“RESOLVED, That the citizens of this county, while they mourn over the untimely death of Colonel Bass, have the proud satisfaction of knowing that, although he was born and raised in a state of doubtful loyalty and although many of his early friends had joined in the great rebellion against the Constitution and the Union, his loyalty never faltered. He received his death wound while in the act of leading his men into the thickest of the fight and while cheering them on to danger and to victory.
“RESOLVED, That, while the death of Colonel Bass is a deep affliction to all those who knew him, a calamity to the regiment he so ably commanded, and a heavy loss to the nation in whose service and in whose defense he so gloriously died, it is a terrible bereavement to his grief-stricken family. We tender to his widow, to his father and mother, the hearty sympathy of the entire community, which will ever cherish a fond interest in their welfare and in the welfare of his orphaned children.
“RESOLVED, That the death of such soldiers as Colonel Bass, who have been slain in the dreadful war into which the government of the United States has been forced for the preservation of its existence, indicates the value that should be placed upon our free institutions.
“RESOLVED, That, while lamenting the death of Colonel Bass and the officers and soldiers under his command who have fallen in defense of their country and its flag, and while congratulating the survivors on the reputation they so dearly earned on the bloody field of Pittsburg Landing, we are not unmindful of our fellow citizens of the Forty-fourth Regiment, who on that same field and at Fort Donelson proved their gallantry by deeds and losses almost unparalleled in modern warfare. We lament, also, their noble dead. We tender to their wounded and bereaved our sincere sympathy, and to their fearless and noble Colonel, Hugh B. Reed, and to the remnant of his regiment which still remains at the post of danger, our admiration for their valor and our gratitude for their services.
“RESOLVED, That, with the daily accumulating proofs of the desolation and woe which mark the existence of civil war, we earnestly invoke the God of love and peace again to dispose the hearts of all the people of the United States to obedience to lawful authority, to fidelity to the Constitution and laws, and to the fraternal love and peace which in other years united them as fellow citizens and sharers of a once happy and prosperous but now deeply afflicted country.
“RESOLVED, That a copy of this report and these resolutions, signed by the committee, be delivered to the widow and the father of the deceased Colonel Bass; and that the same be published in the newspapers of Fort Wayne and of the Tenth Congressional District of Indiana.
HUGH McCULLOCH ALLEN HAMILTON J. K. EDGERTON SAMUEL HANNA I. D. G. NELSON
Colonel Bass had won the confidence, love, and admiration of the people of his adopted city. The tragedy of his death was felt by the entire populace. An excerpt from DAWSON’S DAILY TIMES AND UNION, published on April 18, 1862, describes the arrival of the funeral train in the city:
“The remains of Colonel Sion S. Bass reached here today at eleven o’clock over the Toledo and Western Railway. The committee in charge was sent from here and met the train at Huntington. A large concourse of people was at the depot to pay that mark of respect due their late fellow citizen. The coffin and hearse were properly decorated with the national colors. When the funeral cortege moved, guns were fired, bells tolled, and drums beat. The procession came down Calhoun Street to Wayne Street, and then turned in the direction of his residence.”
He was interred in Lindenwood Cemetery on the following day. His final resting place is marked by a sandstone monument which bears the following inscription: