Harvard memorial biographies ...

Samuel Cushman Haven.

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His body was interred in grounds near the hospital. His
grave was at first a rude mound, with a board to mark the
spot. Friends who became strongly attached to him while
he was in the hospital at New Orleans, - sisters of charity
whose chosen work it was to minister to the sick and wounded
of the loyal army, -have attested their kind remembrance
of him by enclosing and sodding the grave, and placing over
it a slab, on which are inscribed his name and age, with
the text of holy writ, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for
they shall see God"; and beneath it the stanza from Longfellow, -
"He, the young and strong, who cherished
Noble longings for the strife,
By the roadside fell and perished,
Weary with the march of life."
Lieutenant Haven gave presage of an unusually accomplished man; and all who were conversant with his intellectual capacity and development anticipated for him distinguished success in whatever might be his chosen sphere.
He had no glitter, show, or pretension; but he had a mind
remarkable for its working power. He acquired rapidly; he
systematized what he learned; he made his knowledge a
part of himself by the digestive and assimilating processes
of his own intellect; and he imparted what he knew, thought,
or believed, with clearness, precision, and directness. He
would probably have chosen chemistry as his specialty; and
had he been permitted to enter on a scientific career, he
must have made himself early and favorably known as a
teacher, lecturer, and writer, and, we can hardly doubt, as a
pioneer mind in the advancement of his cherished science.
But here we have only the broken column, and can barely
conjecture what would have been its finished proportions and
beauty.
Not so, however, as to his domestic and social character.
Here his kindred and friends know all that they have lost,
and feel that he could not be more to them than he was
from early boyhood till the day he left them. As a son and