Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Harvard Memorial Biographies

[282] from me before the fight was over, but finally concluded to take the opportunity of a special messenger to say that I am safe and in perfect health. The 27th was quite destructive, and it is possible that the capture of the place will be left to the artillery, in which case I shall be in no danger. But if anything else should befall, you know, my dear mother, where to look for comfort. Don't take thought for the morrow, at any rate. As soon as the siege is over, I will write you again.

There was not another general assault till June 14th; but meanwhile there was a great deal of hard and dangerous duty to be performed in the digging of rifle-pits and establishing an advanced line of pickets. In all this work and peril Lieutenant Haven sustained his part with unabated energy. On the 13th of June a demonstration preparatory to the attack on the morrow was made under the direction of General Dwight. While this was in progress Lieutenant Haven applied to the surgeon of the regiment on account of painful and annoying symptoms of throat disease. The surgeon forbade his participation in the contemplated assault, and advised him immediately to go into the hospital. An ambulance was in readiness for Baton Rouge, and he was carried at once to the hospital at that place. His ailment proved to be diphtheria. The symptoms do not appear to have been alarming at the outset,—certainly they did not appear so to him. He wrote to his mother, ‘I have a bad sore throat which may keep me here a week or ten days. As soon as my throat grows a little less painful I shall write again.’ This was his last letter. There was no moment of convalescence. The attack was not violent, but it probably came upon a system that had borne to its utmost capacity, and had no reserved strength to resist disease. Everything that skill and kindness could do for him was done, and his few remaining days were made tranquil and happy. Not without the hope of recovery, he yet became gradually aware that the issue of his case was very doubtful; but his cheerful self-possession, sustained, to all appearance, by firm religious faith, forsook him not for a single moment. He sank day by day, and died on the 23d of June, 1863.