Willson left Cambridge in the fall of 1866 for New Albany. While there he suffered hemorrhages of the lungs and was ill for a month. He never regained his strength, and his death occurred February 2, 1867, at Alfred, New York. His convictions as to spiritualism grew firmer after his wife’s death, and toward the last, so one of his brothers wrote, “his wife and child seemed to be with him constantly, and he talked to them in a low voice.” He was buried at Laurel, the home of Mrs. Willson’s family, in the White Water Valley. His wife and child lie in one grave beside him. The quiet hilltop cemetery commands a view of one of the loveliest landscapes in Indiana, and it is fitly touched with something of the peace, strength, and beauty that are associated with Willson’s name. III. _Later Poets_ Willson marked the beginning of better things, and a livelier fancy and a keener critical spirit is henceforward observable--in the writings of a veteran like Parker, and in the new company of writers that was forming. The Civil War had profoundly moved the Central States, and Indiana had perhaps felt it more than her neighbors. Willson had lifted his voice for the Union while the war cloud still lay upon the land, and the Thompson brothers spoke for the South from Indiana soil on the arrival of the era of better feeling. Ben D. House, who had served in the Federal armies, wrote with truth and spirit. He ran away from his home in Vermont when he was seventeen, and entered the army from Massachusetts. He saw hard service, and received wounds which were a constant menace for the remainder of his life. He was mustered out finally at Indianapolis, and lived there almost continuously until his death in 1887. His idiosyncrasies and affectations were many, and included the wearing of a great cloak, in which he sombrely wrapped himself in cold weather. His poems were printed privately by his friends in 1892. He had fair luck with the sonnet, and wrote, on the occasion of Grant’s death, “Appomattox,” which follows:-- “To peace-white ashes sunk war’s lurid flame; The drums had ceased to growl, and died away The bark of guns, where fronting armies lay, And for the day the dogs of war were tame, And resting on the field of blood-fought fame, For peace at last o’er horrid war held sway On her won field, a score of years to-day, Where to her champion forth a white flag came. O nation’s chief, thine eyes have seen again A whiter flag come forth to summon thee Than that pale scarf which gleamed above war’s stain, To parley o’er the end of its red reign-- The truce of God that sets from battle free Thy dauntless soul, and thy worn life from pain.”