On the 6th April, 1864, a military funeral took place at Woolwich which was attended by a large body of officers, and was a good specimen of a military funeral.

Colonel Bingham, the Deputy Adjutant-General of the Royal Artillery, died at Brighton, to which place he had gone for change of air. His body was conveyed to Woolwich for the purpose of being interred with military honours, and he was buried at Old Plumstead Church. In consequence of the rank of the deceased officer, but more especially from the great respect in which he was personally held, every officer who could obtain leave from out-stations was present on the occasion. Not only did every officer of his own regiment attend, but very many from other branches of the service, so that altogether upwards of three hundred officers followed in the procession.

The weather on the occasion was fine and bright and well-suited for a military display. At one o’clock the troops in garrison paraded, and a large body was told off to line the road from Woolwich Common to the Church, a distance of nearly three miles. At two o’clock the coffin was brought from the house and placed on a gun carriage, covered with a Union Jack, the drums in attendance giving muffled rolls. On the coffin were placed the Colonel’s cocked hat and sword, and the carriage was drawn by six horses. The procession then moved on in the following order—

The procession altogether extended considerably over a mile, and at the slow pace at which the march was carried on nearly an hour and a half elapsed before the church was reached.

The small church of Plumstead had rarely if ever been filled by so many military celebrities as on this occasion. Among those whose names are familiar to the public were Field-Marshal the Duke of Cambridge, Sir Richard Airey, Sir J. Scarlet, Sir Edward Lugard, General Foster, General Bloomfield, and others.

The troops were formed in the churchyard and in a field near. The nine guns were drawn up on a higher portion of ground, and at some distance from the church, for the discharge of a cannon not uncommonly breaks windows, and thus these implements of warfare were removed to a safe distance. When the funeral service had been read and the body lowered into the grave the Armstrong guns fired their salute, and the last offices were paid to a good and noble soldier as well as to a most just and honourable man.

The funeral of a soldier who dies amidst scenes of civilization, where the last honours can be paid to him in the manner just described, is certainly an imposing scene, but to some minds it seems less solemn than it might be, and too much of a show. The high probability that among many of those who attend such a funeral there are several who knew little or nothing personally of the man whose body they are following to the grave, may possibly tend to do away with a portion of the real grief which some people are accustomed to see habitually displayed at a funeral. The gaping crowd also, who are usually free critics on the dress and personal appearance of the various members of the procession, render a large military funeral by no means that quiet scene which we all thirst for when the heart has been saddened by the departure of a loved friend. But we can conscientiously state that at those funerals of which we have been eye-witnesses the conduct of those personally engaged, as well as of the lookers-on, has been such as to harmonize with the sensitive state of those who were nearly allied by blood or friendship to the deceased.

When a soldier meets a soldier’s death, and is buried “with his martial cloak around him,” and when no band of music attends his funeral, or other pomp is added to his last honors, the last offices are not less solemn, the whole scene not less impressed on the memory, and the sudden reminder that in the midst of life we are in death not less efficient in its results. When we see a friend gradually sicken and day by day become weaker, whilst doctors shake their heads and relatives despond, we are prepared at last for the final scene. When, however, we breakfast with a comrade, walk with him to the parade, march beside him as we approach an enemy’s position, hear him suddenly cease speaking when in the middle of a sentence, and look round to see him sinking to the earth lifeless; and when, after a smart brush with an enemy, we return to attend the funeral of this comrade, who has been to us perhaps more than a brother for months or years—we seem to be nearly allied to death, for we may on the following night be consigned in the same way to six feet of ground, our security for life being no greater than was our comrade’s.