Omaha daily bee., 1899-05-28
And it will be performed with heartfelt
sympathy and tender care.
HENRY HARRISON LEWIS.
NEW GRAVES AT ARLINGTON.
Glimpscs of the Fresh Mounds In
the National Cemetery.

the National Cemetery.
Ugly in the bare red of it's monotony Of
newly turned clay, the new graves of the
soldiers, dead in the Spanish-American war,
will pitifuliy bear their flowers this Memorial
day.
1t was Sunday afternoon when l drove out
to Arlington. Holiday makers swarmed into
the great national graveyard as If it were
picnic ground. The spreading trees and rich
turf of the old cemetery were green and
peaceful. Where lay the dead heroes of our
civil war was soemrlty but no sadness.
The scars of that great conflict had been OBJ
liberated by time. But where the new graves
are is this great red blot-a tremendous
wound in the sward to tell a story, awesome
and as full of heartache as it is of glory.
Almost precisely year before had trav-
eled about frcm camp to camp and come to
know our soldiers. l had messed and camped
with the gallant Ninth cavalry; l had gone
to Cuba with the surgeons and the hospital
corps; had gone into battle with the Rough
7 Riders and fought with them and bled with
them. Among the brave, black troopers of
the Ninth l numbered scores of friends.
| Among the Rough Riders there was scarcely
a man whom | did not know. Day after day,
since the time when battle and disease began
| among these, my friends had watched the
records, and I knew who were dead.
I wanted earnestly to find their graves. But
on the long rows of tiny tombstones there
were no names. Each had its inexpensive
: unromantic number. On one or two some
reverent one had scratched a name in lead
| pencil, but they were all strange names to
me. A pleasant man came from the office
of the cemetery with at first, some merri-
ment. He showed me the map of the graves
! l looked at it with eager interest. l looked
away as quickly when l saw the long rows
marked unknown" 1t seems to me a pity
that our government does not make some
pan by which the identity of the men who
go out to fight for it shall be certainly pre-
served.
one Little Decorator.
! Then | drove back to the graves. They
were not wreathed with flowers, as one
would have expected them to be just after
they had been made, but from each one
! iloated a little flag, They were pitiful little
flags, those bits OF color on our soldiers new
graves. They were made of the cheapest
cloth, and the red and the blue in them was
stencilled on with cheap paint which will
run down and spoil the white stripes when
the first rain comes. On one or two OF al
the thousand graves were tiny nosegays.
fancy that they had been put there by q
. i
about weeping, with some other punches Of
flowers in her hands. She told me that No
one she knew had been buried there bu
that her big brother had been killed in the
Philippines.
The graves were dug by contract doubt,
less, and are arranged in rows so regularly
that they make straight lines no matter il
what position you stand as you view them
They were dug by contract, and there were
not enough dead soldiers to fill all of them
fer there are many blank spaces where one
may walk, il he IS not on crutches, as
was If he is, the soft earth which has beeI
loosely thrown into the useless holee viii
sink beneath his crutches, and he will foun
der, as II in quicBsand. l tried to wall
about among the graves, but the governmen
OF the United States had too little land /,
spare to make the paths wide enough for
lame mans progress
CRprOn's Grave.
l saw Captain Capron a moment or TIVE
after he had been hit at Las Guasimas,
saw his grave at Arlington. At Guasima
he so covered himself with glory that h
made the brave men In that brave regimen
OF Rough Riders look at him in amazement
and more than one of them there, in thu
excitement of the first battle, took timt
enough as he Iassed him to pause and bar