Such is the brief, colorless skeleton of the lives of two men that were so dear to us and that were so instinct with real life and service. The one serving for four and one-half years in the vicinity of the Potomac and the James in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, in the very furnace of war with the Army of the Potomac: and the other with the army of the frontier on the very fringe and outer edge of the war for the preservation of the Union. Through defeat and disaster, through success and glory, they fought valiantly for the land they loved and the flag they worshiped, and their eyes were permitted to see the coming of peace with victory in 1865. Laying aside the sword, they each in their own way took up the burden of life in peaceful fields the one at the bar, the other in business and the qualities that gave them success in war brought to them honor and standing in peace. In their young manhood they saw their land darkened by the clouds of war, which disappeared after four years of achievement and suffering. In their age they saw that land wonderfully advanced in every line, the envy of the world, in profound peace, while practically the whole of the civilized world, except their own land. was locked in the greatest struggle of all time. They had each passed beyond the psalmist's three score years and ten, and died-the one in the city of his birth and love on the 25th of November, 1914, and the other in the home where he was born 78 years before, doubtless murmuring with his last breath: "I remember. I remember. the house where I was born.” They will be missed by their family, their friends, the communities in which they lived, but by none as much as by the Grand Army of the Republic, which they so loyally and faithfully served. They were lovely and pleasant in their lives and in death were not long divided. The Grand Army of the Republic, in its forty-ninth annual encampment assembled, desiring to pay just tribute to their illustrious memory, brings this spring of "Rosemary for remembrance" and lays it at their feet. "Peace to their ashes." W. A. KETCHAM, Committee. |