Rogers, William Matticks

WILLIAM MATTICKS ROGERS. Private 18th Mass. Vols. (Infantry), September, 1861; Quartermaster. Sergeant; Sergeant-Major; died at Savage's Station, Va., of disease contracted in the service, June, 1862. WILLIAM MATTICKS ROGERS was born in Boston October 26, 1838. His father was an Englishman by birth, but at the age of ten years was brought to this country, and is well remembered as in later life the pastor of the Winter Street Church in Boston. His mother's maiden name was Adelia Strong, daughter of the Hon. Solomon Strong of Leominster, and a lineal descendant from Elder John Strong, a stanch and pious Puritan, who came to this country in 1629. The mother died in 1848, and the father in August, 1851 so that William Rogers was left an orphan in early boyhood. Fortunately, however, his father was a man of many friends, and it was in the household of one of these, the Rev. William A. Stearns, then of Cambridge, that he found a home for the five years following. He went thence, in the autumn of 1854, to the Phillips Academy at Andover, where he was under the care of that able and popular teacher "Uncle Sam" Taylor. There he led a very quiet life; studied well, rose above mediocrity in scholarship, and enjoyed a general popularity among his schoolmates. In 1856 he went from the Academy to Harvard College, and entered as Freshman with the Class of 1860. During the first of his four years' course, his life flowed as calmly as an underground stream; his room was at quite a distance from the student quarter of the town, at the house of an old family friend. His habits led him to await friendly advances rather than to make them, and at the end of the second term, few of the Class were less known among its members than he. Still he was not a hermit by nature, but, on the contrary, a man eminently fitted for friendship. And when, in his Sophomore year, he took rooms in what was then known as Graduates' Hall, he began both to find out others and to be found out himself, proving himself companionable, amiable, and courteous, with an even temper and a very kind heart. He seemed indifferent to college rank, and never attained it; but he had his own theories of intellectul training, and steadily pursued them. In the "Harvard Magazine" for May, 1859, there is an article written by him, entitled "Non omnia possumus omnes." It is a reply to an essay in a preceding number by Wendell Phillips Garrison, on the subject of Woman's Rights. If there is no very new or striking idea in this production, perhaps it is because the subject is rather trite; but the essay has many merits, reflecting well the traits of his mind, which was quite argumentative, very clear, very logical, and enlivened by a quiet and good-natured vein of ironical wit. He was a member of the O. K., a society then only one year old, to which Fox, Humphreys, and others of the leading writers and speakers of the Class belonged, -a society to which it was certainly at that time an honor to belong. His principal friends in college were the old friends of his childhood and boyhood, -Alpheus Hardy (the son of Mr. Alpheus Hardy of Boston, who acted as his guardian after his father's death), and his classmates Robert Willard, Alexander Wadsworth, and the writer of this memoir. He had a small property, which enabled him to meet the wants which his moderate tastes imposed; he lived comfortably on his income, and had prospects of an increase in the future. Therefore feeling no eager haste to dash into the turmoil of the business world, he resolved leisurely and thoroughly to complete that course of general education which he had marked out for himself and steadily pursued at college. With this view he decided to spend two years abroad. A few days before Class-day, having made arrangements for receiving his degree, he sailed in one of his guardian's ships for Spain. But he did not find the land of sierras and bandits much to his taste; his thoughts were full of Germany, and he travelled rapidly thither. During a short sojourn in Stuttgard he strove assiduously to familiarize 'himself with the German tongue and German manners; and soon after coming to Heidelberg he settled himself in the family of a German professor, and was matriculated as a student in the University. He wrote that Howitt's " Student Life in Germany" was not exactly his life; but with the native philosophy of his temper he adapted himself to circumstances, and entered upon the labor he had marked out for himself. He wrote home with delight that he was getting Germanized; but he was at heart the genuine American, descendant of John Strong, Puritan, Elder, and Pilgrim of 1629. He wrote to a friend who belonged to the Society of "Wide Awakes" (Dr. Robert Willard), expressing the hope that Abraham Lincoln might be elected President. Then to him thus situated came the news of the attack on Fort Sumter, and of the marshalling to arms of the North and South. His spirit was fired for the fray. He abandoned Heidelberg, books, history, and German studies, and, returning directly to Boston, resolved to join the army. He was at this time anything but an abolitionist. In regard to slavery his sentiments had always been conservative; indeed, his temperament was not that of a reformer, and he looked upon man's ways in the spirit of a philosophic observer. But the Rebellion, as a war at the existence of his mother country, - never so dear as after a year's banishment, - fired the old New England blood in him. Active and healthy, and always an eager sportsman, he contemplated military life with no disrelish. He arrived in Boston at the time of the organization of the Eighteenth Regiment. His guardian, Mr. Hardy, was anxious to have him bide his time, and await his chance for a commission, that he might go to the field in the capacity which he undoubtedly deserved. It was perhaps unfortunate that this wise advice was not followed; it might not have saved his life, but it would have made what remained of it more happy and comfortable, by placing him in more congenial society. But other counsels prevailed. His intimate friend at this time, Dr. David P. Smith, with whom he had formed a close intimacy abroad, was commissioned as Surgeon in this regiment. Rogers was always a man peculiarly devoted in his friendships. Probably his early orphanage increased his natural warmth of heart; his affection, as it was amiable in form, was also very deep, very clinging, and very faithful. So his friendship for Dr. Smith carried the day against the more cool and prudent advice of others. He counted much, too much, as it unhappily proved, upon hopes of promotion, and thus enlisted as a private in the regiment. At first he was satisfied, cheerful, and hopeful; his soul was in the work; he was Quartermaster-Sergeant, and this was a post of some responsibility; but, as time wore on, the prospect of promotion diminished, and he found that as QuartermasterSergeant he was out of the line of advancement. He accordingly abandoned this position and took that of First Sergeant of Company A, and afterwards of Sergeant-Major. The duties of each place he performed thoroughly and conscientiously. But hope deferred was wearing upon him. It was not that he nourished a greedy ambition; but he yearned for a position in which he could show what he knew was in him, and where, above all other blessings, he might find some congenial companionship. The mind was daily less able to sustain the body in its hardships; and in the terrible retreat of McClellan from the Peninsula, those dread seven days of marching, fighting, exposure and famine found him a patient under the hands of the hospital surgeon. In the turmoil and confusion of that cruel time he was separated in the very height of malarious fever, for twenty-four livelong hours, from his medical attendant. At the close of that time, when the two again met, it was too late to revive the flickering flame of life. But the surgeon tenderly cared for him in his last moments, closed his eyes, decently folded his hands, and buried him in a marked spot, from which so late as January, 1866, his remains were obtained by his friends, brought to Boston, and finally interred in Christian burial. At the time of his death his commission was actually making out at the State-House, -that commission, whose long delay had perhaps hastened the end and certainly thrown a shade of disappointment over the last days of a most generous, devoted, and tender-hearted man.