to pieces and without
their leader. The cavalry corps had lost an officer whose place was hard
to fill. Had he lived, the brave young Illinoisan might have been
another Custer. He had all the qualities needed to make a great
career--youth, health, a noble physique, courage, patriotism, ambition,
ability and rank. He was poised, like Custer, and had discretion as well
as dash. They were a noble pair, and nobly did they justify the
confidence reposed in them. One lived to court death on scores of battle
fields, winning imperishable laurels in them all; the other was cut down
in the very beginning of his brilliant career, but his name will forever
be associated with what is destined to be in history the most memorable
battle of the war, and the one from which is dated the beginning of the
downfall of the confederate cause, and the complete restoration of the
union. Farnsworth will not be forgotten as long as a grateful people
remember the name and the glory of Gettysburg.

Although General Judson Kilpatrick had been in command of the division
since the 30th of June, at Hanover, many of the Michigan men had never
set eyes upon him until that morning, and there was much curiosity to
get a sight of the already famous cavalryman. He had begun to be a
terror to foes, and there was a well-grounded fear that he might become
a menace to friends as well. He was brave to rashness, capricious,
ambitious, reckless in rushing into scrapes, and generally full of
expedients in getting out, though at times he seemed to lose his head
entirely when beset by perils which he, himself, had invited. He was
prodigal of human life, though to do him justice he rarely spared
himself. While he was not especially refined in manners and in
conversation, he had an intellect that would at times emit flashes so
brilliant as to blind those who knew him best to his faults. He was the
very type of one of the wayward cavaliers who survived the death of
Charles the First, to shine in the court of Charles the Second. He was a
ready and fluent speaker--an orator, in fact--and had the gift of
charming an audience with his insinuating tongue.

As closely as I can from memory, I will draw a pen-sketch of him as he
appeared at that time: Not an imposing figure as he sat with a jaunty
air upon his superb chestnut horse, for he was of slight build though
supple and agile as an athlete; a small, though well-knit form, dressed
in a close-fitting and natty suit of blue