[ZoomStats] En. Mr. Bancroft at this time was well advan

[Respicio <chi...@op...>]

Revere her through her son, whose tender regard for her was one of the
absorbing affections of his life and changed the whole direction of his
career. At an early age he was appointed a Lieutenant in the regular
Army and served with distinction through the Mexican War in the Fourth
Artillery. On one occasion subsequent to that conflict, while his mother
was suffering from a protracted illness, he applied to the War
Department for leave of absence in order that he might visit her sick
bed; and when it was not granted he resigned his commission and thus
sacrificed an enviable position to his sense of filial duty. Many years
later, after my husband's decease, in looking over his papers I found
these lines written by him just after his mother's death:-- "A man
through life has but _one_ true friend and that friend generally leaves
him early. Man enters the lists of life but ere he has fought his way
far that friend falls by his side; he never finds another so fond, so
true, so faithful to the last--_His Mother_!" Mrs. Gouverneur was
somewhat literary in her tastes and, like many others of her time,
regarded it as an accomplishment to express herself in verse on
sentimental occasions. One of my daughters, whom she never saw, owns the
original manuscript of the following lines written as a tribute of
friendship to the daughter of President John Tyler, at the time of her
marriage:-- TO MISS TYLER ON HER WEDDING DAY. The day, the h