USA > Maine > Biographical encyclopedia of Maine of the nineteenth century > Part 27
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Young Woods was fitted for college at Phillips Academy, and entered Dartmouth in the spring of 1824. There he remained less than one term, and afterward entered Union College, Schenectady, New York, as a sophomore. College associations in the latter place were very agreeable and helpful. Professor William Thompson of Hartford was his room- mate, President Wayland of Brown University was a member of his class, and Bishop Potter of New York belonged to his more intimate circle of friends. His light, spare form, and almost feminine softness of features were allied with manly firmness, resolution, and capacity for unusual muscular performances. Courteous, affable, sparkling with wit and humor and a capital scholar, " the professors liked to test his knowledge by out-of-the-way questions, and he was always equal to the emergency." In Greek his acquisitions rivalled those of the teacher. Ethics had special attraction for him. Many of his friends believed that poetry was his true vocation. His favorite authors were the older and graver English writers, such as Isaac Barrow and Jeremy Taylor. His graduation theme was " Suicide." The composition assumed poetical form, and had Chatterton for its hero. He also deliv- ered the valedictory address to the class. President Nott declared that he might become a distinguished linguist or mathematician, or man of general literature, but feared that he might be somewhat lacking in practicality.
After leaving college Mr. Woods selected the profession of the Christian ministry, and to prepare himself for it, entered the Theological Seminary at Andover. Among his friends in that institution were his old friend-room-mate here as at college-Professor Thompson of Hartford, Dr. Schauffler, Dr. Cheever, and Professor Park. An early riser, and a lover of physical exercise, he and Professor Park walked together from five to six o'clock, always returning in time for prayers. Their rambles were never intermitted
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for any meteorological reason. The latter gentleman writes : "Our controversies were deepest when the mud was most profound. One of us was commonly lost in an argu- ment when the other was buried in a snow-drift." A debating club was also maintained, and for a while he kept up the habit of talking only in Latin. He was a brilliant skater, and delighted in teaching the young ladies of his acquaintance to guide themselves upon the ice. His great passion, however, was for study.
Mr. Woods graduated from Andover in 1830, but continued his work there as an assistant teacher. He also translated Knapp's "Theology" from the German, and enriched it with an introduction and notes. This achievement secured instant and honorable recog- nition as one of the scholars and theologians of the country. Licensed to preach by the Londonderry Presbytery in 1830, and ordained by the Third Presbytery of New York in the year 1833, he supplied the pulpit of Dr. S. H. Cox for some months, during the absence of that gifted clergyman in Europe. In 1834 he accepted the editorship of the New York Literary and Theological Review, and contributed to it several valuable articles which retain their interest to the present hour. He also contributed various translations from the German language. In 1836 he became Professor of Biblical Literature in the Theological Seminary at Bangor, and in his inaugural dwelt "upon the importance of the study of the Bible, which grows out of the Protestant doctrine of the right of free interpre- tation of it."
Professor Woods displayed remarkable aptitude for the office of teacher. His ease of manner, marvellous conversational powers, and exhaustive reading were very helpful to the students. The social life of the gay little metropolis charmed him. There, too, he fell under the influence of De Maistre, whose writings exerted a marked power upon his mental development, and probably stimulated that reactionary tendency which at times seemed to separate him so widely from those about him. He remained at Bangor three years. In 1839, at the comparatively youthful age of thirty-two, he was called to the Presidency of Bowdoin College. At his inauguration he held the assembly spellbound for two hours by his rich and rare eloquence.
Conflicting tendencies, he insisted, are usually reconciled after years of strife. Speak- ing of the interests springing from religious faith on the one hand and from the scientific interest on the other, he showed that "for the first fifteen centuries of the Christian era revealed religion engrossed the attention of the general mind of Christendom. Then came the ages in which all things were secularized. Science usurped the interest and the author- ity which Religion before had held as her right. But now we are living in a moment of happy augury, in which these two conflicting elements of our intellectual life are being reconciled. Their influence, which in their separation has sometimes been disastrous, in their union will become most potent for good."
He painted the glory, of these earlier ages of faith. Especially did he pay to the
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Mediæval Church the honor so often withheld from it. He spoke of the singular perfec- tion the fine arts obtained under its influence-the cathedrals solemn and magnificent, the music of the old composers, and the paintings of the old masters. He spoke of the science that grew up under the intellectual stimulus which religion gave to the minds of men. He denied that the Church ever opposed the advance of science as such, save by presenting to the thoughts of men objects of more absorbing interest ; and he justified this denial by the most ingenious arguments. He rebuked the pride of Bacon, who speaks of himself as kindling a torch in the darkness of philosophy. "If it was night when Bacon was born, it was certainly a night brilliant with constellations." Modern science, he said, " had come to us like a ship from the Levant-richly laden indeed, but concealing the pestilence beneath its choicest treasure."
His address was welcomed with enthusiasm. All the friends of the college congratu- lated themselves on his accession to the presidency, and that with abundant reason. His kindly, wise, and timely conversations with young men were effectual in the permanent rescue of many of the students from folly and evil courses. In 1840, after filling his office for twelve months, the young president made his first visit to Europe. Unfortunately his note-book, containing records of the tour, has been lost. At Oxford, in England, his rela- tions with some of the Fellows were those of friendly intimacy. He walked and talked with them, shared their simple meals, toasted his bread with them over the same fire in their rooms, and entered into their more elaborate festivities. Among those with whom he met were Stanley, and Pusey, and Newman. While there he contributed as much to the incipi- ent tendency to Mediævalism as he received from it. At a dinner where sentiments were in order, he proposed "The Middle Ages." In Paris he and his travelling companion, the late Hon. Martin Brimmer of Boston, were the guests of the amiable King Louis Philippe. There he won the heart of the Queen, who took him into her apartments, showed him the embroidery of her daughters, and introduced him to the room where they were at work. President Woods, although a bachelor, made himself thoroughly at home, seated himself among the princesses, and held a skein of worsted for one of them to wind, with as much ease and grace as he would have done in a New England farm-house. He was in Paris when the remains of the great Napoleon were brought thither from St. Helena, and was deeply moved by the touching spectacle of the national reverence for the memory of that illustrious soldier. In Rome he had a long conversation with Pope Gregory XVI. at the Vatican. After some hours' talk in Latin with the Pontiff, he took his leave. The " Holy Father" openly expressed his admiration of his visitor. While on a steamer in Europe he met with Chevalier Bunsen, enjoyed a long conversation with him, and contracted a friend- ship that was afterward maintained by correspondence.
On his return from Europe, President Woods diligently applied himself to the duties of his office, Though singularly unconventional, he was a polished gentleman. He had
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the genius of saying the best thing in the best way. " The play of his wit, the originality of his thought, the wealth of his resources, the delicacy of his tact, the kindness of his heart, united to lend a charm to his conversation, such as is rarely met." His nature was at once rich and sympathetic. He loved to throw aside his presidential dignity occasion- ally, and to join in " blind-man's-buff," or some other romping game ; and no child of the company was merrier or more alert than he. Tender and magnanimous, he was also en- dowed with remarkable strength of will. His legal talents were unusual. In a lawsuit springing out of the conditions of Governor Bowdoin's will he displayed a knowledge of the literature bearing upon the case such as few lawyers possessed. "The money that his legal skill had won, his taste knew how to use; and it took form in the beautiful chapel of the college."
President Woods united wise conservatism with the spirit of energetic progress. "He honored the Catholic Church. He honored it because for centuries it alone had repre- sented the highest spiritual faith. He honored it because it uttered the fullest and most conscious protest against the individualism of our day ; because it embodies in itself the two forms of authority which he reverenced-the authority of revelation, and that of his- torical development. He loved, too, its pomp of service." "Why was he not, then, a Catholic?" Not only because he found it impossible to accept Roman Catholicism as a whole, but because he was the product of a past differentiated in many important particu- lars from that of Roman Catholicism. "He felt that he belonged where he was placed -- that he owed a sacred allegiance to the Church of his fathers." He was " honestly, un- swervingly, and contentedly a Congregationalist of the old New England type." "His orthodoxy was of the older and higher type," and he believed more rather than less than those about him. He longed for an ideal church whose embodiment is yet in the future. " He had in his thought the ideal of a union in which the denominations that are in substantial agreement should each be true to its own convictions, and yet co-operate with others as parts of one common church." " Sectarian bitterness was his abhorrence." He was deeply interested in the Old Catholic movement in Europe, loved and honored the Protestant Episcopal Church, took pleasure in the genial breadth of Unitarianism, and yet remained true to his own position. Many failed to understand him, and some absurdly suspected him of being a Jesuit in disguise. He was in fact one of those choice spirits who live in a realm of thought far in advance of that of their age. " He believed that Divine revelation on the one hand, and the human heart on the other, furnish the only solid basis for belief. Out of the heart grow creeds and institutions. Philosophy has its rightful place when it bases its systems upon it. When it seeks to lay foundations of its own, it lays them in the clouds."
The intellectual peculiarities of President Woods caused many to misconceive and misunderstand him. He insisted on "duties of imperfect obligation." In one of his
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marvellous Baccalaureates "he seemed to place honor above duty. He glorified the lie of Desdemona as better than a truth." This evoked a storm of criticism. It apparently endangered all morality. Some years afterward he traversed the same ground and took the same position. His perceptions were too keen, his powers of discrimination were too thorough, to allow him to accept the whole of any popular reform. The occasional drink- ing of wine he held to be not wrong in itself ; nor could he make " of total abstinence any- thing more than a practice temporarily expedient."
Physically indolent, " his idea of perfection was so high that he was critical with himself. It was not that he would not-he could not, do anything that was incomplete." He lacked the incitement of ambition. Scorning modern individualism, he was yet remarkable for individuality. Modest and self-contained, where he worked at all, it must necessarily be in his own way. Into his official duties he threw all his earnestness. Distrust- ing the power of college discipline, he had great confidence in personal influence. Obser- vation of the methods of the Jesuit College at Rome and of the University of Oxford in England only confirmed his beliefs. The fun and frolic of college students were not pro- hibited by him, but the leaders were held responsible for their due limitation. Straight- forward, incisive, and dignified, he was firm in discipline whenever it became matter of positive necessity. Under his administration Bowdoin College offered means of education unequalled in some respects by any institution in the country. The best universities and the most polished courts of the Old World contributed to its effectiveness. From Presi- dent Woods the students learned what reverence and loyalty mean. "They learned that society is not a mere human invention. They felt the divinity that is behind the family and the state. His Baccalaureates were full of the mellow glories of antiquity, and yet quick- ened and strengthened his auditors for the struggles and responsibilities of life. His own functions as a teacher embraced the inculcation of religion and morals. He sometimes held a Bible-class on Sunday, for such students as cared to attend it, in his own room. He also conducted evening prayers in the college chapel."
Faithful and regular in all his labors, he was amply rewarded by the chivalrous love and reverence of his students. The more they knew of him, the more they admired the wealth of his resources, and the beauty of his spirit. When the terrible war for the perpetuation of national life was precipitated by the madness of slavery and secession, his marked individuality stood out more distinctively against the general unanimity. " He did not believe that hearts could be won and patriotism created by the bayonet and the cannon." Like Webster, he faced "a sturdy and multitudinous Northern constituency." The dissi- dence between himself and the patrons of the college led him in 1866 to resign the office he had so long and honorably held. But his interest in the institution did not abate. To his successors he was all kindness and helpfulness, rejoicing in their successes and sorrowing in their trials. "He won to himself the hearts that had been most estranged."
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After the resignation of his office, Dr. Woods was made a delegate to the Democratic Convention at Philadelphia, and one of its Vice-Presidents. This novel experience he keenly enjoyed. Long interested in the work of the Maine Historical Society, in 1867 he accepted a commission from the State to procure materials for its early history. One of the results of this commission was a work of the late Dr. John G. Kohl of Bremen, which was published as the first volume of the " Documentary History of the Maine Historical Society." He also obtained a copy of an important unpublished work of Richard Hakluyt. In January, 1874, his new library, fitted up with all the elegances and conveniences that he could desire, was destroyed by fire. Nearly all his books and papers were consumed. Happily, the priceless Hakluyt manuscript was not among them. By this calamity all his plans were frustrated, and all his labors practically brought to a close. Beside his transla- tion of Knapp's "Theology," he published an " Address on the Life and Character of Parker Cleaveland, LL.D.," which was warmly commended for "classic elegance and finish." He also published a translation from the French of De Maistre's " Essay on the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions."
In June, 1875, Dr. Woods received the first of those shocks which were to break down his constitution. His faculties were gradually beclouded. Command of language- for which he had been so remarkable-was almost wholly lost. He never married. His home at Brunswick afforded him the comfort and companionship he needed, until a sister in Boston claimed her nearer rights, and took him to the care and affection of her own home. To the last his helpful proclivities were touchingly manifest. His spirit, except for a brief period after his first attack, was as sweet, as loving, and as tractable as that of a child. On Tuesday, December 24, 1878, he died. A simple burial-service at Andover, Massachusetts, where his body was interred, ended his earthly history. Harvard made him a Doctor of Divinity in 1846, and Bowdoin a Doctor of Laws in 1866. His life was useful and honored ; less prolific of literary achievement than might have been expected, but exceedingly fruit- ful of quickening to all that was best in the hearts of the young men intrusted to his care. This was the one ambition of his life. It was abundantly realized. His aim could not well have been higher, and the grateful love of many hearts testifies to its attainment.
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ESSENDEN, FRANCIS, Brigadier and Brevet Major-General U. S. Army, was the third son of Hon. William Pitt Fessenden, and was born in Portland on the 18th of March, 1839. He was educated at Bowdoin College, where he graduated in the Class of 1858, at the age of nineteen. After leaving college he studied law in the office of his grandfather, General Samuel Fessenden, and subsequently attended the Harvard Law School. In the fall of 1860 he removed to New York, and entered a law-office to finish his law-studies and to prepare for the practice of his profession in that city. During the following spring he travelled through the Western States, and was at St. Paul, Minnesota, when President Lincoln, in consequence of the firing on Fort Sumter, issued a call for seventy-five thousand volunteers, and directed the organization of ten new regiments of infantry for the regular army. As soon as he had read the President's proclamation, he abandoned his journey and applied for a commission in one of the new regiments. His application was successful, and he received the appointment of captain in the Ninteenth U. S. Infantry. The headquarters of the regiment were established at Indianapolis, Indiana, where he reported for duty, and was employed during the summer and fall, on recruiting service for the regiment, at Madi- son, Indiana, a border city on the Ohio, opposite Kentucky. While at Madison he was also engaged in drilling the companies which had been organized to protect the town, and in mustering volunteer regiments into the service of the United States. Recruiting for the regular army proceeded slowly, owing to the greater popularity of the volunteer service, and the regular regiments did not fill up as rapidly as was expected. His company was organized in January, and he was in Indianapolis till March, preparing his company for the field and guarding the prisoners taken by Grant at Fort Donelson. In March he was ordered to join his regiment, then lying at Duck River, in Tennessee. The battalion of his regiment then in the field consisted of four companies under the command of Major Stephen D. Carpenter of Maine, a graduate from West Point, and a most brave and experienced soldier, and constituted a part of Rousseau's Brigade of the Army of the Cum- berland, then commanded by General Buell. Captain Fessenden reported with his com- pany to Major Carpenter the night before the army crossed Duck River. Throughout the following week the army moved by rapid marches to Savannah, on the Tennessee River, where a junction was to be made with the army under General Grant. The regiment arrived at the river on the evening of April 6th, after a hard march of twenty-two miles. Throughout the day the advance had been to the sound of heavy cannonading, indicating a great battle, and the Army of the Cumberland had hastened forward conscious, that a great struggle was impending. The enemy, under Albert Sidney Johnston and Beauregard, had attacked Grant at daylight, and sought to destroy his army before the arrival of Buell. It
Francis Dependon
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was the first day's battle of Shiloh, and the Union troops had lost their camps and been driven back at every point, but Grant on the arrival of Buell's fresh divisions had with his indomitable resolution resolved to attack the next morning. At daylight of April 7th the battalion landed from the steamer which had carried it over the river, and passing through a demoralized crowd of sick, wounded, and stragglers, marched on to the field and was soon fiercely engaged with the enemy. The position was in the centre of the field, near the road to the landing, and each advance of the line was hotly contested. By three o'clock in the afternoon the Union camps had been recovered, and the rebels made their last but unsuccess- ful effort to regain the field. In this attack Captain Fessenden was severely wounded by a Minie-ball, which passed through the right arm near the elbow-joint, injuring the bone and permanently destroying the rotary motion of the arm. Owing to sickness and disability, he was obliged to remain out of the field for several months, but reported for duty before his wound was healed, and was employed in mustering in and disbursing to the volunteers in Indiana. On the Ist of September he returned to Maine to attend the funeral of his brother, Lieutenant Samuel Fessenden, who had been mortally wounded at the battle of Groveton or second Bull Run. At this time he was appointed colonel of the Twenty-fifth Maine Infantry, a nine months' regiment, recruited in the vicinity of Portland and from the county of Cumberland. Having organized his regiment and drilled it for a few weeks, he was ordered to Virginia, where the regiment arrived early in October. He was immedi- ately placed in command of the Third Brigade of Casey's Division, then employed in the defences of Washington. The brigade covered the line along Hunting Creek, below Alexandria, and occupied a portion of the defences beyond Arlington Heights. In December the division was reorganized, and Colonel Fessenden was assigned to the com- mand of the first brigade. With this command he, in March, 1863, took up a position near Chantilly, Virginia, a few miles north of Centreville. Chantilly was on the Little River turnpike, which passes through Aldie Gap into the Shenandoah Valley. Here he was occupied till July, holding partisans in check and preventing raids into the department from that section of country. The neighborhood had been a favorite region for bold guerilla operations on the part of the enemy, and especially of the famous partisan chief Colonel Mosby. The period for which his regiment had enlisted having expired in June, he received orders to proceed with it to Maine and muster it out of service. At this stage of the war so many veteran officers and soldiers had returned to their homes by reason of the expiration of their terms of service, that the Government determined to raise some regiments of these veterans, and offered generous inducements in bounty and pay. The Governor of Maine was authorized to raise two of the new regiments of veterans, and Colonel Fessenden upon his return home was immediately appointed to the Colonelcy of the first, known as the Thirtieth Maine Veterans. He organized his regiment with excellent and experienced officers, who had been in service, and with their aid he
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recruited a full and splendid regiment, which he was ordered in January, 1864, to take to the Department of the Gulf, and report to General Banks. The regiment arrived in New Orleans early in February, and immediately moved to Franklin, on the Bayou Tcche, where General Franklin with the Nineteenth Corps was encamped. The Thirtieth Maine was assigned to the Third Brigade of General Emory's Division. In March, the Nineteenth Corps and the cavalry moved through Louisiana northwesterly to Alexan- dria, on the Red River, marching one hundred and fifty-nine miles in seven days. The famous raid of Sherman to Meridian, Mississippi, during the samc winter, and considered a feat of rapid movement, was not so swift as this march of the Army of the Gulf. The measles had broken out in the regiment ; and the disease, combined with the hard marching, inflicted much suffering upon the men. Some of the sick staggered along through the fatigues of the march, and recovered in season to share in the battles of the campaign. At Alexandria, on the Red River, the army was joined by the Thirteenth Corps, under Ransom, and the division of the gallant A. J. Smith. After resting a few days, the army moved on the Ist of April against Shreveport, by Montell's Bluffs, at the crossing of Old Red River, Clouticrville, and Natchitoches, making long, dusty, and fatiguing marches. At the same time a fleet under Porter ascended Red River. The enemy feebly resisted the advance of the column, but on the 8th of April, at Sabine Cross Roads, and only two days' march from Shreveport, the cavalry and the Thirteenth Corps werc suddenly overwhelmed by superior forces of the encmy under General Dick Taylor, and routed. Emory's Division, which had gone into camp six miles in rear, was ordered forward to check the victorious advance of the enemy. The Thirtieth Maine had been detached the previous day, and after a long and exhausting march had just joined the division when it was summoned to the front. The regiment had marched since morning six miles farther than the rest of the division, and it now advanced five miles at the double-quick, pushed through a disastrous scene of defeated and demoralized infantry, cavalry, and trains, and forming into line of battle in fine order, under the fire of the enemy, assisted in his repulse. The steadiness of the regiment under these trying circumstances was so admirable, that General Franklin at the close of the action complimented its discipline and behavior. During the night the division fell back fifteen miles in rear to Pleasant Hill, where the army was joined by A. J. Smith's division, and a line formed to give battle to the enemy. The position of the Thirtieth Maine was much exposed, being on the extreme left of the front line of troops, on open ground, and with no protection in front or on its left flank. This point was chosen by the enemy for his attack. Approaching the right of the army about noon, the rebels skirmished heavily along the front until late in the afternoon, and under cover of the woods formed two strong divisions for assault, and fell with great impetuosity upon the Thirtieth Maine and the Third Brigade. The attack was so overwhelming that the other regiments were driven back, and the Thirtieth Maine was left alone to check the enemy. A shouting mass
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