34o DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. xvii. 



him had good hopes of his turning out well. But he was 

 extremely restless, as if, to use Livingstone's phrase, he 

 had got " a deal of the vagabond nature from his father ;" 

 and school-life was very irksome to him. With the view 

 of joining his father, he was sent to Natal, but he found 

 no opportunity of getting thence to the Zambesi. Leav- 

 ing Natal, he found his way to America, and at Boston 

 he enlisted in the Federal army. The service was as hot 

 as could be. In one battle, two men were killed close to 

 him by shrapnel shell, a rifle bullet passed close to his 

 head, and killed a man behind him ; other two were 

 wounded close by him. His letters to his sister expressed 

 his regret at the course of his life, and confessed that his 

 troubles were due to his disobedience. So far was he 

 from desiring to trade on his father's name, that in en- 

 listing he assumed another, nor did any one in the army 

 know whose son it was that was fighting for the freedom 

 of the slave. Meeting the risks of battle with daunt- 

 less courage, he purposely abstained, even in the heat 

 of a charge, from destroying life. Not long after, Dr. 

 Livingstone learned that in one of his battles he was 

 wounded and taken prisoner ; then came a letter from a 

 hospital, hi which he again expressed his intense desire 

 to travel. But his career had come to its close. He 

 died in his nineteenth year. His body lies in the great 

 national cemetery of Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania, in 

 opening which Lincoln uttered one of those speeches 

 that made his name dear to Livingstone. Whatever 

 degree of comfort or hope his father might derive from 

 Robert's last letters, he felt saddened by his unsatis- 

 factory career. Writing to his friend Moore (5 th 

 August) he says : "I hope your eldest son will do well 

 in the distant land to which he has gone. My son is in 

 the Federal army in America, and no comfort. The secret 

 ballast is often applied by a kind hand above, when to out- 

 siders we appear to be sailing gloriously with the wind." 



