Midnight
It will leave you comfortable for a time at least . Now , dear , promise that I shall be buried and remain in the cemetery the Government is making for the soldiers who fell in those last battles . Somehow , I think it will keep you here , in order that you may be near me , and save you from the disease which is devouring my life . '' A week afterward his companions followed , with rever ed arms , the funereally-caparisoned Midnight to the grounds of the National Cemetery , and fired a salute over a new-made grave . Nimbus , taking with him his helpless friend , had appealed , soon after his purchase , to the officer of the Bureau for aid in erecting a school-house at Red Wing . By him he had been referred to one of those charitable associations , through whose benign agency the great-hearted North poured its free bounty into the South immediately upon the cessation of strife . Perhaps there has been no grander thing in our history than the eager generosity with which the Christian men and women of the North gave and wrought , to bring the boon of knowledge to the recently-enslaved .