But the writer was not destined to
fulfil the promise. In the next year, from the camp of his regiment, he
wrote one or two admirable descriptive sketches, touching upon the
characteristic points of the campaigning life which had just begun; but,
before the last of these had become familiar to the "Atlantic's" readers,
it was known that it would be the last. Theodore Winthrop had been killed.
He was only in his thirty-third year. He was born in New Haven, and had
entered Yale College with the class of '48. The Delta Kappa Epsilon
Fraternity was, I believe, founded in the year of his admission, and he
must, therefore, have been among its earliest members. He was
distinguished as a scholar, and the traces of his classic and
philosophical acquirements are everywhere visible in his books. During the
five or six years following his graduation, he travelled abroad, and in
the South and West; a wild frontier life had great attractions for him, as
he who reads "John Brent" and "The Canoe and the Saddle" need not be told.
He tried his hand at various things, but could settle himself to no
profession,--an inability which would have excited no remark in England,
which has had time to recognize the value of men of leisure, as such; but
which seems to have perplexed some of his friends in this country.
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