board in the home of sorrow, wrote the words of the song in one of these inspired moments, so strange in their influence moments in which all the great songs of the world have been sung and all the master discourses pronounced:

We shall meet, but we shall miss him;
There will be one vacant chair;
We shall linger to caress him

When we breathe our evening prayer.
When a year ago we gathered
Joy was in his mild blue eye;
But a golden cord is severed
And our hopes in ruin lie.

At our fireside, sad and lonely,
Often will the bosom swell
At remembrance of the story-
How our noble Willie fell;
How he strove to bear our banner

Through the thickest of the fight,

And uphold our country's honor

With the strength of manhood's might.

True, they tell us, wreaths of glory
Evermore will deck his brow;
But this soothes the anguish only
Sweeping o'er our heartstrings now.
Sleep to-day, O early fallen!

In thy green and narrow bed;
Dirges from the pine and cypress
Mingle with the tears we shed.

We shall meet, but we shall miss him;
There will be one vacant chair;

We shall linger to caress him

When we breathe our evening prayer.

In a few weeks after the lines were written Dr. Root set them to music, and the song soon gained international fame. The sad fate of Willie of the song, who fought so well and died so tragically in his youth, is sung in hundreds of thousands of homes here and in foreign lands.

CHAPTER XIII.

"MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA.”

MONG the songs of the Union which have a living popularity there is none more deeply cherished than Work's remarkable song, "Marching Through Georgia." It came into being to commemorate one of the most striking episodes of the war, the famous march of Sherman from Atlanta to the sea. It was a song of the last grand effort of the war of the Rebellion, and from the first it had a powerful influence in reviving hope and courage during the closing days of 1864.

In 1841 a man named Alanson Work was walking along a road in Missouri, when he was overtaken by some fugitive slaves who asked him the way to a free state. He directed them, and responding to their pitiable beseechings, gave them a little money to aid them in their escape from bondage. For this he was arrested, tried and con