Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-02-20
GENERAL HANCOCK.
Gone tn Join the Final Bivouac in the
Great Encampment.


Another hero is gone. Another grave
which will through the years be shrine
TO those who revere patriotism and yalor.
is being prepared. Winfield Scott Hancock
was an ideal soldier Nature vouchsafed
him the double gift OF martial soul and
physical frame which in early manhood
made him seem to have
An eye like Mars, TO threaten and command
A station like the herald Mcrenry
A combination and form, indeed,
Where every god did ses n 10 set hi seal
To give the world assurance OF man,
and a thorough soldier In the DAYS of
chivalry he would have been as marked as
was Saladin or Richard the Lion Hearted.
He was supplemented soldier toe. The
business OF war wac an exclusive one to
him. His thoughts were on the enemy in
front and how to crush him, and no dream
of what might be behind disturbed him.
His record in the war was that CT one
who struck the enemy when he found him,
and never in vain. When, iG the crisis of
the Wilderness battle, q pale messenger
brought the news to Grant that the Second
Corps had been rolled back and was IN re-
treat, Grant merely shook his head and said
/ don't believeit; that's Hancock 8 corps. .
And he was right. The stormy soul of the
quiet commander, unconseiously perhaps
to himself, had comprehended how much
force would be necessary to overcome the
resistance of that Hancock corps, and he
did not believe the enemy could muster
that force The men who live upon the
seashore, where some rocky promontory
juts into the sea, may calculate whether
the great waves that the tempests may
drive in will sweep away wharf or pier
or break water. bat they never give any
| thought to the promontory ITSELF for the
power that fashioned the sea and gave to
the hurricane its dominion fashioned like
wise the rocky wall to resist the forces of
the two combined. On the shores of
great battle Hancock was the rocky wall
against which all the waves of battle broke
in vain. His career as q soldier culmi-
mated al Gettysburg. He reached the field
just before shutdown on the first day of the
greatest of American battles. Reynolds,
in getting his command into position, had
been killed about IL a. H., and Howard
had been fighting a losing fght-losing
two-fifths of his command-all the after
noon against the swarming hosts of both
Hill and Ewell and had been driven back
through the town of Gettysburg, back over
Culp's Hill, where HANCOCK found him
Howard had been shaken in the UNEQUAL
fight and had lost heavily, but be advised
making 8 stand there, and Hancock
glancing along Cemetery Ridge, said :
Yes, this is the place to fight and sent
| hurried messages to Meade 20 hurry up the
scattered army to that point. So prompt
was the response that Sedgwicl-the glori-
fed soldier. who the next year at Spottsyl-
yania Courthouse, az the extreme front
was so quickly translated that the smile on
his face was transixed-who with his COM
mand was on that morning 50 miles from
! the field, the next afternoon took up his
position in the immortal line The par
tculars of that fight are familiar to all.
There are many here who can give them
with charm and directness which news
paper can not, for they counted the pulses
of that upheaval, when Fate seemed to
have its finger on the wrist of Liberty. TO
note how much exhaustion it could bear
1t is enough to say that where Hancock
| was the wars loudest thunders were
awakened; when the cloud finally was
lifted and rolled away, il front of his SER
Iied lines-that terrible left center-the
dead lay thickest He was wounded there
and had never been quite his old self since.
though he moved with Grant on to Rich
mond, and was a host in himself-the New
OF the army from the Wilderness to Cold
Harbor. In 1880 he was nominated for
President, but his fame had been already
made secure. We think it was mercy to
him that he was not elected, for his in
perlous soul would have chafed at the
duties of the Office for which he had re-
ceived no training, as the Gagged eagle beats
against his bars. His last public appear
ance was at the funeral of his commander,
Mcclellan. A few weeks previous be was
master and Marshal at the funeral of
Grant, and those who saw him then
counted on his being spared yet for many
year. But the end has come. He has
followed the path that his old companions
Grant. Mcclellan, Burnside, Hooker,
Meade, Sedgwick and the others-trod be-
fore him. He has gone to join the final
bivouae IN the great encampment, and his
life IS rounded with the sleep that cones at
last to the brave who sink to rest, with
all their country's honor's blest.n