I never saw him again. An hour later the men he had taken with him returned, and reported that they had run into a squad of the enemy; that the Captain had been shot through the heart and instantly killed; and that they were unable to bring in his body. Thus ended the young life of Edgar P. Trego, “a soldier without fear and without reproach.” From the dull level of every-day walks and ways he stepped at once into the great events of a great era, and became a hero and a martyr for a great cause. One of the counties of this State bears his name, and is honored by it. His remains, recovered months after his death, repose in the beautiful National Cemetery at Chattanooga, with those of nearly twenty thousand other soldiers who gave up their lives that the country might live. “Brave, good, and true, I see him stand before me now, And read again on that young brow, Where every hope was new, How sweet were life! Yet, by the mouth firm-set And look made up for Duty’s utmost debt, I could divine he knew That death within the sulphurous hostile lines, In the mere wreck of nobly-pitched designs, Plucks heartsease, and not rue.” —The stories told by the rosters of military companies are always very meager. They are like the family histories recorded in an old Bible. A child is born; it dies. This is the beginning and the end. Now and then a marriage is noted. The army records are quite as brief. A soldier is mustered in; he is killed in battle, or dies, or is mustered out. Now and then he receives promotion, or is wounded. These are the only facts that are noted on the Company rolls. But meager as they are, they may, to one familiar with army life, tell a wonderful story of duty faithfully discharged and of dangers bravely faced. One of these military biographies—the story of another comrade and friend—I propose to quote as it is recorded in the books of the Adjutant General’s office. The subject of it was born across the ocean. The flag he followed, the Nation he gave his life to preserve, were his only by adoption. He was a German. Small in stature; his features delicate and sensitive; his complexion clear and rosy as a girl’s; well educated and of studious tastes; keeping “the noiseless tenor of his way” with a modesty only equalled by his merit, he won confidence and esteem by genuine deserving, and his history, even as it is set down in the brief notations of a regimental roster, is a wonderful story. I quote it in full: