Arizona republican., 1892-08-16

commonplace business enterprises on the Pacific coast and in his native Buckeye State. He was one of the average promis- ing fellows seen in every camp in those days, specimen go ahead Yankee.
 His father had served in the 1872 war, and his grandfather had been fighting patriot of the Revolution, and he would wear the age rust off the sabeI of his sires in the old, old fight
 It was comparatively easy for such aman to be good soldier, but Emerson Opdycke aspired to wear the xxx band and threw his whole soul into the task of mastering the first letters of his new art Having mastered them he was prepared to teach others. For volunteers the capable novice is the most enthusiastic and practical drill master, and one Opdycke was worth a regiment of old fogy martinets.
 So some sensible colonel or governor pinned a lieutenant's straps upon him and gave him standing on par with his voca- tion To tell the truth the recruit was soon proficient enough to give points on soldering tosuperiors; in fact, ran a school for commissioned officers In six months time he was captain putting other cap tains, and mayhap majors and colonels, through their sprouts. But he enlisted to fight and not to keep school, and the first battle of his regiment found him in line posted a notch higher. He was acting major
 Now the major of infantry is in about the position of an heir rafting for dead mems shoes. "..,.e IS nothing for him to do in the way of handling troops until the chaps of higher rank step down and out.
 At Shiloh in April, 1862, the Forty-first was in NelSon's division of Buell's army, the command which Grant dispatched for in hot haste on the first day to march to his relief. Nelson's troops entered the charge to recover the captured encamp- ments of sherman and Prentiss. The Ohioans dashed in with the reckleSsuess of new hands, and the Confederates first led them away from their supports and then charged back on them. The color beavers went down in succession until six had fallen.
 At the first or second mshap of this kind it is not at all difficult to find sub stitute. In fact for a round 6 two there will be rush of candidates for the place of honor. And it is as natural in an ordi- nary fight for the man nearest the flag to pick 1t up when it falls as it is for gen. tleman to pick up a neighbours hat when it blows toward him. But when that same flag counts not merely first and second victim, when the third and fourth and fifth and sixth to hold it bite the dust" it looks like fatality to grasp it.
 In very short time in that first charge of the regiment the sixth bearer of the staff dropped at the call of bullet, and the Forty-first was without flag to rally on. Though on charge the Ohioans hesitated; they looked into each others faces; their eyes besought from colonels and captains an explanation Was the god of battles fighting on the other sidei It looked so with their oolors down and six pairs of hands paralyzed in trying to keep them waving.
 The acting major, hanging on the edge of the line waiting for something to turn up and wipe out his official nothingness, saw the halting column, the prostrate banner and the enemy rushing on two against one. Pushing through the ranks he seized the staff and waved the flag back and forth as if to say, Here are your cOlors again and here they shall remainp' shouted to the men to follow and leaped into the smoke and flame that masked the Confederate line in front. The tide turned. Opdycke lived through the tornado of shots hurled at the banner. He kept it waving and the men took heart. The old barrsek drill master was for the hour man of destiny Bullets couldn't kill him, and |. If it was not his to command it was his to { lead by dashing ahead first.
 The Shiloh incident once more impressed Opdycke's superiors that there was some | thing in the young man and the governor Of Ohio called him home to raise new regiment. He was securing the state for . recruits when Bragg's Confederates ! reached her borders in the fall of 1862. . Troops for home defense were scarce: . towns on the Ohio river were in panic; Cincinnati was threatened by Kirby | Smiths Tennesseeans and Morgan's raid | ing cavalry. Acting on a happy inspira- tion' Opdycke drummed up corps of men known as Squirrel Hunters" the sports men Of the rural counties and the back