"I saw him in April, 1868. His disease, aneurism of the aorta, had progressed rapidly; and the tumor pressing on the pneumo-gastric nerves and trachea, caused frequent spasms of the bronchial tubes which were exceedingly distressing.
"On the 27th of April, Mrs. Carson died very suddenly, leaving seven children, the youngest only two weeks old. Mrs. Carson was tall and spare, and had evidently been a very handsome woman; she was thirty-eight years old at the time of her death, and he informed me that they had been married twenty-five years. Her sudden death had a very depressing effect upon him.
"I called frequently to see him; and as he was living on the south side of the Arkansas River five miles from Fort Lyon where I was stationed, and the Spring rise coming on, making the fording difficult, I suggested that he be brought to my quarters, which was done on the 14th day of May.
"This enabled me to make his condition much more comfortable. In the interval of his paroxysms, he beguiled the time by relating past experiences. I read Dr. Peters' book, with the hero for my auditor; from time to time, he would comment on the incidents of his eventful life.
"It was wonderful to read of the stirring scenes, thrilling deeds, and narrow escapes, and then look at the quiet, modest, retiring, but dignified little man who had done so much.
"You are perfectly correct in describing Carson as a gentleman. He was one of nature's noblemen--a true man in all that constitutes manhood--pure--honorable--truthful--sincere--of noble impulses, a true knight-errant ever ready to defend the weak against the strong, without reward other than his own conscience.
"Carson had great contempt for noisy braggarts and shams of every sort.
"His disease rapidly progressed and he calmly contemplated his approaching death. Several times he repeated the remark, 'If it was not for this,' pointing to his chest; 'I might live to be a hundred years old.'
"I explained to him the probable mode of termination of his disease: 'that he might die from suffocation or more probably the aneurism would burst and cause death by hemorrhage.' He expressed a decided preference for the latter mode. His attacks of dyspnoea were horrible, threatening immediate dissolution. I was compelled to give chloroform to relieve him, at considerable risk of hastening a fatal result; but he begged me not to let him suffer such tortures, and if I killed him by chloroform while attempting relief, it would be much better than death by suffocation.