‘Obedience unto death.’
My story is done, and I feel that it is worthy of recital and remembrance.
Indeed, it embodies the most impressive instance I have ever known, of trenchant, independent thought and uncalculating, unflinching obedience to the resulting conviction of duty—‘obedience unto death.’
Observe,
Beers had never been South, and had no idea of ever going there, until the
Southern States were invaded.
Observe again, he was not a man without ties, a homeless and heartless adventurer, but a complete man—a man blessed with wife and children and home, and withal a faithful and affectionate husband and father.
Observe, once more, he was not an unsuccessful or disappointed man. On the contrary, I have seldom known a man who had a position more perfectly congenial and satisfactory to him, or whose prospects were brighter or more assured.
It was simply and purely and only his conviction of right and duty which led him to us and to his gallant death.
One feature of the poor fellow's story of intense power and color has been purposely omitted.
I refer to his parting with his parents.
It is my strong desire that this sketch shall not contain one word calculated to bring unnecessary pain to the heart of any relative of my dear friend, under whose eye it may chance to fall.
If you would pass just and charitable judgment upon his family, try for a moment to conceive what would have been the feelings of a Southern father and mother and family circle toward a son and brother who, in 1861,
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had proposed to go North for the purpose of fighting against his people and his State.
It gives me pleasure to say that, so far as I know, the family of
Mr. Beers did their duty by his wife and children.
Mrs. Beers was a delicate little woman, with a pale, suffering, resolved face, and my recollection is that she did not long survive her husband.
I tried hard to have the little girls adopted in the
South, and came very near succeeding; yet perhaps it was, after all, well that their friends sent for them, and that they finally returned to the
North.
It is well, too, that there are not more men like
Beers in the world.
The bands of organized society are not strong enough to endure many such.
They are too trenchant, too independent, too exceptional, to be normal.
It is well that most of us believe and think and feel and act, with the mass of our fellow-beings about us. If it were not so, quiet and harmonious society would be impossible; it would dissolve and perish in fierce internecine strife.
And yet, when every now and then, God turns out a man of different mould, a man strong enough and independent enough not to be dominated in opinion, or in conscience, or in action, by his associates; and, most of all, when such a man breasts and breaks away from such a current, and, in spite of it, comes out on our side, giving up everything, even life itself, for us—surely, we should be glad to know his story, and to do what honor we may to his memory.
The mound that covers
James H. Beers is indeed low and humble, yet, where will you dig in earth's surface to find a handful of richer dust?
I rejoice that he lies where he does, hard by my dear ones, and where my own body will soon rest; so that, when the resurrection trump shall call us all forth, after running over the roll of my beloved and finding them all present and accounted for, I can turn my eyes to the right and greet the hero whose sacred dust I have guarded all these years.
