Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1900-02-15
AT REST IN ARLINGTON.
Remains of Maj. Gen. LawtOn arc
hurled In the National Cemetery
Near Washington.


Washington, Feb. 1O.-Mai. Gen.
Lawton was buried Friday in the ma
tional cemetery at Arlington. 1t was
a nations tribute to national hero.
The burial service at Arlington was
preceded by services in the Church of
the Covenant, at which every depart
ment of the government was repre-
sented
Lawton to the great bulk of Ameri-
cans had been the incarnation of the
American soldier. He had made his
mark in the civil war, and in the in
terval of peace it was he who had
beaten at his own game Geronimo, the
greatest master of desert craft and
mountain fighting that the west had
ever known, and who in the problems
of a tropic war had proved the most
daring of all the generals in the field.
For day and night the body of
the soldier lay in state in the Church
of the Covenant. So it lay yesterday
when the doors were opened, troop
ers from his old command with sabreS
drawn keeping vigil at the head and
feet. Beneath the lights of the altar
rose a tropical jungle of palms, and
higher than the tiag-draped coffin rose
banks of flowers, tributes from every
quarter of the land. At his head
hung the dingy battle flag from San
Mateo, still on its bamboo staff and
supported by one of the men who was
near him when he fell. From the
ceiling hung the flag of the Eighth
corps, under which he had won per-
petual fame in two island wars.
About him as the pipes of the organ
trembled with the opening anthem,
stood grouped his superiors and his
brother officers.
President Stryker, of Hamilton coll
lege, New York, delivered the Grafton.
He had been selected bv the secretary
of war, who knew his fitness for the
task. The choice was amply justified.
Seldom has any ceremony called forth
a tribute more scholarly and eloquent.
\ dozen troopers as the doctor clos
ed lifted the fower-laden coffin and
bore it to the door, where 5000 sol
diers. and citizens in greater num-
bers, waited to honor the soldier in
his last march to his final resting
place on the Virginia hillside beyond
the Potomac.
Ahead of the carriages was the flag
draped caisson, and behind it was led
the officers charger in a shroud Of
black, with the boots reversed in the
stirrups, picturesque remnant of
superstition in this materialistic day
of machine guns and smoheless powder.
1t was a drear wait. on the cold,
wind-sWept slopes of Arlington, for
the hundreds who had made the pill
grimage early in the day. But close
on sunset the boom of the Sylph's
guns on the Potomac was answered
by the crash of minute guns from
Fort Myer and then the solemn notes
of the dirge were born down the wind
as the procession moved through the
city of the dead.
The grave was in the open space
just south of the amphitheater. Gen.
Merritt and his mounted staff deploy-
ed troopers held back the crowd on
every side. Cavalrymen bore the cof-
fin to the open grave while the presi-
dent and cabinet, with the gray-hair-
ed generals stood silent as the chap
lain pronounced the words that con-
signed the honored dust to the dust
whence it came.
Then the firing squad wheeled into
line. The volleys of the carbines
the wall of the bugle as it sounded
taps, fingered long in the gray of the
winter twilight and echoed family
from the distant hills. AS it died
away the coffin sank from view.