hat they must be met. Action, even in the
face of disaster, was less a defeat than an inglorious retirement. The
public, surely unaware of the fearful odds against him, clamored for an
engagement; the State expected it of its hero; the government awaited
it, and with a brave heart, but no hope, Gen. Lyon prepared for the
attack. The result all the world knows. Was it a victory where the
conquerors were obliged to retire from the field, and carry out their
wounded under a flag of truce? Was it a defeat where the enemy had been
thrice repulsed, once driven from the ground, had burned their baggage
train, and made no pursuit of the retreating army?

But most mournful are those last moments of the faithful soldier's life;
most solemn those last tones of his voice as his orders rang out on that
misty morning amid the smoke and shouts of the battle-field. He stands
here bare-headed, the blood streaming from two wounds which he does not
heed, the cloud of perplexity settling over his face like a pall, his
troubled eyes fixed upon the enemy. He turns to head a regiment which
has lost its colonel--"Forward! men; I will lead you!" A moment, and he
lies there: no more striving for victory here; no more anxious hours of
weary watching for the succor that never came; no more goadings from an
exacting public, nor any more appeals to an unheeding chief. Even the
triumphant hush of life could not smooth out those lines cut by unwonted
care upon his face, or answer the mute questioning of that painful
indecision there. So from the West they brought him, by solemn marches,
to the East, and colors hung at half-mast, and bells were tolled as the
flag-draped hero was borne slowly by. And to the music of tender dirges,
he, whose whole life had been, inspired by the whistling of fifes and
rolling of drums, was laid to rest. A handful of clods falling upon his
breast, their hollow sound never thrilling the mother heart that lay
again so near her son's, a volley fired over the grave, and all was
over. Of all the brave men gone, no fate has seemed to us so sad.
Winthrop, young and ardent, with the tide of great thoughts rashing in
upon his princely heart, died in the flush of hope with the fresh
enthusiasm of poetry and undimmed patriotism shining in his eyes, and we
laid our soldier to sleep under the violets. Ellsworth fell forward with
the captured flag of treason in his hand, and the whole nation cheering
him on in his early sally upon the 's