Colonel Fred Jones.
I was with him on his last trip from Cincinnati to Louisville, and from thence to the army. Little did I think it was the last meeting. Noble Fred! He has left a name that will never be erased from honor's scroll. A writer in the Cincinnati Commercial, who knew him from boyhood up, says:
"He is a native of this city, and favorably known as one of our most brilliant young men.
"Colonel Jones was a graduate of Woodward High School, of this city, receiving his diploma, with the highest honor of his class, in 1853. He then entered the law-office of Rufus King, Esq. as a student, and evinced, in the pursuit of a legal education, a remarkable zeal and talent. Two years ago he was elected Prosecuting-Attorney of the Police Court, which office he held at the breaking out of the war, in 1861. It was but a few days after the first call for troops, when he threw his business into the hands of a brother lawyer, and became a soldier. He was first an adjutant to General Bates, but, in June, 1861, he received a lieutenant-colonel's commission in the 31st Ohio, with which he went into active service. He was afterward transferred, with the same rank, to the 24th Ohio, of which regiment he became colonel in May last.
"He distinguished himself at the Battle of Shiloh, to which, indeed, he owed his promotion. He enjoyed the highest reputation with his superiors as an officer.
"Colonel Jones was about twenty-seven years of age, of fine appearance, with a peculiarly happy manner and disposition. He was a very fine extempore orator, and possessed great military ardor from childhood. The writer, a fellow-student, remembers him as captain of a company of school-boys, at Woodward, which, drilling for pastime, became very proficient in tactics.
"We can pay no more eloquent tribute to his memory than the mute impression his history will impart. He is dead! Our city has offered no heavier sacrifice in any of her sons, and parted with no purer of the jewels which have been so rudely torn from her."
Hanging in the Army.
Head-quarters 3d Division, 14th Army Corps,
Murfreesboro, June 6, 1863.
William A. Selkirk, who resided in an adjoining county, murdered, in a most brutal manner, a man by the name of Adam Weaver. Selkirk was a member of a roving band of guerrillas. He entered, with others, the house of Weaver, who was known to have money, and demanded its surrender. Weaver, not complying, was seized, his ears cut off, his tongue torn out, and he was then stabbed. These facts being proved to the court, Selkirk was condemned to death.