The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-03-30

ORDER ISSUED BY GENERAL SHERMAN.
HEADQUARTEBs OF THE ARMY, ADJUTANr.
GENERALS OFFICE, WASHINGTON, March 30,
lS1O.-lt has become the painful duty of the
General to announce to the army the death of
one of our most exalted Generals, George H.
Thomas, who expired last evening at half-past
seven in San Francisco, California. There is
no need to turn to the archives to search for
his history, for it is recorded on almost every
page during the past ten years; but his class
mates and comrades owe him personal tri-
butte in which he knows every member of the
army shares.
General Thomas entered the Military
Academy in the class of 1886, graduated in
1910, and was commissioned as second lieu
tenant of the Sd Artillery and sent to Florida.
He served with his regiment continuously
until December "a, 1853, when he became a
captain, having been particularly distin-
guished at Monterey ana Buena Vista. On
May II, 1855, he was appointed to the I'd
Cavalry as Major, and served with that regi-
ment continuously until he became its Colonel,
on May 3, 1861. The great civil war found
him at his post, true and firm, amid the ter
rible pressure he encountered by reason of
his birthplace, Virginia; and President Lin
coin commissioned him as Brigadier- General
of volunteers and sent him to Kentucky.
There, too, his services were constant and
eminent in the highest degree.
He won the first battle in the West at Mill
Spring, Kentucky; and from first to last,
without days or an hours intermission, he
was at his post of duty, rising steadily and
irresistibly through all the grades to the one
he held as Ma General of the regular army
at the time of his death. At Shiloh, Corinth,
Perrysville, Stone River, Chickamauga, Chat
tanooga, Atlanta, and Nashville he fulfilled
the proudest hopes of his most ardent friends,
and at the close of the war General George
IL. Thomas stood in the very front rank of
our war generals.
The General has known General Thomas
intimately since they sat as boys on the same
bench, and the quality in him which he holds
up for the admiration and example of the
young, is his complete and entire devotion to
duty. Though sent to Florida, to Mexico,
and Texas and Arizona, when duty there was
absolute Punishment he went cheerfully and
never asked a personal favor, exemption or
leave of absence.
In battle he never wavered; firm and of full
faith in his cause, he knew it would prevail,
and he never sought advancement of rank or
honor at the expense of any one. Whatever
he earned Of these were his own, and no one
disputed his fame. The very impersonation
of honesty, integrity, and honor, he will
stand to us as the beau ideal of the soldier
and gentleman. Though he leaves no child
to bear his name, the old Army of the Cum
berland, numbered by tens of thousands,
called him father, and will weep for him in
tears of manly grief. His wife, who cheered
him with her messages of love in the darkest
hours of the war, will mourn him now in sad
ness, chastened by the sympathy of a whole
country.
The last sad rites due him as man and a
soldier will be paid at Troy, N. Y, on the
arrival of his remains, and the friends of his
family and all his old comrades who can be
present are invited there to share in the obse-
quies. At all the military poets and stations
flags will be placed at half-mast, and fifteen
minute guns will be fired the day after the
receipt of this order, and the usual badge of
mourning will be worn for thirty days. BY
command of General Sherman.
| (Signed) E. d. TOWNSEND, A. G.