Chapter V: Delegate of Christian Commission

Convinced that the usual course of study for a profession was thus indefinitely postponed, and feeling a deep sympathy for his country and our brave soldiers, he determined to renew the offer of his services to the Christian Commission; and early in October, 1864, was sent to Louisville, Kentucky, where for four weeks he was unremitting in his labors. From Louisville he wrote: “I am having too good a time now. I find the delegates splendid fellows; rough in manners, but earnest, whole-souled Christians. I hope that I may profit much by being here. My mind is in a constant flutter from seeing so many new faces and strange sights. To tell you all were impossible; but I will speak of a few things. I went first across the river to Jeffersonville, and thence a mile or two to Joe Holt’s Hospital. This is more than a thousand feet square, and is a collection of wooden barracks, on each side of a well-graded street, with board sidewalks some five feet higher than the street, all in the pink of neatness. The convalescents bask in the sunshine before the ward doors, and within each ward are neat beds lining each wall: everything clean, airy, and comfortable. We found not over three hundred patients in all. We passed from man to man, giving each an Independent, or soldier’s paper, with a kind word of advice or sympathy, and found them very grateful to get them. I came home, and in the evening, went to the prison barracks, where one hundred and fifty prisoners are strewn over two rooms, so thickly that as they squat on the floor they touch each other. We had a little meeting here, in the midst of filth and ‘gray-backs,’ and found them very eager listeners. They begged us to come again. They have their own prayer-meeting every evening, with their little hymn-books. Singing is a great thing. Frank, Alice, everybody, learn to sing. The first thing I heard was, ‘You can sing religion into them twice as fast as you can talk it into them. Can you start your own tunes?--it’s half.’ Singing is the rallying cry. They flock together when a tune is started. Poor creatures! it is the only pure pleasure they know, to sing the old home tunes. I think I could write twelve hours and not tell you half. I could scare you, too, by telling you how many rebels are here, and how wild work war makes. But I think we are perfectly safe here.

“I wish you could see the colored soldiers: such listeners! They seem magnetized, and hardly breathe while you address them.”

A month later he writes: “I leave this afternoon for Nashville. I hope God’s approval will sanction this change, and that it is not the result of impatient restlessness. I feel as if I had just commenced this work; and as I find the best of the delegates are increasingly fascinated with it, I hope that I shall cultivate a taste for it. It is still quite an effort to me; yet I am often interested and encouraged by tokens of feeling and gratitude in those I deal with. I find it agreeable and profitable to come in contact with so many men. The delegates are coming through here all the time, and, as a rule, are wide-awake, well-educated men. Mr. ---- is a perfect genius in the rough; smart, pushing, funny, and democratic in his style of speaking, writing, thinking, and walking.”

From Nashville he wrote: “I have N.’s offer of a commission in the army. I have thought and prayed over it, and concluded that I had better remain in the Christian Commission. I am already here. I know I can do good--perhaps all the good I am capable of doing; and to take a commission would be an experiment. I am inclined to think that a delegate, a _permanent_ delegate, can do as much good as a chaplain; for the chaplain is compelled to move with the army. I trust God has guided me into this decision, and shall endeavor to dismiss the subject from my mind. We have sweet music in the evening here. The delegates are very pleasant.”

Dec. 1, he wrote: “Nashville is stirring to-day; Hood within fifteen miles; cannonading quite audible. Was up from eleven last night till half-past four this morning, unloading the wounded. This morning the whole army is crowding into town.”

Dec. 7: “I think you would be interested if you went round with me one day. This week I have been going across the Cumberland, to our cavalry on the other side. I take two hundred religious papers, one ream of paper, three hundred soldiers’ books, and spend all day distributing them. I have to walk two or three miles, so I dine with the boys on hard-tack and beans, and don’t get home till supper-time. Last evening I spent in teaching some little colored children to read. One of them said that Adam lived in the garden of Egypt. We hear cannon thundering day and night. The fight at Spring Hill was a terrible affair. The rebels charged three times with determined hardihood. We came near losing our whole army, but finally repulsed them.”

How he performed his duties, both at Louisville and at Nashville, in barracks, hospitals, prisons, and on the field, will best be told in the words of his associates.

Says one: “He was the youngest delegate we ever had in Louisville; and we found our hearts going out to him as to a younger brother. We liked his original ways. There was something so fresh and childlike about him,--a simplicity both rare and admirable in a young man. His kindness to all was unbounded; but when a _soldier_ came to our rooms, he would start up quickly, and wait upon him as politely as though he were a king. He made the soldiers feel at home, assuring them that we all considered it a privilege to wait upon our brave defenders. Nov. 6, Sunday, I accompanied him to the ‘Taylor Barracks.’ He read Isaiah liii.; dwelling on the third and fourth verses, and repeating many times, ‘Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.’ In imagination I can see him now, standing before those colored soldiers, reading each word so distinctly, so understandingly, and they listening so attentively, drinking in every word, and looking so thankful for assurances of home and heaven. He sought to impress upon them the necessity of being prepared; to make them realize that God, though invisible, was near, and willing to receive them. He urged them to be zealous for Christ, because life was uncertain. He was very earnest; the color came and went in his cheeks; and his ‘my friends’ to those boys and men can never be forgotten.” Says another: “I shall never forget that sermon. I was touched with his remark upon ‘His visage was so marred.’ He did not think it taught that Christ’s appearance was repulsive; but simply that it was wan, and wasted with his many cares and ceaseless labors. One night there was a crowd. Mr. K. despaired of full attention because he could not be seen. He looked about for an elevation. He mounted a pile of boxes, and called for ‘Rally Round the Flag, Boys.’ This secured them, and he kept their attention to the end.”

“From my first acquaintance,” says an Episcopal clergyman, “I was unusually well pleased with him. His frankness, cordiality, intelligence, above all, his devotion to the Christian work he had come so far to do, won the esteem of all, and even excited remark from many. His heart was full of that best of Christian graces, charity. On Friday evening, Dec. 9, he said to me, ‘Let us call on our friends at Hospital 14; but half-past seven will be time enough for that, and meanwhile I’ll have a short service down in the barracks: I have not done enough to-day;’ this, though I knew he had spent the whole day in ‘the front.’ The barracks is a large, unfinished hotel, the property of the rebel Gen. Zollicoffer, with no sash in the window frames. This, of course, makes it at best a very uncomfortable place for men to live in. There are generally between one thousand and four thousand soldiers here in transit between the front and the North. James, more frequently than any other delegate, visited this place in the evening, to have services. He frequently spoke of the pleasure this gave him. We were each in turn appointed to this duty; but James again and again went, whether specially assigned or not. On Saturday, the 10th, he went. He found there a sick soldier without a blanket, compelled to pass the night in a room which was open to the chilling and wintry winds. James felt well, and believed that the short walk home in the cold would not harm him as much as a long night’s exposure would the needy soldier, and at once gave the poor fellow his shawl. Sunday the 11th came, and feeling still well, he passed the day among the cavalry, several miles distant from our home, returning quite late. It was not until Monday the 12th that he seemed indisposed. He kept to the sofa most of the day, and had one or two chills. It was not until Tuesday the 13th that his symptoms revealed the fearful congestive chill. He would often spend an hour after the labors of the day in my room talking over what had been said and done. When he met with earnest and anxious, but not well-established men, his custom was to insert written pledges, signed by both, usually, in their Testaments, ‘to be unceasing in their endeavors to live so as to meet in heaven.’ The Bible was constantly in his hand when in-doors, before leaving in the morning, and after the duties of the day. He loved it; and his conscientious discharge of all his duties proved to all that he endeavored to live up to its precepts. On that Friday evening after his services in the barracks, as we walked toward Hospital 14, he spoke of the interesting meeting he had just had, and added, ‘Though the sermon my congregation got was a poor one, it had one good quality,--it was full of the Bible. I always try to introduce plenty of that good book, that those who will not read its pages may hear.’

“James was talented above most others. Had he lived he would have been a successful laborer in the vineyard. His efforts were very successful, as long as he was spared, in the work of the Christian Commission. Let us be mindful of David’s consolation: ‘I shall go to him.’ Pardon me: I write as I feel; for I feel that I too need this comfort. In the death of this noble young man I have lost a friend--one whose example has benefited me, and whose warm spirit has enlisted my deepest regards.”

Says another clergyman: “On the 10th of December, James and one of the delegates went out of Nashville, on the left, in the front of our cavalry force, where he held a service in the open air. He took off his hat. The day was cold. The cold, as he afterwards said, affected his head. On Sunday, Dec. 11th, he attended the Cumberland Hospital, and preached a most excellent and edifying discourse. His soul seemed to be entirely absorbed in the spiritual and eternal welfare of the sick and wounded soldiers. On Monday he had chills and fever. On Tuesday I nursed him most of the day, applying mustard draughts to his breasts, arms, feet, ankles, etc., as the doctor ordered; bathing his feet in hot water, and rubbing him all over to excite perspiration; but all in vain. He was delirious in the afternoon. On Wednesday he knew and named all the delegates as they came to his bed, and saluted them with, ‘God bless you.’ During the 15th he was delirious all the time, preaching, praying, and distributing things to the soldiers. It was very touching to hear him in his wanderings pray for the soldiers, and then ask some one at his bedside to pronounce the benediction. When I gave him medicines, he would always say, ‘Thank you, thank you, sir.’ He did not suffer much pain; and as the end drew near he became more calm, and died quietly, peacefully, triumphantly; and we have no doubt that he will rise in the first resurrection. Of this you may rest satisfied: ‘Death loves a shining mark;’ and such talents, so early and so fully developed, seldom ever bloom long on this earthly soil. They are matured for the shining ‘shores of eternal joys.’”

A chaplain of the Illinois cavalry writes from Nashville: “He seemed to have but one desire, and that was to do good to his fellow-men, and be instrumental in saving souls; and the question was in what sphere he could best accomplish this? He had had an offer of a lieutenancy in one of the regiments, and sometimes felt like accepting it; and would, if he could believe that he would be as useful to his company as a Christian, but feared that he might not be as useful to the soldiers as he could now be in the Christian Commission.”

“His great interest in his work was revealed in his delirium: all the powers of his mind were enlisted in expostulating, warning, inviting, and urging sinners to come to Christ. He told them of Christ’s wonderful compassion, his sufferings for them, and his intercessions with the Father. 1 Timothy i. 15, ‘This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,’ was one of the texts from which, with great clearness and directness, he addressed his supposed audience more frequently than from any other. He would begin with the fact that all are sinners by nature and by practice; then point out the wickedness of men in rejecting their truest interest, and in violating God’s commandment; show their _lost_ and ruined condition; closing with the encouraging truth in the text, that Christ came to save sinners. Here he would take up the sufferings of Christ for sinners, and especially for those he imagined to be present; invariably inquiring, ‘Now won’t you accept Christ, who has done so much for you?’

“Another text from which he addressed his supposed audience, was Mark ii. 9: ‘Arise, take up thy bed and walk.’ On this he would begin: ‘My friends, we are taught in the Bible that our Saviour did good to the bodies of men as well as to their souls; and it is our duty to labor as he did.’

“Truly you have reason to bless God for the grace so largely bestowed on your dear son, inclining him thus to labor with all his soul for the salvation of men, and especially for soldiers, whether in the hospital or in the camp. The soldiers who formed his acquaintance esteemed him highly, as did all who knew him; the delegates of the Christian Commission, and the chaplains of the army.”

Says another: “I met yesterday a rebel soldier who had been sick in our barracks; one to whom Mr. K. had taken tea, bread, etc., etc. (often saving his own for them), and told him Mr. K. had gone home to the better land of which he had told him. The tears gushed forth, and he said, ‘Has he gone? Will I never see him more? Oh! you fight us like demons, and when we are sick and prisoners, you treat us like angels.’ I told him all about his sickness, and how in his delirium he was striving to save soldiers; and that we felt that he was now with God. He replied, ‘With God’s help, I will meet him there.’”

Christian parents, accept the assurance that we need but a supreme concern to be filled with the love of Jesus, and with the knowledge of his will, to accept peacefully the postponement of every plan for the education of a son; to accept what seems but a temporary occupation as life’s consummate work. If it please God to compress the usefulness of a long life into the brief span of twenty years, is not this a just occasion for triumphant ascription of praise that he has wrought in this brief life a finished work? Every day brings fresh testimony that this is his estimate who calls his disciples, and assigns to every man his work.

His classmates say: “We deeply regret his loss, as an open, decided, exemplary, high-toned, Christian young man.” And the dear friend who transmitted this expression of brotherly feeling, added, “I loved James. And I think he made, during our intimate connection here, an impression on my character that will be lasting. Not long ago he wrote me at some length; and one part of that letter comes back to me with renewed force. He said, ‘I sometimes say to myself, I shall have done _something_ for Christ, if I never live to engage in any business or profession.’ I little thought his _something_ was so nearly done.

“It were useless for me to tell you that he was highly esteemed here, and that his walk among us was thoroughly Christian. You know him too well. Yet it may be pleasing to you to know that his influence was more than a common influence. I give you the testimony of one of the sober-minded, thoughtful men of the class, who said to me the other day that he thought James had exerted more good influence in the class than any other person that ever belonged to it.

“Consolation you have--better than any I can offer.”

Yes, indeed we have--God’s consolation. And though with a bleeding heart, we can render up our trust with joy in the Lord, despite the consciousness of ten thousand short-comings in duty, and of measureless inaptitude for the noble work of training a soul for God, so there be but the consciousness: this one thing have I sought for my child, and only this,--_holiness in order to usefulness_.

Glorious, glorious is the translation of my precious, darling boy. To thee, dear Lord, I surrender this precious one, with ten thousand thanks for the loan. From Thee I received him, with the charge and pledge, “Take this child and nourish him for me, and I will give thee wages.” I have nourished him for Thee, and for Thee alone; and here acknowledge receipt of abundant and blessed wages. My soul is ravished and leaps for joy, as I think of my wealth of wages. I have made return to Thee of my stewardship, and Thou hast accepted it. Oh the unutterable joy of having been permitted--certainly in unswerving aim--to train this precious child for Thee!

Glory to God in the highest!--Amen!