L. E. Chittenden

“ When I saw him I asked if he remembered William Scott.
“Of Company K, Third Vermont Volunteers?” he answered. “Certainly I do. He was the boy that Baldy Smith wanted to shoot at the Chain Bridge. What about William Scott?”
“He is dead. He was killed on the Peninsula,” I answered. “I have a message from him for you, which I have promised one of his comrades to deliver.” ”

“ He regarded a soldier as so much valuable material, to be used with economy, like powder and lead, to the best advantage. The soldier was not worth much to him until his individuality was suppressed and converted into the unit of an army. He must be taught obedience; discipline must never be relaxed. In the demoralization which existed at the Chain Bridge, in his opinion, the occasional execution of a soldier would tend to enforce discipline, and in the end promote economy of life. ”

“ Three times I assisted in procuring their exercise, each to the saving of a soldier, and each time he shared our own delight over our success, though he knew not how his face shone when he felt that he had spared a human life. ”

“ To rise and retire with the sun, working through all the hours of daylight, sleeping through all the hours of night, was the universal rule. Such industry, practised from childhood, united to a thrift and economy no longer known in the republic, enabled the Vermonter to pay his taxes and train up his family in obedience to the laws of God and his country. Nowhere under the sun were charity, benevolence, mutual help, and similar virtues more finely developed or universally practised than among these hard-handed, kind-hearted mountaineers. ”

“ I said. “It will be long after this when one of my name takes money for helping a Vermont soldier. I know facts which touch this case of which you know nothing. I fear that nothing effectual can be done for your comrade. The courts and lawyers can do nothing. I fear that we can do no more; but we can try.”
I must digress here to say that the Chain Bridge across the Potomac was one of the positions upon which the safety of Washington depended. The Confederates had fortified the approach to it on the Virginia side, and the Federals on the hills of Maryland opposite. ”

“ The sterile flanks of the mountains of Vermont have, to some extent, been abandoned for the more fertile regions of the West, and are now open to immigration from the more barren soils of Scandinavia and the Alps. Fifty years ago these Vermont mountains reared men who have since left their impress upon the enterprise of the world. ”

“ They are Green Mountain boys of the Third Vermont, who have come to stay as long as you need good soldiers. They don’t want promotion until they earn it. But they do want something that you alone can give them—the life of a comrade.”
“What has he done?” asked the President. “You Vermonters are not a bad lot, generally. Has he committed murder or mutiny, or what other felony?”
“Tell him,” I whispered to the captain.
“I cannot! I cannot! I should stammer like a fool! You can do it better!”
“Captain,” I said, pushing him forward, “Scott’s life depends on you. ”

“ This is the paragraph in point: ‘It is not when we sleep soft and wake merrily ourselves that we think on other people’s sufferings. Our hearts are waxed light within us then, and we are for righting our ain wrangs and fighting our ain battles. ”

“ This was the end of the story of Evans, who got his discharge, and went home at the close of the year. I heard from Scott occasionally afterward. He was gaining a wonderful reputation as an athlete. He was the strongest man in the regiment. The regiment was engaged in two or three reconnoissances in force, in which he performed the most exposed service with singular bravery. If any man was in trouble, Scott was his good Samaritan; if any soldier was sick, Scott was his nurse. ”

“ The first public recognition of Lincoln’s character came in his election as captain of a company in the war against Black Hawk and his band of rebellious Indians in 1832. This was followed by his appointment as postmaster at New Salem, Illinois, which gave him better opportunities for study—opportunities so well improved that he was admitted to practise as a lawyer in 1836. He began his professional career at Springfield, Illinois. ”

“ Instead of sending some one, or going himself in Scott’s place, as he should, he had let him go to his death. He alone was guilty—“if any one ought to be shot, I am the fellow, and everybody at home would have the right to say so. There must be some way to save him, Judge!” (They all called me Judge.) “He is as good a boy as there is in the army, and he ain’t to blame. You will help us, now, won’t you?” he said, almost with tears.
LINCOLN IN 1857
From a photograph in the collection of Charles Carleton Coffin
The other members of the committee had a definite if not a practicable plan. ”

“ Every member of these four companies was a brave man. But all the eye-witnesses agreed that among those who in this, their first hard battle, faced death without blanching, there was none braver or more efficient than William Scott, of Company K, debtor for his own life to President Lincoln. ”

“ But when the hour of trouble comes to the mind or to the body—and when the hour of death comes, that comes to high and low—oh, then it isna what we hae dune for oursells, but what we hae dune for others, that we think on maist pleasantly. ”

“ Scott was, apparently, their first victim. It went without saying that any appeal in his behalf to General Smith would lead to nothing but loss of time.
II HE more I reflected upon what I was to do, the more hopeless the case appeared. Thought was useless. I must act upon impulse or I should not act at all. “Come,” I said, “there is only one man on earth who can save your comrade. Fortunately, he is the best man on the continent. We will go to President Lincoln.” ”

“ He was very strong, and practised feats of strength until he could pick up a man lying on the ground and carry him away on his shoulders. He was of great use in the hospital, and in all the serious cases sought employment as a nurse, because it trained him in night-work and keeping awake at night. ”

“ The final result was that he was the general favorite of all his comrades, the most popular man in the regiment, and modest, unassuming, and unspoiled by his success.
IV HE next scene in this drama opens on the Peninsula, between the York and the James rivers, in March, 1862. The sluggish Warwick River runs from its source, near Yorktown, across the Peninsula to its discharge. It formed at that time a line of defence, which had been fortified by General Magruder, and was held by him with a force of some twelve thousand Confederates. Yorktown was an important position to the Confederates. ”