I cannot here forbear a momentary tribute to Wentworth Higginson. Devoting himself heroically to his great work, absorbed in its duties, and bearing his oppressive responsibility as the leader of a regiment in which to a great extent are now involved the fortunes of a race, he adds another honorable name to the true chivalry of our time. * * * * * Homeward-bound, I stopped for two days at Fortress Monroe, and was again among the familiar scenes of my soldier-life. It was there that Major-General Butler, first of all the generals in the army of the Republic, and anticipating even Republican statesmen, had clearly pointed to the cause of the war. At Craney Island I met two accomplished women of the Society of Friends, who, on a most cheerless spot, and with every inconvenience, were teaching the children of the freedmen. Two good men, one at the fort and the other at Norfolk, were distributing the laborers on farms in the vicinity, and providing them with implements and seeds which the benevolent societies had furnished. Visiting Hampton, I recognized, in the shanties built upon the charred ruins, the familiar faces of those who, in the early days of the war, had been for a brief period under my charge. Their hearty greetings to one whom they remembered as the first to point them to freedom and cheer them with its prospect could hardly be received without emotion. But there is no time to linger over these scenes. * * * * *