Brookings weekly register. (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1898-1903, 1899-10-26

Hes dead.
Writing on death and suffering ut
Las Guasimas Marshall tells of the
heroism of hospital men He says:
1T would be unfair to omit from
this chapter paragraph about the su-
perb work of the surgeons. Surgeon
Church especially distinguished him
self Before | was shot | saw hiLi run
hing along with his surgeons s packet on
the very firing line and attending
promptly to all the wounded he could
find without paying the least attention
TO his own safety as he did SO. In one
case, where the firing was 80 hot that
every man in the neighborhood was ly-
ing fiat on his face to avoid it, Church
knelt at the side of wounded man and
made himself shining mark for Span
ish bullets without hesitation.
"And here | have an opportunity OF
paying slight tribute to one OF the
bravest men ever knew. His name is
George w. Burgess. Burgess was with
Troop ID and enlisted at Oklahoma. No
one detailed him to do first aid duty
during the battle of Las Guasimas nor
any other time. He has the quiet blue
eyes and the thin straight lips of the
gentleman desperate whom Bret Harte
wrote about. Before l fell in the long
grass l saw Burgess standing mp when
others were lying down and others run
ming along the firing line, with his
brown. red crossed first aid pouch.
Sometimes he would stop and take q
shot at the Spaniards just to make war
realistic, he said, but most of the time
he was busy with men who had been
wounded and We're lying in dangerous
places.
Burgess made his red cross an ex-
cuse for placing himself in extraordi-
| nary dangers He was the first man to
come to me. and l can remember dis
tinctly how the volleys sounded as they
swept over my face, and / know that ],
who was lying down, shrank and shiv-
cred as they shrieked their devilish lit
tie songs, while Burgess stood there
calm and quiet, and told me softly and
sympathetically that he was extremely
/ sorry for me. He added, with something
Of contempt, that it was blanked
shame that was only correspondent.
| Then he started ON run for another
wounded man who was nearer to the
front and probably lying under hotter
fire than / was. Not two minutes had
elapsed before he came back to me and
asked if l didn't want to be carried in
to the shade. 1t seemed to me that as
| long as had Mauser bullet in me it
would he nice to die respectfully of my
wounds under the shade of tree that
could see as / lay. instead of staying
ont there in the blistering long grass
| and dying of sunstroke So told Bur
CESS should be very glad TO be taken
into the shade. He took me there and
| dropped me in the shade as if had
| been hot potato. and muttering wild
western oaths, he sped desperately to
the front which had advanced many
yards. "
A rough rider whose fortitude under
pain is described by Marshall is Ser
geant Basil Ricketts, Sergeant Ricketts,
is the son of the gallant veteran, Gen
eral Ricketts,. who was wounded at Bull
Run and with stoical nerve bore up uE-
der the most terrible tortures in order
to save a leg which the surgeons insist
ed must be amputated. The general 8
wife, it will be remembered, followed
her wounded husband 10 Libby and by
careful nursing brought him through,
, and then devoted her life to caring for
the wounded. Says Marshall:
Basil Ricketts, took his wound as
the son of such parents might be ex-
pected to take wound One Of the