As the Michigan regiment, accompanied by two guns of Sherman’s renowned battery, and a company of regular cavalry, marched into the town, a detachment of thirty-five rebel horsemen were found preparing to mount. The battery came up the street towards them like a whirlwind, and they soon surrendered. The New York Fire Zouaves, under the command of Colonel E. E. Ellsworth, were conveyed in steamers, and as the day was dawning their dashing uniform and fearless faces flashed upon the citizens of Alexandria. Not until they had landed did the rebel sentinels discover them, and then, after firing their muskets as a signal of warning, they hastened to alarm the sleeping city. Little need had those brave and untameable “fire fighters” of directions. The master spirit of all their movements had imbued them with feelings akin to his own. They knew their duty, and men trained as they had been in a severe school of danger, could never be backward in performing it. Ellsworth, who, as it might seem, with the shadows of death already gathering around him, could sit calmly down in the dim midnight, after addressing his men in a brief and stirring speech, announcing the orders to march on Alexandria, closing with the well remembered words, “Now boys, go to bed and wake up at two o’clock for a sail and a skirmish;” and after arranging the business of his regiment, pen letters that seemed “as if the mystical gales from the near eternity must have breathed for a moment over his soul, freighted with the odor of amaranths and asphodels”—needed none to tell him of his duty or to urge him to its even rash fulfilment. In the early light of morning he entered the rebel town. A secession flag waved defiantly from the Marshall House, and with the fiery enthusiasm of his nature, Ellsworth rushed to tear down the hated emblem of enmity to the Union he loved so well. With his own hand he tore the flag from its fastening, and descending the stairs flushed with the pride of success, came upon his fate. A musket in the hands of the proprietor, J. W. Jackson, pealed his death-knell, and he sealed the glories of that too well remembered morning, with his heart’s blood. [Illustration: ASSASSINATION OF COLONEL ELLSWORTH. ] BROWNELL, a name now linked with Ellsworth’s in all history, was his prompt avenger, and the blood of patriot and assassin ran commingled, a ghastly stream. Both will be long remembered—will stand shadowed forth to the future from the past—one a brave, tender, chivalric heart; and the other, reckless in his courage, vindictive in his passions, and terrible in his cruelty.