Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/526

 *vention represent the opinions of a committee composed of the oldest citizens of that community—men who knew and respected Crook in life and revered him in death. Among these were to be seen the names of old settlers of the stamp of the Wakeleys, Paxtons, Pritchetts, Doanes, Millers, Cowins, Clarkes, Markels, Wymans, Horbachs, Hanscoms, Collins, Lakes, Millards, Poppletons, Caldwells, Broatches, Mauls, Murphys, Rustins, Woods, Davis, Laceys, Turners, Ogdens, Moores, Cushings, Kitchens, Kimballs, Yates, Wallaces, Richardsons, McShanes, and Kountzes—men perfectly familiar with all the intricacies of the problem which Crook had to solve and the masterly manner in which he had solved it.

As a mark of respect to the memory of his former friend and commander, General John R. Brooke, commanding the Department of the Platte, has protected and fed in honorable retirement the aged mule, "Apache," which for so many years had borne General Crook in all his campaigns, from British America to Mexico.

Could old "Apache" but talk or write, he might relate adventures and perils to which the happy and prosperous dwellers in the now peaceful Great West would listen with joy and delight.

General Crook had not yet attained great age, being scarcely sixty-one years old when the final summons came, but he had gained more than a complement of laurels, and may therefore be said to have died in the fulness of years. He was born at Dayton, Ohio, on the 23d day of September, 1829; graduated from the United States Military Academy in the class of 1852; was immediately assigned to the Fourth Infantry; was engaged without cessation in service against hostile Indians, in the present States of Oregon and Washington, until the outbreak of the Rebellion, and was once wounded by an arrow which was never extracted. His first assignment during the War of the Rebellion was to the colonelcy of the Thirty-sixth Ohio, which he drilled to such a condition of efficiency that the other regiments in the same division nick named it the "Thirty-sixth Regulars." Before the war ended he had risen to the rank of brigadier and of major-general of volunteers, and was wounded in the battle of Lewisburgh, West Virginia.

He commanded the Army of West Virginia, and later on was