The war of the Rebellion is over and its results are acquiesced in.  The unity of the states, the sovereignty of the national government, universal freedom and universal political equality, are facts which the stern arbitrament of arms has so firmly established as to place them forever beyond dispute.   The resort to arms quelled the rebellion and forever quieted the issue and differences to which that rebellion gave rise.  The remembrances, however, engendered by the war, will live throughout all time, for when the actual participants have been mustered out of life and stepped over the dark border line that separates them from the great and silent majority, the fame of their heroic deeds will be perpetuated in the memory of their children, in the living pages of a deathless history and in the monuments and stately tombs which affection and a grateful country have reared commemorative of their lives.  It is mournful to contemplate the fact that in a few brief, fleeting years all of that vast army of brave men who so nobly responded to the cries for assistance of an imperilled country, only a memory will survive.  The mantle will fall upon other shoulders and the republic will march on with its actual defenders represented by a little, green, grassy mound.  The war, however erected a most lasting monument in the hearts of

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the American people, and as the generations succeed each other, time can never defame nor deface that monument.  War is a stern preceptor; it writes its charts in letters of blood with the point of the bayonet and punctuates with cannon balls.  Its object lessons are dead bodies on ensanguined fields, and its music in the roar of death-dealing artillery.  In war's dread school one learns but never forgets.
     In the quiet, and amid the jest and jokes of the camp, on the march, with its toils and turmoils, over the mountains and down the valley where the lazy smoke curling above peaceful homes was soon to be merged and lost in the sulphurous canopy of war, in the wild charge, storming old forts and palisades, or plunging down fiery lanes to death or victory, the young soldier ever bore proudly aloft, the flag that could at any time demand his life, with the victim ever ready for the sacrifice.
     Col. Minor Millikin was born near Hamilton July 9, 1834.  He was graduated from Miami university in 1856, with honors, and afterward studied law and attended Harvard law school, but never engaged in practice.
     While a student at Miami university the faculty imposed a restriction upon Col. Millikin's personal liberty, which he resented and openly defied; he was accordingly cited to appear before the faculty for contempt.  The trial was set for 9 o'clock, and Col. Millikin was on hand at the appointed hour, having walked from Hamilton to Oxford.  He ably and eloquently defended his course in opposition to what he styled an arbitrary rule.  The charge was dismissed and he was honorably acquitted.  Here we have a firmness characteristic of a strong and noble mind.
     Col. Millikin traveled over the continent and the British Isle.   On this journey he made a fine collection of foreign coins.  He was arrested in the streets of Paris for whistling the "Marseillaise Hymn."
     In 1857 he purchased the Hamilton Intellingencer', from the executor of D. W. Halsey, deceased.  He had a taste for literary and newspaper work and his writings were terse, orig-

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inal and on the independent order.  He retired from the editorial management of the Intellingencer in July, 1859.
     Colonel Millikin "discovered" E. W. Halford, a young man possessing rare ability for the journalistic field, who today holds in reverence the name and deeds of his early preceptor.  "Lige" aimed high, and as an editor had few superiors; as a private secretary to President Harrison, he was at the top round of the ladder.
     Through Colonel Millikin's untiring efforts the Hamilton gymnasium was erected and thoroughly equipped.  The building is still standing and is used as the frame portion of Carr & Brown's mill.
     Millikin Post No. 228 G. A. R., of Oxford, is named in honor of the gallant colonel.
     He was also a classmate of Major Kennedy, of this city, at Hanover, Ind., who distinguished himself in the famous and historic charge of Zagonyi, at Springfield, Mo., where he was shot through the head until he had emptied his own and the revolver of a dead comrade as well, with fatal effect, into the ranks of the enemy.
     As an athlete Col. Millikin had no equal.  When he married Miss Mary Mollyneaux, of Oxford, he went on a wedding tour to England, the voyage being made on a sailing vessel and lasting seven weeks.  While in London he called on the editor of the then leading sporting paper of the world, Wilkes' Spirit of the Times, and in conversation upon athletics generally, Col. Millikin desired to know the world's record for a standing jump.  He was informed and remarked that he believed he could do that well himself.  He was at once invited to the gymnasium and there beat the world's standing jump record by seven inches.  He was informed that there was a fortune for him in the athletic world but that distinction was not in the line of his ambition.
     At the breaking out of the Civil War, he enlisted for three months in a cavalry company, and was elected First lieutenant.

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     This company was engaged at the battle of Rich Mountain, Virginia, under General Rosecrans.  After the term of this enlistment expired he was appointed, unsolicited, Major of the First Ohio cavalry.  Later on he was promoted to the colonelcy.  Inscribed upon the banner of this gallant regiment is the following well earned battle record: Perryville, Stone River, Chickamauga, the siege of Atlanta and numerous battles of less note.
     Immediately preceding the famous charge at Stone River, Col. Millikin conceived the idea that Wharton and Wheeler's cavalry were endeavoring to out flank the union forces and capture General McCook's ammunition train.  The success of these movements meant the annihilation of our army.
     Col. Millikin being a musician of note, personally sounded the bugle call for the onslaught.
     At the battle of Stone River, the brigade covered the retreat of our infantry, and Col. Millikin receiving no orders from the commander, sent orderlies to the various regimental officers requesting a support in a saber charge upon the advancing enemy.  The situation was critical, and Col. Millikin wheeled his regiment into line and attacked the enemy driving them a quarter of a mile.  The rebels gathered and closed in on his rear.  Perceiving his danger he gave the order, "about," and with sabers the regiment fought its way through, but its gallant Colonel lay dead on the battlefield.  Col. Millikin's charge, unaided by support, is only equalled by that of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, in the Crimean war, or Pickett's at Gettysburg.  Thus Col. Millikin gave up his life amid the dark, thunderous clouds of Stone River in behalf of the country that armed treason was trying to disunite and dissever.  Brilliant, polished, educated to a high degree, both in letters and arms; there was one sinister word that as a man, a soldier and officer he had vowed should never find a place in his lexicon.  That word was "surrender!"
     Only a few days before his death he had written: "As to

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my human gaze, life seems less than ever likely to stay long with me.
     Is it not possible for the true Christian heart, in the forebodings of a great calamity, to hear the rustle of unseen wings and the echo of angelic symphonies behind the impenetrable veil?
     On the 31st day of December, 1862, while leading a charge at the battle of Stone River, with everything to live for, when honor might have been preserved (as it was) untarnished; when the only condition of life was "surrender," hemmed in on every side by deadly enemies, the condition was refused, and one of the noblest lives ever sacrificed to the highest and purest love of country and inflexible devotion to the principles, to the incarnate chivalry of honor, passed out into God's eternity as Col. Millikin of the First Ohio cavalry expired.
     In the details of war's great picture, none are scanned with greater admiration than the heroic deeds of individual valor.  The act of Napoleon the I. is grandly contemplative when he seized the battle-rented colors from a dying color bearer on the bridge at Lodi, and amid the hell-forged belches of shot and canister led the Grand Army triumphantly across.  This daring deed of Napoleon's was no greater than that of Cambronne at Waterloo, where the genius of France was personified in Napoleon, who indignantly spurned surrender, and the Old Guard perished forever.  And so this soldier of ours stands out in bold relief against the picture of our Civil War.  Only a few short years before he ranked first and foremost among all the students of old and honored Miami.  First in debate, first in individual independence; he carried all these, coupled with an immaculate sense of honor into the stern conflict of arms.  He formulated a soldier's creed, found after his death, as follows: "I have enlisted in the service of my country for a term of three years, and have sworn faithfully to discharge my duty, uphold the constitution and obey the officers over me."  And in that last sombre death-struggle, leading a charge as leader should, with superb horsemanship, governing his frantic steed, with the glorious light of battle illuminating

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his face, holding his foes at bay with a splendid mastery of the sword like the athlete he was, rebellion could not endure so brave a foe, and treason added one more assassination to the calendar of crime.
     Prof. David Swing, the eminent Chicago divine, says of him: 'Talented, original, brave and independent, * * * a strict disciplinarian, a rigid commander, a fearless warrior, and if the path of duty led to a dozen batteries, to them he would go without a quiver."
     One who has been pronounced the "best type of an American soldier," General George H. Thomas, said of this man among other strong tributes, for they were personal friends:  "He was a brave, accomplished and loyal officer."
     The graves of Colonel Minor Millikin, and General "Stonewall" Jackson - who fought for the cause he thought was right are symbolic of Right and Wrong!  But as the same dews, and sunshine and starlight fall alike on both, so doubtless on God's great camping ground these two soldiers have clasped hands.  And while we drop a tear on the grave of our hero of the North, let us reverently alike remember the grave of "Stonewall" Jackson in the South.  Man proposes but disposition is the attribute of divinity alone.
     In the language of another: "The long struggle is ended.  The wail of humiliation is hushed, and the huzza of proud triumph is over; the cypress has draped the coffin of the vanquished and the laurel has crowned the victor's brow.  The Lost Cause is but a memory.  Its last trumpet note has died away upon the air, its last tattoo has beat; its dismantled cannon no longer boom forth, even the funeral minute guns are still.  The tempest of blood which has drenched our land has ceased, and the beams of the sun of reconciliation and restored union are lighting the sky over mountain and dale."

SWEET AND TOUCHING

     We received the following interesting and touching letter from E. W. Halford, late Private Secretary to President Harrison, in which he pays a tribute to Colonel Minor Millikin and holds in loving memory the old scenes and faces of Hamilton:

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HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE PLATTE,
OMAHA, NEB., February 20, 1894.

     My Dear Steve: - I received the copy of the Hamilton News you were good enough to send me, and read with great interest your sketch of Minor Millikin.  How well I remember him.  How splendidly tall, and straight, and arrowy, and athletic!  He was to my boyish eyes a very Apollo in form and feature, and a knight-errant in courtsey and grace of manner and bearing.  He was the beau ideal of a soldier.  Often and often have I thought of him at the head of his cavalry regiment at Stone River, courting death rather than to accept what to his white soul was dishonor.  God rest him in peace, as I know his comrades, and all who knew him, rest him in the glory of their honorable remembrance.  If he "discovered" me it is not the first time when the discoverer was so much more than the discovered.  I should joy to lay sometime, in a rather more public way than this, the humble wreath of affectionate and admiring honor upon his memory.
     A good while ago I had a letter from Dr. Dan Millikin about some volume or other, that was being gotten up in commemoration of Hamilton's centennial, but nothing further ever came of it.  Do you know anything at all about it?
     I hope sometime to visit Hamilton, and to spend a day or two among the old scenes and with the old faces.  I should love to break bread and eat salt with some of the old associates of those long gone dead days, and to see how the ways of each have gone and what is the story of their lives.  With me it has been a checkered thing.  Now I am alone, in a strange land, some what broken in health and I fear in spirit, as well.  The shadows are slanting backward with me, growing a little longer every day.  I am sure the autumn of life is mellowing me, and hope maturing me into something better than I have ever been.
     I trust you are well, and happy and prosperous.  You have stayed near the old home.  You have come to usefulness and regard among those who have known you from a boy; the hardest sort of a life victory to achieve.  You have been kind and generous in your remembrances of me, and I thank you.  God give to you and to all friends the choicest blessing, and believe that at least one of the boys never forgets his old home and early mates.