The Spanish-American War was too short to afford Henry an opportunity to distinguish himself in the field, but in Porto Rico he showed that his talents were not merely of the military order. In the brief period his health permitted him to remain there, he accomplished wonders, and did it all in such a way as to gain the respect—nay, the affection—of the people over whom, with single-hearted devotion and signal capacity, he ruled. He stayed there until he broke down. I, sick with typhoid fever on a transport at Ponce, saw him just before he collapsed. We were old friends, and he came off to the ship to visit me. I was not too ill then to realize that his own time was coming. He would not ask to be relieved.
“Here I was sent”, he said; “here I will stay until my duty is done.”
He was the knightliest soldier I ever met, and I have met many. He was one of the humblest Christians I ever knew, and I have known not a few. It was his experience at Porto Rico which finally brought about his death; for it is literally true that he died, as a soldier should, in his harness. In those trying times at Ponce, when life and health were at a low ebb, he wrote, in the sacred confidence of his last letter to his faithful wife, words which it was not his custom to speak, but which those of us who knew him felt expressed his constant thought:
“I am here alone. One by one my staff officers have fallen ill and gone home. Home!—let us not speak of it. Jesus is here with me, and makes even this desolation home until a brighter one is possible.”
So, his memory enshrined in the hearts that loved him, his heroic deeds the inspiration of his fellow-soldiers, passed to his brighter home Guy V. Henry, a Captain of the Strong.
[111]. John F. Finerty, who was present as the correspondent of the Chicago Times, and who relates the incident, says that Henry, immediately after this remark, advised Finerty to join the army. Encouraging circumstances to back up such a recommendation!