Gen. Wirt Davis Dead After Long Illness

Had Conspicuous Record in Army During and After Civil War

Brig. Gen. Wirt Davis, U.S.A., retired, regarded by many officers of the army as a “beau sabreur,” a superb cavalryman, died at the family apartment in the Cairo at 3 o’clock this morning following a three-year illness. This illness was contracted, it is said, during army service in the Philippines. He was seventy-four years of age.

Funeral services will be held at the Cairo Friday morning, and the interment will be in Arlington cemetery, with military honors.

Gen. Davis was born in Richmond, Va, in 1839 and attended both Hampden-Sidney College and the University of Virginia. At the opening of the civil war he enlisted in the Union Army, and in 1863 became a first sergeant. Later in the same year he was made a second lieutenant of cavalry, and in April 1865, a first lieutenant

Service After Civil War

He continued in the army at the close of the civil war and in June, 1868, became a captain, being successively made a major in April, 1890; a lieutenant colonel in July 1898, and a colonel in January, 1900, when he was retired. Subsequently under a new law allowing such action he was advanced to the rank of brigadier general.

During the civil war he was successively brevetted first lieutenant, captain and major for conspicuous gallantry in the engagements at Chickamauga, in Mississippi and at Selma, Ala.; and in 1890 for meritorious services in action against Indians at Red River, Texas, in 1872, and at Big Horn mountains, Mont., in 1876.

In 1884 Gen. Davis was married to Miss Anna J. Berry, who survives him. They came to Washington from Baltimore several years ago and have since resided at the Cairo.