skirmish field; when a patriot and poet like Koerner dies in battle
with his work hardly begun--we feel how inadequate are all the
millions of the treasury to rival such offerings. We shall have no
correct idea what our country is worth to us if we forget all the
singing voices that were hushed, all the noble hearts that stopped
beating, all the fiery energies that were quenched, that we might be
citizens of the great and indivisible Republic of the Western world.

I believe that few men who fell in our civil conflict bore with them
out of the world possibilities of fame and usefulness so bright or
so important as Colonel Ephraim Elmer Ellsworth, who was killed at
Alexandria, Virginia, on May 24, 1861--the first conspicuous victim of
the war. The world can never compute, can hardly even guess, what was
lost in his untimely end. He was killed by the first gun he ever heard
fired in strife; and his friends, who believe him to have had in him
the making of a great soldier, have nothing to support their opinion
but the impression made upon them by his manly character, his winning
and vigorous personality, and the extraordinary ardor and zest with
which his powerful mind turned towards military affairs in the midst
of circumstances of almost incredible difficulty and privation. He was
one of the dearest of the friends of my youth. I cannot hope to
enable the readers of this paper to see him as I saw him. No words can
express the vivid brilliancy of his look and his speech, the swift and
graceful energy of his bearing. He was not a scholar, yet his words
were like martial music; in stature he was less than the medium size,
yet his strength was extraordinary; he seemed made of tempered steel.
His entire aspect breathed high ambition and daring. His jet-black
curls, his open candid brow, his dark eyes, at once fiery and tender,
his eagle profile, his mouth just shaded by the youthful growth that
hid none of its powerful and delicate lines--the whole face, which