Show y r r i l Old Age In li I too late Ahl nothing U too Into nil the tired heart shall cease to palpi B tate Iftto learned Oreek nt eighty Sophocles Iffrote his grand Oedipus and Slmonldea tt I Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers com-peers Is R hen each had numbered more than fourscore 11 four-score years I And Thcophrastus at fourscore and ten I Had but begun his Characters of Men puucer ntgNoodalocknw hrthe nlant b Chaucer at Woodstock with the nightIngales night-Ingales I 11 sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales n I Goethe at Weimar tolling to the last 1 Completed Faust when eighty years d were past is 1 what aYen2 Shall we sit Idly down and a laY n I Tho night hath come U la no longer J day g I The night hath not yet come we are not G quite Cut off from labor by the falling light 1 Something remains for us to do or dare 1 Even bear oldest trees some fruit may bear a For age IB opportunity no less > o Than dress youth Itself though In another d And as the evening twilight fades away e The sky day la filled with stars Invisible by t Henry W Longfellow t a Boutons Battery At an artillery review in St Louis t IB February 1862 Gen Halleck stated Q that he considered Boutons Battery I the finest battery he had ever seen In > o any service either In Europe or Amerl ca At a review of troops at College Hill Miss In December 1862 Gen 0 I Sherman stated that at the commencement f com-mencement of the war he had felt i great concern regarding what wo I should do for field artillery as It had a always been considered in the old iJ regular army that the three years 1 service was necessary to make good I and efficient artillerymen but In Europe Eu-rope five to seven years but that Bou I tons Battery though hardly yet a year in the service he considered equal In efficiency to any battery In o any service Although Boutons Battery was organized r or-ganized In Chicago it had men from several of the Northwestern states s quite a number from Ohio and from + the sawmills and lumber regions ot J Wisconsin and it is likely that a finer body of men from an athletic and physical point of view were never embraced In an organization of the 1 same number L Capt Edward Bouton recruited this battery largely at his own expense z so that even when It was mustered into the United States service It had cost the state of Illinois but 1353 per man at a time when it was costing cost-Ing the state an average of 164 per I capita to put soldiers In the field The I battery consisting of nn aggregate of I 164 men proceeded to St Louis In January 1862 whera It procured six fine new James rifles caliber 380 I throwing projectiles weighing fourteen four-teen pounds At this time the government was purchasing from 600 to 1200 horses per day at St Louts and was getting splendid animals from Missouri Kansas Kan-sas Iowa Illinois ami Indiana Bou ton obtained permission from Capt Parsons the purchasing quartermaster quartermas-ter to take his pick from these horses as they were Inspected and accepted and he selected from three to ten u day until he had procured 128 animals ani-mals Four guns and their caissons requiring eight teams of six horses each were supplied wit bright bays and the remaining two guns and their caissons with jet block horses These teams were perfectly matched and any pair of them would be likely to attract attention If driven through any city attached to a carriage The battery wagon forge ambulances and baggage wagons were furnished with equally fine animals From the first organization of the battery the officers under Capt Bou tons direction applied themselves diligently to drilling the men so that when the battery was brought Into active ac-tive oervlce In the field the men had acquired a great degree of perfection In drill and discipline and were well prepared to attain the high reputation for efficiency for which they became noted In over four years service this battery never failed to win favorable favor-able mention on many a hardfought field particularly distinguishing itself at Shiloh Nashville and Franklin At the battle of Nashville Boutons Battery was attached to Hatchs division of cavalry which constituted tho extreme right of the Union forces In the night some 600 men hoisted one of the guns up the almost perpendicular face of a high hill well In the rear of the left of the rebel army and at daylight fired the signal shot for the commencement of the attack on tho rebel position This battery participated In seventeen seven-teen great battles and fortysix important im-portant skirmishes that were officially reported and probably a hundred minor skirmishes that were never reported re-ported They were with the extreme advance in the pursuit of Hoods army after Nashville and in that pursuit pur-suit went Into action on an average of six times a day for ten days Among which was a very hard fight at Duck river lasting several hours There was a flood rise of fourteen feet in this river an1 Hood had to abandon nearly all of his wagons and artillery and supposed he was clear of the Union batteries as well but Boutons Battery took their ammunition ammuni-tion chests across the river on rafts hastily constructed principally from the beds of abandoned rebel army wagons swam their horses across and splicing their prolongs dragged the guns through fourteen to eighteen feet of water and In two hours were Pounding away at Hoods forces again This battery not only never lost a CUll but with the exception of Shiloh and perhaps two other Instances where the entire line fell back they lover receded from a position they had taken Their guns were especially especi-ally adapted to throwing canister each charge of cmlster weighed fourteen four-teen pounds contained 240 projectiles and when hardpressed they would doubleshot and for a short time could fire six rounds per minute or 2880 missiles from each gun 17286 from the entire six guns per minute I which no force could withstand Bou 1 tons Battery was noted throughout the army for rapidity of fire and accuracy ac-curacy of aim Gen Hatch used to say that Boutons Battery could shoot prairie chickens on tho wing On one occasion during the Nashville Nash-ville campaign In a hard fight between be-tween Nashville and Duck river Bourns Bou-rns Battery not only silenced a rebel battery but drove the man entirely away from It and went with their own limbers and took the guns and carried them off Two of the guns proved to be James rifles that had been captured from Whterhouses Battery Bat-tery at Shlloh So far as known thlr was the only Instance during the war of on g battery capturing anothers battery and actually carrying off Its guns A high testimonial of the character of the men composing Boutons Battery Bat-tery Is the fact that fiftythree of the enlisted men were promoted to be commissioned officers during their terms of enlistment Los Angeles Times To Department Commanders Allan C Bakewell national patriotic patri-otic instructor of the Grand Army of the Republic has Issued the following letter to the department commanders Dear Sir and Comrade As you ore undoubtedly aware the National Encampment En-campment assembled at Denver adopted adop-ted amendments to rules and regulations regula-tions whereby patriotic education is to be governed The rules now provide for the appointment ap-pointment by the commander in chief of a national l patriotic Instructor and by department commanders of department depart-ment patriotic Instructors who by virtue of their office will be members of the Council of Administration In view of the importance of this department of Grand Army work Its acknowledced benefit to the country in whose Interests every soldier and patriot deems it his duty and privilege privi-lege to serve and which through the grand results attained reflects credit and renown upon the order It Is urgently ur-gently requested of you that the appointment ap-pointment for your department be promptly made and that the appolntco be instructed to report his acceptance to these headquarters It will te of great benefit to the cause of which we are all so justly proud If the comrade appointed shall be of those who have ability and physical phys-ical strength to take up this sell lce with deep Interest and energy and it is earnestly requested that the appointments ap-pointments shall be made only of those wfto will accept the same for the sole purpose of aiding patriotic I Instruction The rank of the department patriotic patri-otic Instructor will be designated by an official badge with a silver eagle upon the strap and ho will be entitled to a commission Issued Jrom your headquarters These Instructors will be privileged when advised from the headquarters of the method to appoint with your approval district aides whose rank will be designated by one gilt bar on the badge strap Full Instructions to department instructors in-structors will be issued from these headquarters and blank forms for reports re-ports etc to be made annually will be furnished from national headquarters headquar-ters Had Tomb Ready Many Years Gen Daniel W Benham U S A retired who died at Tiffin Ohio recently re-cently was burled at Arlington cemetery cem-etery under peculiar circumstances His tomb has stood for some time where he now rests In the officers section a few yards to the left of the main west gate as one enters the cemetery This tomb was designed Inscribed and erected under the personal per-sonal direction ot Gen Benham The epitaph was written by him and carved carv-ed on the granite under his supervl slonThere There are many tombstones In Arlington cemetery which have never so to speak been occupied Many officers of-ficers of the army and navy have selected se-lected the sites for their graves and some have caused to be erected over these sites tombstones duly inscribed in-scribed with the exception of the data of death Gen Benham two or three years ago caused such a monument to be erected over a grave which ho had selected It Is Inscribed as follows o 0 In Memory of DANIEL W BENHAM Brigadier General U S Army Born Dec3 1837 Died He was a good citizen a brave soldier and a professed Christian Ills earthly battles all fought to a close ho taste here In peace under un-der the shade and soil of Arlington Arling-ton until such time aa reveille shall sound for the dead |