call of their
country or their State, devoted themselves heart and soul to the duties
and demands of the hour, distinguished themselves not more by their
bravery than by their strict attention to discipline, and in seasons of
discouragement and defeat, of bad generalship or defective organization,
gave to the respective armies that "staying power," so rare in a citizen
soldiery, which prolonged the contest until it ended in the sheer
exhaustion of the weaker party. Conspicuous examples of this class were
sent forth, perhaps, by every State, and within its borders were often
regarded with a fonder admiration than the great commanders on whom a
larger responsibility and more complex duties brought a more anxious and
less partial scrutiny. Massachusetts, in particular, which could boast
of no eminent professional soldier and whose "political generals"
carried off the palm of a disastrous incapacity, turned with especial
pride to those of her sons who in the camp and in the field were
recognized as models of zeal, fidelity and gallantry. Of this
number--and it was not small--Bartlett, though one of the youngest, was
the most distinguished. He showed from the first equal coolness and
daring in battle, as well as the special faculty of a minute
disciplinarian. The regiments which he trained and led were among those
that headed victorious charges and stemmed the torrent of defeat,
besides presenting a faultless appearance on parade and resisting
temptations to plunder. He himself was repeatedly disabled by severe
wounds, and, being captured before Petersburg, passed many of the last
months of the war in confinement, suffering from a disease which
permanently injured his system and shortened his life. Yet he survived
most of the comrades whose careers had opened with a like promise, and
down to his death, in 1876, was full of enterprise and activity as a
private citizen, bearing a spotless reputation, and displaying qualities
which, it seems to have been generally believed, would have found their
fittest fiel