the field (for the fatal weakness that finally sapped his life was then upon him), he was compelled, under medical direction, to retire from the battle ranks, and made a last desperate effort to serve the cause he loved as a war correspondent. In this capacity he joined the great army of the West after the battle of Shiloh. The story of his camp life was indeed pathetic. Dr. Bruns writes of him then: "One can scarcely conceive of a situation more hopelessly wretched than that of a mere child in the world's ways suddenly flung down into the heart of that strong retreat, and tossed like a straw on the crest of those refluent waves from which he escaped as by a miracle." Home he came, baffled, dispirited, and sore hurt, to receive the succor of generous friendship, and for a brief time a safe congenial refuge, in 1864, in an editor's chair of the "South Carolinian", at the capital of his native State. Here his strong pen wrote the stirring editorials of that critical time, and there, tempted by the passing hour of comparative calm, he married Miss Kate Goodwin, "Katie, the fair Saxon" of his exquisite song. Here the war that had broken all his plans, and wrecked his health and hopes, and made literature for a time in the South a beggar's vocation, left him with wife and child, the "darling Willie" of his verse, dependent upon his already sapped and fast failing strength for support. Here he saw the capital of his native State, marked for vengeance, pitilessly destroyed by fire and sword. Here gaunt ruin stalked and want entered his own home, made desolate as all the hearthstones of his people. Here the peace that ensued was the peace of the desert! Here the army, defeated and broken, came back after the long heroic struggle to blackened chimneys, sole vestige of home, and the South, with not even bread for her famished children, still stood in solemn silence by those deeper furrows watered with blood. The suffering that he endured was the common suffering of those around him,--actual physical want and lack of the commonest comforts of life, felt most keenly by his sensitive nature and delicate constitution. In the midst of this fierce stress, his darling boy, the crown of his life, died. All his affections, it seemed, were poured out at once, as water spilled upon the ground. He was dying of consumption, and earth shadows crowded around him. Though long in feeble health, his last illness was brief. The best physicians lovingly gave their skillful ministration, and the State's most eminent men, in their common need, tenderly cared for him and his. With death before him, he clung passionately to his art, absorbed in that alone and in the great Beyond. His latest occupation was correcting the proof-sheets of his own poems, and he passed away with them by his side, stained with his life-blood.