H. Clay Trumbull

“ This call found a ready response in Manning's heart, and he volunteered for the undertaking. He found, as he said in writing to his home of his [25] determination, peculiar satisfaction in the thought that he could now be of real service to the cause he loved. On the vedette-post, in the rifle-pit, or on the battle-line, he must stand or fall as one man, doing only what any lad might compass; but in this new mission, all his nervous energy and cautious shrewdness and consecrated purpose would tell in an effort worthy of a soldier, whether that effort brought success or failure. ”

“ It is, unquestionably, every man's duty to consider his health, even in the prosecution of a religious enterprise, and no [46] desire for high and holy attainment will justify reckless over-effort of body or mind. But not all are to be judged by the same standard of prudence in amount or kinds of effort or toil. What is rest for one man would prove torture to another. Not a few depend for very life upon tireless activity; like the traveller on the Alps, if in their exhaustion they sit down at the approach of night, they chill and sleep and die. ”

“ He had the feeling that God, having accepted his consecration vow in prison, would somehow find work for him to do for Jesus, in accordance with its terms. No lesson concerning God's "kingly state" seemed so hard for him to learn as that—
"They also serve who only stand and wait."
And, doubtless, his energy, coupled with his faith, prolonged his useful life. In his condition, and with his temperament, he would have fallen sooner but for his indomitable will, his determination not yet to yield to the closing pressure of disease, and his conviction that God would still sustain him in his work ”

“ And thus the earthly warfare of another brave soldier is concluded. His was a noble work,—a work for others; for his fellows, his country, his God. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Henry Manning "hath done what he could" for [59] the interests dear to the hearts of the Union soldiers. It is for those who survive him to hold sacred, and to guard jealously the principles and privileges—the supremacy of the Federal Government; the integrity of the national Union; the just liberties of the people of the Republic ”

“ One hundred dollars will not go far towards a young man's thorough education, nowadays; and Manning found himself before long pressed for means of support. Then he was driven to work hard for money, while toiling incessantly at study. He swept the school-rooms, and performed similar service at the academy, for fifteen cents an hour; he went out in the early mornings to do mowing and other farm labor, until the hour of school-time; and thus he kept along in every thing but health and rest. ”

“ But I was enabled to render the most assistance to an American lady,—a noble-hearted woman and a true Christian. Her life has been one of adventure and suffering, and one cannot listen to the recital of her touching story without feeling deeply interested in her. She has been in the hospital a long time, and is at present very weak and frail; and there is a great deal of doubt about her ever being any better. ”

“ Had Manning been in full health, he might have stood all this; but disease, fastened on him in the prison stockade, never relaxed its hold; and his strength failed steadily. Some of his friends advised him to abandon student-life and seek renewed vigor in active out-door occupation; but others, who were nearest him, with unaccountable blindness and persistency, uniformly urged his adherence to first-formed plans. ”

“ In the spring of 1866, he was on his way to Phillips Academy, Andover, with the one hundred dollars in hand,—or rather with one hundred and one dollars; and, as he had been advised to start with one hundred, he gave the odd dollar to a poor man on the road. At Andover, while an earnest student, he was an untiring Christian worker. He taught in a mission-school, took part in prayer-meetings, and conversed on the subject of personal religion with many school-mates, winning thus friends to himself and souls to Jesus. ”

“ And he was but one of many,—a representative youth; one out of thirteen thousand martyrs of Andersonville, [12] —
a solitary soldier among fully three hundred thousand who gave their lives for the nation's life, the sodden mounds of whose graves, like an encircling earthwork, make secure that nation's proud though dearly-bought position among the kingdoms of the world. Surely, there is little danger that the story of such a man will be told too widely, or his services be too highly esteemed ”

“ It was indeed a privilege to give assistance in any way to one so grateful as was Manning, for [53] all that he received of blessing, and so ready to make others happy by ministering discreetly, and in a loving, Christ-like spirit, to the needy and heavy-burdened about him.
HOPE AGAINST HOPE.—THE PRIVILEGE OF CHRISTIAN WORK.
From the hospital to his home, and again among friends who felt that his presence with them was in itself a blessing, Manning still sought health, while growing gradually weaker and less able to exert himself in body or mind. ”

“ They must keep moving or perish. So in the case of Henry Manning: while his example of unintermitted nervous endeavor may not be commended to ordinary men for imitation, it may be admired and approved in him, doomed as he was to an early death from the hour he entered the Petersburg dungeon, and kept alive through his resolute activity, his over-estimate of remaining strength, and his ever sanguine anticipations of returning health. ”

“ I don't see how any one can help doing all the good they can.... I have an insatiable thirst after perishing souls, and hope and pray that [43] God will lead me to do good wherever I am.... I am thankful for the hope that, perhaps ere long, I can throw aside all other things, and enter with my whole heart upon the work of saving souls.... ”

“ He is, I believe, competent to fill any position where fidelity, integrity, and energy are required." Adjutant Stoddard also testified, " [He] has always been especially noticed for the efficient manner in which he has performed his duties as a soldier: always ready for any daring undertaking, he has won for himself a place in the hearts of the officers and his comrades of the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts; and his name can never be obliterated from the pages of the history of that regiment." ”

“ Shaw's Fifty-fourth Massachusetts regiment, then first in action. The hospital of the Twenty-fourth was found to be in the focus of the enemy's sharpest fire, and a hurried move was ordered down the island. As the poor invalids, with failing limbs, dragged their tedious way to the beach, shell after shell from the enemy's guns came shrieking past, or bursting among them. One such seemed to explode in Manning's very face, and he fell, with the half [20] conviction that it had killed him. ”

“ Others than his immediate comrades have reasons for an interest in this young soldier, and should join in honoring his memory, and [11] recalling at his death the record of his army life. Dying though he did among the green hills of Massachusetts, in these days of palmy peace, with parents and sisters ministering to his comfort, as he wasted slowly before their loving gaze, he was really one of the dead of the war, one of the starved of Andersonville. ”

“ Delayed somewhat in his original plans, he enlisted, in the early autumn of 1861, as a private in the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment, then forming near Boston, under the gallant and lamented Stevenson.
After his enlistment, on the Sabbath before he left for the war, he stood up alone in his home-church, and made public profession of his new faith, and was there enrolled as a follower of Jesus; his pastor preaching an appropriate sermon from the text, "Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ;" which inspired counsel Manning certainly followed to the letter. ”

“ From the jail he was removed to the Macon stockade. Digging out thence, he was making his way towards our lines at Atlanta,—travelling only nights, resting in the woods by day,—when he was caught by a rebel scout, and returned to his prison quarters. From Macon he was taken to Millen, to be guarded in the stockade at Camp Lawton. Returned to Macon, he was ordered thence again to Andersonville. Shrinking from the horrors of that well-remembered pen, he was willing to risk every thing in another attempt at escape on his way thither. Going by rail, he determined to jump from the moving train ”

“ Butler, being found on his person, gave color to the charge that he was an authorized spy; and the first proposition was to hang him at once to a tree. Indeed, he was told that his body should swing before sundown. But from some reason it was decided to try him by formal court-martial; and he was sent to Petersburg, where he was shut in a vile hole, underneath the jail, "a low, filthy dungeon," as he described it, "dark, gloomy, and crawling with vermin." ”

“ It requires not a little moral courage and true nerve to deliberately leave one's military lines in the face of the enemy, and pass over into the encircling forces of the foe. But Henry Manning had counted the cost of his undertaking ”

“ It was hard for him to relinquish his purpose of activity in Christ's service. He was far from wilful in this struggle. "I desire to be led by the hand of God," he said; "I am praying very earnestly, ... asking God to tell me what to do, and I know he will not tell me wrong.... ”

“ James Hotel, Boston, in delightful re-union, as comrades of camp and campaigning. The writer of this little sketch was called on to say words in tribute to "The memory of the honored dead" of that army, and in consequence the tenderest recollections were revived of those who fell in the long years of war with rebellion.
Hardly had the writer reached his home from that re-union, before word came to him of the [10] death of another soldier of the Army of the James ”