The letters from the Crimea tell the story of that time with remarkable clearness, and are peculiarly characteristic of the writer. They are not published now with any idea of adding a page to history, but only to help in delineating the character of Frederick Stephenson. It is from others alone that we gather any details of personal conduct, and wherever his name is mentioned it is with affection and respect; but in every line of the letters the man's character is evident, self-control and consideration for others being everywhere conspicuous. I am permitted to quote from the memoirs of Lord Wantage his words in a letter from the Crimea written when he was Captain Robert Lindsay. He says: " The General has appointed Colonel Stephenson as military secretary. Ben Stephenson is in my regiment, and the very best fellow in the world. I have the greatest respect and love for him. The General knew nothing of him except by reputation, so the appointment was a very flattering one to him." This was written in the early days of a friendship which grew ever stronger and deeper, and was only cut short by the death of Lord Wantage in 1900.
Of this friendship Lady Wantage has written the following warm testimony: " The intimacy between my husband and the General [Frederick Stephenson] dates from Crimean days. They were in the same regiment, and though the General was by many, I think ten, years his senior, yet similarity in character, in standard of conduct, and in views of life, drew them together and laid the foundation of a lifelong friendship, which increased as years went on, and in that friendship it was my privilege to share."
3 With reference to this post of military secretary to General Simpson, a post he was not destined to fill, a letter from Frederick Hamilton (afterwards General Sir Frederick Hamilton, K.C.B.), written to Frederick Stephenson's brother, will be of interest.
"... I cannot let this day pass over without congratulating you most heartily on Frederick's appointment. No man in or out of the army without great public or private interest ever received an appointment in so honourable a manner, so unsolicited and so unexpectedly; he owes it entirely to the character he had gained for himself amongst his superiors as a man of business and intelligence, and I can [? confidently] say no appointment has ever given such universal cause of satisfaction amongst his brother-officers and, as far as I have heard, in the army generally."
When, instead of taking up the post of military
" BEN " 31
secretary, Frederick Stephenson was invalided home, Lord Wantage wrote: " Ben Stephenson leaves the Crimea to-morrow for England; he is very ill, and could not be expected to live if he remained."
A great friend and brother- officer, Hugh Drummond, who went home severely wounded, and subsequently died, also wrote: " Poor dear Stephenson is very ill and weak, a wreck of what he was, a misery. I want him to go at once, but he will not. I wish to goodness he had been coming with us. I do not like his stopping here at all in his present state. It is a sad thing for him, just as he had got the place of all others he is fit for. I am very sorry for dear old Ben."
" Ben " was the nickname he went by up to the day of his death, its origin being variously given as derived from his father's name Benjamin, and from one of Dickens's characters. It must, I think, have been a combination of the two, for one of his brother-officers writes to me: " When Oliver Twist came out I think the battalion was at Winchester. Colonel Berkeley was nicknamed ' the Dodger,' Lord Abinger * Charley Bates,' and your uncle* Conkey Ben.* " Now the only " Conkey " in Oliver Twist is Conkey Chickweed, so Ben was perhaps a schoolboy nickname, to which Conkey was added as being appropriate to his somewhat prominent nose. Names from Dickens's popular works must have been the fashion of that day, for a brother-officer and namesake, Sussex Stephenson, was always known as *' Stiggins " without any apparent reason.