buried near his father's grave by the sea.

The Grand Army Post at Brockton, containing survivors of the Webster
Regiment, has adopted Colonel Webster's name; and on each Memorial Day,
members of this Post make a pilgrimage to Marshfield to decorate his
grave. His life is remarkable for its apparent possibilities rather than
for its actual achievements,--for the capabilities which were recognized
in him, rather than for what he accomplished, either in public or
professional life. His military career was cut short by a Confederate
bullet before opportunity demonstrated that capacity for high command,
which his superior officers, as well as his soldiers, believed him to
possess. The instincts of the soldier are often as trustworthy as the
judgment of the commander. All his soldiers loved him,--

--"honored him, followed him,
Dwelt in his mild and magnificent eye,
Heard his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him their pattern to do and to die."


While the regret still lingers, that he was not permitted to witness,
and to contribute further effort to secure, the triumph, which he
predicted, of the cause for which he died--that regret is mitigated by
the reflection, that he could never have died more honorably than in a
war which could only have been avoided by the sacrifice of the
Constitution and the Union.

[Footnote 1: This banner now hangs in the Doric Hall at the State House,
where its mute eloquence has often started tears, and "thoughts too deep
for tears," in many a casual visitor.]