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Show Wighlights Lf aim Scoti WgLo. (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) Ellsworth and His Zouaves HpHE name ol Ephraim Elmer Ellsworth is almost forgotten now but 80 years ago it was on the lips of millions of Americans. As the youthful colonel of one of the most picturesque bodies of soldiery the United States has ever known, he was something of a military idol and a national hero. So when he I was shot down by a Confederate sympathizer in Alexandria, Va., on May 24, 1861, he not only became the first officer of his rank to lose his life in defense of the Union, but his death did much to inflame the North against the South in the early days of the Civil war. Ellsworth was born on April 23, 1837, the son of a poor tailor in the village of Malta, N. Y. Even in his youth he showed a fondness for - f military life and while he was still V a school boy in Mechanicsvilte, he organized and commanded a company com-pany which bore the high-sounding name of "The Black Plumed Riflemen Rifle-men of Stillwater." He tried to obtain ob-tain an appointment to West Point but failed through lack of political influence. So he started west to seek his fortune. Eventually he landed in Chicago, where he was chosen captain of a national guard company. He outfitted outfit-ted them in zouave uniforms, renamed re-named them the Chicago Zouave Cadets and soon made them one of the best drilled military units in the country. After an exhibition tour of the East in 1860, he returned to ' Illinois. In Springfield he became a student stu-dent in the law office of Abraham Lincoln who had recently been nominated nom-inated for President by the Republican Repub-lican party. Since political campaigning cam-paigning seemed more exciting than studying, young Ellsworth plunged into it with the greatest enthusiasm and so won the esteem of Lincoln that he was invited to accompany the President-elect to Washington. Lincoln, when he became President, Presi-dent, planned to make his young law student and ex-zouave the head of the nation's militia system. But this was blocked by the "professional" "profes-sional" soldiers in the war department depart-ment and Ellsworth had to content himself with a commission as second sec-ond lieutenant. Then Fort Sumter was fired upon and Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers volun-teers to defend the Union. Ellsworth Ells-worth immediately resigned his ' commission and hurried to New York city to organize the men of the New York fire department as a volunteer vol-unteer regiment. In less than two weeks he was back in Washington as colonel of the Eleventh New York infantry, known as the "Fire Zouaves," Zou-aves," fully equipped, drilled and ready to take the field. On May 24 the "Fire Zouaves" were a part of a force ordered to cross the Potomac and occupy parts of Virginia. Ellsworth's regiment was sent to Alexandria where their commander saw a Confederate flag flying over a hotel, the Marshall house. He dashed into the hotel, rushed up to the roof and tore the flag down. As he was returning, he was met In the hallway by J. W. Jackson, the proprietor, who fired a bullet through the young colonel's heart. President Lincoln ordered that Ellsworth's body be taken to the White House where it lay in state in the historic East Room. Later it was escorted down Pennsylvania avenue by a detachment of cavalry, followed by carriages in which rode the President and members of his cabinet to the railroad station. There it was placed in a special train which bore the young commander to his burial place in Mechanics-ville, Mechanics-ville, N. Y. Two days later President Lincoln wrote a long letter of condolence to Ellsworth's father and mother. It is even more noteworthy than the famous letter to Mrs. Bixby which, it has recently been revealed, was not written by Lincoln at all, but by his secretary, John Hay. In it, Instead of writing about a soldier whom he had never seen. Lincoln was paying tribute to a man whom he had known personally as a law clerk in his office in Springfield and his companion on the fateful journey jour-ney to Washington, and whom he had grown to love. |