1. RELIEVING GUARD–MARCH 4, 1864

2. Came the Relief. “What, Sentry, ho!

3. How passed the night through thy long waking?”

4. “Cold, cheerless, dark–as may befit

5. The hour before the dawn is breaking.”

6. “No sight? No sound?” “No; nothing save

7. The plover from the marshes calling;

8. And in yon western sky, about

9. An hour ago, a Star was falling.”

10. “A star? There's nothing strange in that.”

11. “No, nothing; but, above the thicket

12. Somehow it seemed to me that God

13. Somewhere had just relieved a picket!”

14. – Frank Bret Harte

THE DEATH OF THOMAS STARR KING

On March 4, 1864, Thomas Starr King succumbed to a combination of diphtheria and pneumonia. For years he had been writing to his close friend Randolph Ryer about his exhaustion, about how he was seriously depleting his stores of energy to carry on his work as a clergyman while also responding to the many other demands on his time. He was only 39 years old.

San Francisco and northern California were immediately plunged into profound mourning. The death was treated like that of a public figure, with flags at half mast, the state legislature adjourning for three days in his honor, government offices closed on the day of the funeral, cannons booming a salute on Alcatraz, and the governor in attendance at the services. Some 20,000 people thronged the church and its vicinity as King lay in state, on his chest a bouquet of violets sent by Jessie Benton Fremont. Charles Wendte, an early biographer and a personal friend, wrote about two of those in the crowd flowing past the bier: “Never shall I forget the two negro women who came forth with streaming eyes from the throng, and kneeling by the inanimate form of this friend of their race, with passionate sobs kissed the folds of the United States flag which formed his burial shroud. It was by the sacrifices of such heroes of the spirit that the Stars and Stripes had become to them also the emblem of liberty, the flag of their country.”