Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/219

 HON. HENRY WILLIAM BLAIR.

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��ed and studied, until his health gave out and he was prostrated on a bed of sickness. For five years his in- domitable will sustained him, and not without a pang did he relinquish his design. Upon the advice of his friend Samuel A. Burns, himself a distin- guished teacher, he decided to enter upon the study of the legal pro- fession with the preparation he had already acquired, and according] May i, 1 85 6, he entered the office of William Leverett, esquire, Plymouth, and for three years pursued his studies under the advice and tuition of that able lawyer. In 1859 he was ad- mitted to the bar. and associated him- self with his instructor in the practice of his profession. The next year he was appointed to his first office, county solicitor for Grafton county.

From the first Mr. Blair was a thorough-going Republican. An in- stinctive hatred of slavery and all its attendant iniquities inspired him as ?„ boy to look eagerlv forward to the time when he could join in the warfare against it, and when he reached his majority he lost p.o occasion to declare, by voice and vote, his convictions upon the subject. When the slaveholders raised the standard of revolt against the government he had just begun to reap the fruits of his early struggles and see the realization of his boyish dreams of success in his profession ; but every call for men served to render him uncomfortable at home, and while the twelfth regiment was being recruit- ed, he put away his books and briefs and tried to join it, but failed to pass the surgeon's examination. He then enlisted as a private in the fifteenth regiment, and was chosen captain of Company B. Before leaving the state he was commissioned major by Gov. Berry, in which capacity he went to Louisiana. Soon after his arrival there the disability of his superior officers left him in command of the regiment, and from that time the drill and discipline which made it one of the best in the service were his work. In the assault upon Port Hudson, in

��May, 1863, ne was severely wounded by a minie-ball in the right arm, and was carried to the hospital to recover ; but, learning a few days later that another attack on that rebel strong- hold was to be made, he insisted on disregarding the commands of the surgeons by joining his command, and, with his arm in a sling, led his men. who had the head of the column, in the ill-fated charge of June 14. Here he was shot again in the same arm by a L-ul let, which tore open the old wound ; but he refused to leave his troops, and remained with them until he could take them from the field. About this time he was promot- ed to be lieutenant-colonel of the regiment, and, as such, brought it home when its term of service had expired. He reached Concord little more than a bodily wreck, and for some weeks his life hung by a thread ; but careful nursing bv his devoted wife and friends restored him to suffi- cient strength to warrant his removal to his old home on the banks of the Pemigewasset.

Chief Justice Doe put aside his judi- cial work, came to Concord, and for some days carefully watched and wait- ed on his friend with the tenderness of a woman until the greatest danger was over. Hon. J. D. Sleeper was con- stant in his delicate and affectionate attentions to the wounded man. Mr. Blair has often said that to these two men he felt largely indebted for his life.

A long season of suffering and dis- ability from wounds and disease con- tracted in the army followed his re- turn ; but he gradually regained his health sufficiently to resume the prac- tice of law at Plymouth, in which the court records show him to have been remarkably -successful. He had a legal mind, had fitted himself for the bar with great thoroughness, prepared his cases carefully and patiently, and managed them skillfully, seldom fail- ing to obtain a verdict. The Grafton county bar was at that time noted for the ability and learning of its mem-

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