These are by no means isolated cases. It is said that General Hancock, who had faced the King of Terrors on too many battle-fields to fear him, was pursued by a presentiment of this sort, only too soon to be fully verified. While present as an honored guest at a dinner, surrounded by his old comrades in arms, the general remarked to a friend that he had come there with a premonition that it would be his last visit, and that he had but a short time longer to live. In fact, his lamented death occurred within a short time after. Instances of fatal presentiments before going into battle are familiar to every veteran of our great Civil War. I have heard many of them feelingly rehearsed by eye-witnesses. The same thing has occurred, under precisely similar conditions, during the late war with Spain. But here is a tale of that earlier conflict, as published broadcast to the world, without question or qualification:-- “In a research for facts bearing upon psychology, Mrs. Bancroft (a daughter-in-law of the historian) has brought to light a strange story relating to either the record of odd ‘spirit communications’ or coincidences. On July 2, 1863, the wives of Major Thomas Y. Brent and Captain Eugene Barnes, two Confederate officers, were together at a wedding in Fayette County, each wearing her bridal dress. While dressing for the occasion Mrs. Brent’s companion discovered a blood spot upon the dress of the major’s wife, which could not be accounted for, and somewhat excitedly exclaimed, ‘It is a bad omen!’ Two days after Mrs. Brent experienced a severe pain in the region of her heart, although at the time in the best of health. This occurred at the birthplace of her husband. Two days later she heard that, while storming a Federal fortification, her husband was killed on July 4, 1863, as far as she could learn, at the identical time that she had experienced the heart pain. The major was shot in the breast by a Minié ball and instantly killed.” There lies before me, as I write, the authoritative statement of an army officer, a survivor of the terrible charge up San Juan Hill, before Santiago de Cuba, to the effect that just before advancing to the charge a brother officer had confided to him a conviction that the speaker would be killed, entreating his friend to receive his last messages for his relatives. In this case, too, the fatal premonition was fully verified. The doomed man was shot while bravely storming the Spanish stronghold.