Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-10-28
CADET CORPS SEES
WEST POINT RITES
Army End, Fatally Injured in
Yale Game, Is Buried With
Military Honors.
BY EDWARD J. NEM.
Associated Press Sports writer.

~hSSS~ANtSA NASSs GbVAh1 WEAteN
w YEST POINT, N. Y, October
wv % R.-The great gray
v ranks Of the Nations
soldier youth donned
their finest regalia today to pay a
final sac tribute to a gallant, de-
parted comrade-Richard Binsley
Sheridan, jr.
Shaken. but stole, soldiers such as
this 2l-year-old youngster had been,
polished boots. as they had done before
hundreds Of times for dress parades
when he was one of them. They rubbed
bright brass buttons, shined the lofty
"tar-bucket" helmets with the black
plume, smoothed any wrinkles there
might be in the broad white bands that
cross gray chests-all that they might
look their finest to bury one of the
most popular of them.
1t has been desperately hard for
West Point to keep its balance as It
went about the task Of laying 10 rest
Dick, Sheridan, 149 pounds OF brown
headed hustle and fight, president of
the second-year class, honor man and
all soldier, fatally wounded in Army's
grtdiron duel with Yale last Saturday.
To these 1859 men In gray, soldiers
themselves, but still young enough, still
so unused to violent death In their
ranks that lips can CULVER and eyes
I'LL, Dick" Sheridan stilI Is the right
end on the varsity foot ball team to
them. He should be back now tread
ing the plains in his uniform, q big
grim on thin, happy face.
Rests in Simple Casket.
Instead, Sheridan rested today In his
simple casket. his last foot ball game
played, his last dress parade but one
attended, awaiting the shoulders of the
comrades who would bear him to the
Catholic chapel for requiem mass at
IL am. Later, while an honor guard of
four cadets, rifles on their shoulders.
paced beside his CONN, the corps could
file past him for the last time.
i won't believe it until I see IT,"
one OF his classmates, a big, earnest
fellow, muttered as he walked the res
ervation: 1T isn't possible. It isn't
fair. All he ever wanted to be was q
Possibly recognizing this, Mai. Gen.
william r. Smith, superintendent of
the Military Academy, has announced
tnat the Army will not cancel the re-
mainders Of the foot ball schedule as It
did ~ years ego when Cadet Ben
5yrne, tackle, died after game with
duenced. he said, by the wishes Of MRS.
Richard BiiiSiey Eifefidan. the cadets
mother, who won Monday by hours
dramatic race against death from
Augusta, Ca, to the New Haven hos
pital, where Sheridan lay unconscious
IN e respirator, dying from q broken
neck.
Outside Schools Represented.
Mrs. Sheridan chose then, when she
realized that there was no hope for her
son, to remember him as she last had
seen MIN In his cadet uniform Today
the casket had been sealed and to the
corps and the officers VINO taught him
to be soldier his memory likewise will
De that of the cadet they knew in life.
Inc mourning for Cadet Sheridan.
expressed even by outside universities
IN the presence here of delegations from
Notre Dame, Harvard and Yale among
them Capt. Able Booth of the Els.
and William Bingham, athletic director
at Cambridge. extended Trcm the high
est academy officer down to the low
hest of the enlisted men.
For while Dick Sheridan was esSenti-
ally cadet, he also was one of the
ranks, an enlisted man. following his
graduation from Augusta Junior College.
VINO took the annual competitive ex-
aminations and won his appointment
here in that manner when no congress
sional grant was available TO him.
So 1t was that the enlisted men
mourned him as their own as they
went about the regimental tasks of
half-stafing the flags at sun-up, sad
ding the black caparisoned horse that
would trail the fiag-draped artillery
caisSoD from the chapel after burial
services at 4 pm. to the cemetery in
the hills looking down on the green of
the parade grounds and the massive
stone buildings Of the academy.
Only 800 Persons in Chapel.
Only 800 persons. members Of the
family, the foot ball team, classmates
and high ranking officers Of the post,
could find seats In the tiny Catholic
chapel. The procession to the burial
ground, where such illustrious Army
heroes as Gems. Custer, Winfield Scott,
Fighting Bob" Anderson and George
E. Goethas, are buried was arranged
with the post military band at the head,
followed by the entire corps. Then
came the caisson bearing the casket
and the riderleSS horse with Sheridan,s
boots turned backward in the stirrups
Three members Of the eleven that
faced Yale with Sheridan were named
as pallbearers. They were Capt. Jack