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Show I 1 l GENERAL PENROSE. I ii !il f' Final taps have been sounded above the grave H H 1 1 H of General William Henry Penrose. He belonged H jj 1 1 Jjj to a long line of soldiers. His father was a West H ,'J 'ljfl Pointer, and most capable soldier, his mother's H ' Ii L N father was that General Brown who was the hero H i .if U of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane, and long com- H 'j U mander-in-chief of the army of the United States. H ; General Penrose was educated at Dickman's H I ' : j 1 1 college, at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and, graduating, H ' 1 1' entered upon the 'career of a civil and mechanical H j' Lj engineer, and was in the employ of the Chicago, H I ; Burlington and C "cy Railroad company, when, H ,Hi i f! suddenly thee i a cry that native land was H F'i 1,1 in danger, na oiu hot blood inherited from a H j ( I long line of flghling ancestors was at once on fire Ii and he was among the first to respond. For four I j years he courted death constantly. It was his m ii-lll fashion to plunge down under the battle cloud's H . ! canopy and challenge Fate to accept him as a sac H !( ;! 1 riflce for his country's wrongs and sorrows. He H j 1 I was often, for his skill and reckless daring, pro- H Vh moted and when the great Sedgwick was killed at B, j ! I Ll Spotsylvania, General Penrose was given his brig- m I' j III ade, by General Grant, over a score of senior of- B : 1 1 fleers. B J , .jlMj Soldiers are divided into many classes. There m I li !! ' l'P are shirks who pose as soldiers; there are cau- H ' ' J it J tious but still brave soldiers; there are earnest, faithful soldiers ready to respond to any call of duty; there are eager, aggressive soldiers always al-ways alert to discover any opportunity where danger dan-ger and death may bo joyously courted soldiers of the Sheridan and Stonewall Jackson type. To this latter school did General Penrose belong. be-long. That was why the first note of the war arrested ar-rested his attention. In a moment transformed him, and caused him to respond. He sought the front, he remained there until the bugles sounded a final recall, but in the meantime mean-time from second lieutenant he had advanced, until un-til the stars of a Brigadier General glittered on his shoulders, and every promotion had been earned by splendid service in the face of death amid the fury of most of the desperate and tremendous tre-mendous battles of the Army of the Potomac, down to the dissolving view of Appomattox, He served under McDowell, McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, Meade, Grant. The bittles included, besides be-sides many others, Ball's Bluff, where Baker died, Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania, Second Bull Run, Gettysburg, the long all-summer fight, until the cordon was drawn around Richmond and finally the Confederacy was crushed. At Cedar Creek he was desperately wounded "and from the wound one arm was partially crippled crip-pled for life. At Chancellorsville his regiment crossed the river first and opened the battle. Reckless in daring he was still always solici-tious solici-tious for the welfare of those under him. He believed a swift onset was better than a long, drawn-out conflict, but he was careful how he went in and, the battle over, he was always intent in-tent upon securing every possible comfort for his men in camp or on the march. When the news of the march from the sea shore to San Juan Hill and the redoubts beyond was wired, and it was told how the men suffered for want of food and under the burdens they were forced to bear, General Penrose exclaimed: "Why did ,not Shatter adopt the drag of Hhe savages (two tepee poles, one attached on ,each side of a pony, the other ends dragging on the ground), to carry the food, ammunition and baggage of the men up that accursed trail?" z In the great war, General Penrose found out that his natural profession was that of a soldier and he remained in the service, with increasing honors, mostly fighting Indians and commanding frontier posts, until retired by the age limit. Since then, he has carried his natural irrepressible energy en-ergy into the walks of peace and has been storming storm-ing the bastions of the hills and carrying the redoubts re-doubts of the desert with his company of miners, as earnest a citizen as he was before a soldier. He has been a public spirited, capable man, striving striv-ing by his work and his influence, to make the state and city better because of his work. And all the time his country and his flag have been his great solicitude. "feut the trained war-horse is never in place on the plough, no matter how faithful his work. He always carries a look as though he was "smelling the battle from afar, the thunder of the captains and the shouting," and "as though lis tening for the echoes of trumpet and gun. It was well that as one of ,he nation's brilliant bril-liant defenders all honors wje given the soldier's sol-dier's funeral. They were the brave man's due. He performed great deeds, he rendered a life service to his country, offering all he had, all I hat men could hold dear. It was wll to give him ostentatious os-tentatious obsequies. He did not need them. He had gone to join McCook and Crook and Custer and Sedgwick all the immortal band at whose side he rode in his youth the royal company in a land where golden bugles sound the reveilles and the recalls; but those who walk the dull rounds of peace, they needed the spectacle. The youth of the city needed it for it carried with it the lesson that when death comes all that is left is the name that men make for themselves in life, the glory that is reflected back from the passionless sepulchre, and no name is higher, no glory more enduring than the hero forges out for himself when upholding hH country's flag. For the widow in her desolation, for the sons and the brother, all sympathy goes out, and with it the hope that the thought that death was a great relief to the aged sufferer, and the other thought that the exalted name the husband and father and brother left them will bo comfort in their sorrows. "How sleep the brave who sink to rest With all their country's honors blest." |