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Show DEWEY, HERO OF , MANILA BAY, DEAD FOREMOST NAVAL OFFICER OI NATION, IDOLIZED BY PEOPLE, PEO-PLE, ANSWERS SUMMONS. Life Was Full of Honorable Achieve, mentg From the Days of the Civil War Down to the Tims of His Last Earthly Efforts. Washington. Admiral George Dew ey, hero of the battle of Manila bay and veteran of the civil war, the foremost fore-most naval officer of the United States, died at his home here Tuesday, Tues-day, The naval hero went to his death quietly, his hand clasped In that of his devoted wife, whs has been at his bedside throughout his fatal Illness, which began a week previous. pre-vious. , Despite the seventy-nine years which marked his birthday the day after Christmas, the admiral had been hala and hearty. Admiral Dewey fought and won the first great American naval battle against a foreign foe since the war of 1812. His whole life was full of honorable achievement from the days of the civil war down to the time when, as ths head of the general board, he began the last chapter of his work by laying plans for the defense of his country' in time of war. His life was a striking exemplification of the possibilities of a career based upon the exact and Intelligent In-telligent performance of every routine duty which molds a man on Inflexible lines of duty and honor. One of the curious freaks of fortune in Dewey's case was that, for perhaps the first and only time in his naval career, he was disposed to protest against the edict of the navy department depart-ment which carried him into the far east, where he was destined to perform per-form the greatest feat of his life and to win imperishable renown. That was back In 189S, when the war clouds were gathering, and Dewey felt that he was being "shelved"; "shelv-ed"; that the war with Spain was to be fought out In the Gulf of Mexico and In the Caribbean sea, and that he, distant by half the circumference of the globe, would stand no chance of winning glory, for at that moment no thought whatever had been given to the Philippines. But he took his orders or-ders and, like a true sailor, obeyed them. The result is a page of history under date of May 1, 1898. Contrary to Spanish expectations, Dewey sailed into Manila bay on the night of April 30 and In the morning of the next da he annihilated Admiral Ad-miral Moutejo's squadron, destroying eleven warships and capturing all other vessels and all the land batteries batter-ies without the ioss of a man on the American side Upon his triumphant return to the United States he was feted by the nation. na-tion. His admirers presented him with a beautiful hoce in the nation's capital. Congress gave him an engraved en-graved sword and raised him from the rank of commodore to rear admiral and then to the full rank of admiral of the navy. George Dewey was born In the shadow of Vermont's state capitol at Montpeller on the day following Christmas in 1837. At the age of 17 he entered Annapolis. At the outbreak of the civil war Dewey was 23 years of age. He was commissioned a lieutenant and guided the Mississippi as its executive officer of-ficer in Tarragiit's historic dash past New Orleans and its forts. From the close of the civil war until un-til the opening of the Spanish-American, the life of the American naval officer was made up of routine duty at sea and ashore. Admiral Dewey was the Third American Amer-ican to reach that pinnacle of naval rank. Farragut was the first and Porter Por-ter the second. It was under Farra-gut Farra-gut that Dewey received his first baptism bap-tism of war. |