at the time but twenty-eight years of age, he had acquired a large and valuable experience as assistant adjutant-general of New Hampshire under Governor Ichabod Goodwin. At a still earlier period, in 1852, he was prepared for and entered upon a full collegiate and military course, in that nursery of warlike heroes and commanders, whose record stands only second to that of West Point, the famous Norwich University of Vermont. From this institution he graduated with commendable honors in 1854, and shortly after, the faculty as a recognition of his worth and their own appreciation of his ability, elected him a member of its board of trustees. This position he has ever since held, and for many years was president of the Alumni association. As early as 1851, as shown by the records in the adjutant-general's office, he was an active member of New Hampshire's organized militia and had risen to be a corporal of artillery in the Forty-Second Regiment. From this as From this as a starting point, his military career appears to have been ever advancing until he was commissioned colonel of the famous Governor's Horse Guards, organized for special duty as a body-guard to his excellency the governor, composed of leading men throughout the state. He was also acting as chief of staff to the major-general commanding one of the state divisions.

On the day Governor Goodwin issued his first proclamation, April 16, 1861, he ordered Colonel Kent to report in Concord, and upon his arrival assigned him to duty as aide-de-camp in the organization and equipment of the First New Hampshire Regiment. It should here be recorded that on that eventful 16th of April, 1861, Colonel Kent opened one of the first recruiting offices in the state, in his native town of Lancaster, and there within a few days an entire company had been raised and made ready for muster. But immediate supervision of the recruiting ser

vice was abandoned in response to the governor's more imperative orders, and after completing his duties connected with the formation and equipment of the First Regiment, on the 29th day of April he was commissioned assistant adjutant-general of New Hampshire, with the rank of colonel, and ordered to repair to Portsmouth and there assist in the organization and equipment of the Second New Hampshire Infantry, to rendezvous at that point. Colonel Martin A. Haynes, in his excellent history of the heroic Second, says:

"The state equipped the Second Regiment (as it also had the First) in the most thorough and comprehensive manner, according to the military standard of the day, and the completeness of its outfit attracted the admiring attention of old army officers."

Although these two regiments were the first to leave the state, and their hurried departure was forced in every way to meet the existing demands of the government, every detail in their organization had been so carefully provided for, and all requirements, for every department, had been so faithfully and fully met, they were honestly entitled to the "admiring attention" bestowed upon them by "old army officers;" and they became the models for the formation of future regiments in New Hampshire. To Colonel Kent was due credit for the thorough organization and equipment of these troops. Strict attention to the minutest detail was ever a strong point in his character. He took nothing for granted, but ever observed the Puritan maxim, to "do in the most thorough manner the thing that was next to be done.” It is a circumstance to be remembered, that with this Second Regiment, to which Colonel Kent was so devoted, and in whose organization he bore so conspicuous a part, the Seventeenth, his own command, was consolidated, when consolidation became a necessity later on in the progress of the war.

After completing his duties in connection with the Second Regiment, and until appointed colonel of the Seventeenth, he was actively employed in the editorial supervision of his newspaper, the Coös Republican; in the enlistment of additional troops, and as a representative from Lancaster to the general court. From his knowledge and experience he was made chairman of the committee on military affairs, a most important and exacting position, which required the closest and most careful attention. The old militia laws were at this session repealed, and an entirely new military system, drawn up and revised by the chairman of the military committee, was adopted.

Commanding in appearance, possessing a thorough military education gained through exacting study, close observation, and long experience; with an untarnished reputation for strict honesty, integrity, and patriotism, reaching backwards in an unbroken line, through generations of honored ancestors, Colonel Kent was in every way fitted for the position to which Governor Berry assigned him; and his labors and persistency in working for his regiment, and obtaining for it at last that recognition from the general government which the patriotism and devotion of its men and officers so fully merited, is but another exhibition of the man, and an exemplification of there being "the right man in the right place."

In later years Colonel Kent has been much in public life. He was an alternate delegate to the National Convention which nominated Abraham Lincoln in 1860, and in 1864 a member of the New Hampshire Electoral College, voting for Lincoln and Johnson. Again, twenty years later, in 1884, he was a delegate-at-large to the National Convention which nominated Grover Cleveland, moving his nomination in a remembered speech and voting for him. For one term he was postmaster of the United States senate, afterwards naval officer in the Port of

Boston, and has been repeatedly in the legislature, both senate and house. He has always occupied a prominent position in the banking circles of the state, and to the banking business he now chiefly devotes his time. On the incoming of the second Cleveland administration he was invited to the position of assistant secretary of war.

CHAPTER VIII.

FIELD AND STAFF.-Continued.

I venerate the man whose heart is warm,

Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life
Coincident, exhibit lucid proof

That he is honest in the sacred cause.

Cowper.

Lieutenant-Colonel Charles H. Long was also a graduate of the famous Norwich University, and received therein the military education and drill which fitted him so well for the stern duties of after life. When Colonel Cross organized the "Fighting Fifth" in October, 1861, Colonel Long was commissioned captain of Company G, and went to the front with that regiment. Its after deeds are matters of history. Says an able commentator:

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As with the Second, so with the Fifth, the limits of a chapter would utterly fail to give its history. It furnished gallant officers for later regiments, received many recruits, and was always conspicuous for its bravery and heroic work. It was in the Peninsular, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia Campaigns; and its colonel made the proud. boast to the writer, that in the disastrous charge at Fredericksburg, his dead lay nearer the enemy's rifle-pits than those of any other regiment in the Army of the Potomac. While a veteran of the Fifth remains, its deeds of daring, its amateur engineering, its marches, and its conflicts will be as fresh in their memories as the rollicking strains of One-Eyed Riley!' and their services will have the appreciation that follows honest endeavor."

6

It is a part of the record in the War department that the maximum loss in killed was greater in the Fifth New Hampshire than in any other regiment in the army.

While leading his company at the Battle of Antietam,