Friday, July 5, 1895 Crawfordsville Journal A VETERANS GONE A Soldier -- Laid to Rest by the Hands of G. A. R. Comrades On last Friday, a very solemn funeral procession passed through the city. It was the funeral of unusual significance. Thomas A. Smith, a veteran of Co. A, 19th Reg. Ind. Vol. Infantry, died at the county poor farm Thursday night, and Supt. Myers, who was a soldier himself, knowing that it was contrary to the sentiment of all good people to allow a soldier of the Union to be buried in the Potter's Field, and that the laws of the State had made provisions for the respectable burial of the soldiers, reported the matter to some comrade, M. V. R. Smith set about arranging for the funeral. He was not long in calling together some thirty-five of forty of the old soldiers, and a lot was procured at the Masonic cemetery, and all arrangements made for a respectable funeral service. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon the procession went out to the poor farm where Rev. H. A. Tucker, a veteran of the war, held a short service, when the remains were taken to the Masonic cemetery where appropriate services were held and the homeless old soldier was laid to rest. There was not a relative present, nor one who was bound to him by the ties of kind-ship, but there were sorrowing hearts, and loving hands to lay him tenderly away, these were the men who were bound to him by ties that were welded in the fire of battle. As the years roll on the veterans of the war are drawn nearer and nearer together, and the ties of their comradeship become stronger and stronger regardless of the sentiments of those who enjoy the fruits of their victories, but who see no honor or renown in the remnant of the Grand Army that saved the life of the Republic.