the end was drawing near. It came at
last on the famous day of Cedar Creek, when Sheridan rode down from
Winchester and saved the battle. Lowell had advanced early in the
morning on the right, and his attack prevented the disaster on that wing
which fell upon the surprised army. He then moved to cover the retreat,
and around to the extreme left, where he held his position near
Middletown against repeated assaults. Early in the day his last horse
was shot under him, and a little later, in a charge at one o'clock, he
was struck in the right breast by a spent ball, which embedded itself
in the muscles of the chest. Voice and strength left him. "It is only
my poor lung," he announced, as they urged him to go to the rear; "you
would not have me leave the field without having shed blood." As a
matter of fact, the "poor" lung had collapsed, and there was an internal
hemorrhage. He lay thus, under a rude shelter, for an hour and a half,
and then came the order to advance along the whole line, the victorious
advance of Sheridan and the rallied army. Lowell was helped to his
saddle. "I feel well now," he whispered, and, giving his orders through
one of his staff, had his brigade ready first. Leading the great charge,
he dashed forward, and, just when the fight was hottest, a sudden cry
went up: "The colonel is hit!" He fell from the saddle, struck in the
neck by a ball which severed the spine, and was borne by his officers to
a house in the village, where, clear in mind and calm in spirit, he died
a few hours afterward.

"I do not think there was a quality," said General Sheridan, "which
I could have added to Lowell. He was the perfection of a man and a
soldier." On October 19, the very day on which he fell, his commission
was signed to be a brigadier-general.

This was a noble life and a noble death, worthy of much thought and
admiration from all men. Yet this is not all. It is well for us to see
how such a man looked upon what he was doing, and what it meant to him.
Lowell was one of the silent heroes so much commended by Carlyle. He
never wrote of himself or his own exploits. As some one well said, he
had "the impersonality of genius." But in a few remarkable passages
in his private letters, we can see how the meaning of life and of that
great time unrolled itself before his inner eyes. In June, 1861, he
wrote:

I cannot say I take any great pleasure in the contemplation of the
future. I fancy you feel much as I do about t