124 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SEALER 



of our old mutual affection. The situation was almost disgust- 

 ingly odd. Each had long accepted the other as dead and the 

 sometime love did not find its way back. Waggener was the 

 first to recover his balance enough to start conversation. He 

 began by asking me something about Coolidge, who was killed 

 at Chickamauga. Then he told me the reason for his question. 

 The story ran as follows. Waggener was with the force that 

 broke the Federal line where the Sixteenth Infantry was sta- 

 tioned; as the shattered remnant went back, he saw Coolidge 

 standing in his place with the point of his sword up, making 

 what the soldiers called a "defy." Waggener recognized him, 

 knew that his signal of no surrender would quickly lead to his 

 being shot, and ran toward him. When he was a few score feet 

 away, he was himself shot, and did not recover consciousness 

 for some days thereafter. I should hesitate to tell this improb- 

 able story but for the fact that I wrote down what passed at 

 that strange meeting. It should be said that the dead friend- 

 ship between Waggener and myself quickly revived and lasted 

 to the end of his beautiful life, in 1896. He became President 

 of the University of Texas, but was finally borne down by the 

 wound he received while trying to save his friend from the death 

 he strangely sought. 



Last of the list of those students with whom I was intimate, 

 and on some accounts the nearest to me, I name George Emer- 

 son. He was not of Agassiz's lot, but was engaged in chemistry 

 under Horsford and mineralogy with Cooke. He came about the 

 time I did; and though he was my elder by several years, he 

 soon became a near friend ; along with Hyatt he was, until the 

 time of parting, in the centre of my life. Probably the bond 

 between us was in part due to his delicate health and to the care 

 I felt called on to give him. He already had tuberculosis, and 

 was, as I saw, doomed to a speedy death. Emerson had the 

 quality which has gone with many of his name whom I have 

 known. Of all the youths of my time he was in spirit the near- 

 est to the front. The fact, well known to himself, as well as to 



