292 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



Captain Robert Wilson, too, are gone. Samuel Godfrey 

 and Benjamin Godfrey, Sam Harris, Moses Reeve, Geo. 

 C. Harriott, Sumner Darnell, Hiram Covey are among 

 the missing. They have left their good deeds and mem- 

 ory behind them. My own father I miss among the num- 

 ber, whom you remember as among the first men who 

 commenced the struggle for the erection of the noble 

 bridge which stands in our sight, and links the destinies 

 of Mahaska County together. 



And then a younger race of men I must speak of fur- 

 ther on. For in 1861, when the first shot was fired in the 

 war, this part of our country found many a plow left in 

 the furrow, and many of our old settlers looked upon 

 their boys for the last time. 



Richard Campbell, who fell and lies in an unknown 

 grave before Atlanta, was a friend of my youth, and one 

 whom this community delighted to honor. George God- 

 frey, whose life would read like a romance, fills a grave 

 at Memphis. I remember when he was keeping bach- 

 elor's hall and studying night and day struggling for an 

 education. And, again, when in the service he was al- 

 ways ready to volunteer to perform extra duty for any 

 one who was weaker than he ; how his high sense of honor 

 for a long time made him shrink from foraging and liv- 

 ing off the enemy as something that was revolting to his 

 fine and noble conscience. Shot at Shiloh he staunched 

 his wounds, and weak from loss of blood stood in the 

 dreadful line of heroes who, in the evening of the sixth 

 of April, 1862, held the enemy at bay till night and Buell 

 turned the tide to victory. 



We may always profit by the history of such unselfish 

 and valiant lives. How that same gallant fellow came 

 home on crutches and put on citizen's clothing, lest, while 

 walking on his crutches, his wounds should attract at- 

 tention and give him a prominence from which his mod- 



