Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 April 1901 — Reward for a Pekin Hero. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Reward for a Pekin Hero.

Calvin P. Titus, the musician of the Fourteenth Infantry who was the first soldier to scale the walls at Pekin, has been appointed by the President a cadet-at-large at the Military Academy. He will have to come to this country to take the examination. Adjutant General Corbin has cabled General MacArthur at Manila to send young Titus home on the first available transport. Titus earned his appointment at the relief of the Pekin siege last October by climbing the city wall with a rope, which he lowered to his comrades, enabling them to follow. He was slightly wounded by a Chinese bullet as he reached the top of the wall. All the officers of his regiment, the Fourteenth, serving in China, joined in a petition to the President for the appointment of Titus to West Point, saying they are satisfied that upon graduation from the academy he will make an excellent officer. Their petition characterizes him as proved to be “trustworthy, intelligent, sober, brave, and a thorough_spldier.” Young Titus was born in Clinton, la. His parents died when he was a child and left him in the care of the Rev.

W. G. Lee, a captain in the Salvation Army. When the Spanish war broke out he was in Shaftsbury, Vt., and promptly enlisted as a musician in the First Regiment from that state for service in Cuba., On his discharge, at the close of the war, he went West again and enlisted in the regulars as a bugler in the Fourteenth Infantry. He was assigned to Company E and served in the Philippines until the command was ordered to China. He will enter West Point with the experience of three wars to back him.

CALVIN P. TITUS.