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Show SHERMAN'S TRIBUTE TO HANCOCK The Veteran Soldier Gives Fragrant Words to the Memory of His Dead Comrade. Cincinnati, February 10. At the annual an-nual meeting of the .Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion held here last night, of which General Hancock was Commander-in-Chief, General Sherman eulogized eulo-gized the dead soldier in a feeling address. ad-dress. He said : Ladies and Gentlemen: On the front fly-leaf of General Grant's book he wrote that "man proposes and God disposes." We feel that here to-night. Yesterday we hoped to have a jolly good time, and yet the telegraph wafted over the wife the sad intelligence that that glorious man, your former Commander-in-Chief, one who has done more to sustain the trials of the Loyal League than any other man on earth, lies to-day in his shroud, arid waits but a few hours until he will be buried at his old home in Pennsylvania. It is right and fitting, gentlemen,'that we should pause and do this glorious subject mental honor. Without record and without with-out notes, I must speak, an d as brief as possible. I knew Hancock well, and ray memory goes back WHEN HE CAME TO WEST TOINT, A tall, slender boy, fair face, blue eyes, and cheeks with the." down of a freshly ripened peach. I have seen him from that time until a few months ago. He made a good name in the Mexican war. When I got to St. Louis, as Captain in the Commissary department, I found Hancock developed in manly beauty, strengthened in character, in his regimental regi-mental quarters, with the rank of First Lieutenant, a young groom witliabeao-tiful witliabeao-tiful wife. And here permit me, ladies, to speak of that good woman, for I know her well. She was a child herself of an Ohio lady. From that time on General Hancock rose steadily in the estimation of his fellows, and when the war broke out there was no hesitation there, not a bit. HE WAS A UNION MAN. Applause He was a soldier. There was not a quiver of his eyelid,not one tremble of the hand. Hancock was a soldier, a man, and a very splendid man, too, as you who have seen him can bear testimony. testi-mony. He went into the war with his whqje heart and soul, and carried with it the experience and teachings of West Point, the teachings of the army and the teachings of the field. He knew a soldier sol-dier from his heel up to the top of his head, and he sympathized with a soldier and was himself a soldier in every walk of life. Now, when the time came for the battles bat-tles to be fought, here we had a man who was qualified and capable, sustained by friends at home and encouraged by admiring ad-miring conipanions, and when the battle of Gettysburg came, HANCOCK WAS THE IMPERSONATION OF DEFENSE. DE-FENSE. I have stood upon that very spot, behind that very stone wall not during the battle, bat-tle, but afterward and there was pointed out to me the place where Pickett's division di-vision came up and where Hancock stood, and I felt if there should be a monument erected on earth to man, there was the spot for Hancock's monument. But I will go further and say that I and others who were with me going up through Virginia Vir-ginia after the war was over, went out of our way and we saw where Hancock's corps had charged across those prairies, and saw the trees through which these men charged with Hancock at their head. He had the confidence of General Grant and of every man who ever had Hancock in command, myself included. He was loyal, obedient and completely satisfactory, never questioning an order. He vfas ' ' LOYAL TO THE BACKBONE, Generous to a fault, and willing" to execute exe-cute any order, whether he approved it or not. " I will go further and say I knew Hancock on the plains, where there was no chance for glory, and there he had no desire to attract notice. He was the same conscientious man, anxious to do right, anxious to fill the orders of his Government. Govern-ment. Now General Hancock is dead. The big, strong, nervous man lies dead in his house on Governor's Island, and we, his companions, may well shed tears here to-night. It was a sad piece of news which came to us yesterday. Oh, my friends ! when that woman sat at the gates of Paradise disconsolate, and appealed to Heaven that she should be admitted into the gates, she went back and forth and finally returned with THE EXPIRED SPIRIT OF THE SOLDIER PATRIOT, And the gates of Heaven were opened to her. If the gates of Heaven will be opened for a poor girl, how much more will it be with the manly soldier? The gates of Heaven will remain ajar until he enters it, and you and I and every one of us are better for the life which this man j lead. Our country is better for it. You yourself can point with pride to this man, born of humble parents, reared at com- mon schools, who went into life with I very little help, and rose by being a true, i an honest and a brave man, and j A SOLDIER BELOVED BV EVERYBODY, I And mourned by everybody, and I say, Hancock, you are rewarded. I would not i recall his life if I could. He has filled j ; his life with a full measure. He will be j I honored by all mankind, beloved by all j mankind, and beloved by all woman-! ikind. . 1 |