Page:History of the Forty-eighth Regiment, M.V.M. during the Civil War (IA historyoffortyei00plumm).pdf/54



Think then of your darling boy, not as dead but as having gone over to the majority in Heaven.

Permit me, my dear madam, to mingle my tears in sympathy with yours in this hour of your great affliction. May God bless and comfort you, I am,

Sincerely your friend, EDGAR J. SHERMAN, Captain.

Captain Sherman, after returning home, was met by the clergyman who officiated at the funeral of the young soldier, who said, "Captain, I read your letter at the funeral, and I do not think there was a dry eye in the audience." "But," said the Captain, "did you not regard the poetry as heretical?" "You were fully justified," said the clergyman, "in writing anything you could to comfort that poor heart-broken mother. But who knows that he died unconverted? Were not his last words, 'God's will be done?'"

In passing Cape Hatteras we experienced a fierce storm, but the old ship floundered safely along through the boiling sea with but little serious damage. The violent motion of the ship and the corresponding and sympathetic motion of our stomachs reminded us forcibly of the old bass aria in Haydn's Oratorio of "The Creation," "Rolling in foaming billows uplifted roars the boisterous sea." Except these and a few minor incidents the voyage was uneventful.

The vacancy in Captain's office in Co. G was filled on January 15 by appointment of Lieut. Schoff to that company as Captain.

On looking at the map of the United States we observe that the State of Louisiana lies on both sides of