Private Thomas Dean
Cincinnati Enquirer, 16 Jan 1893, page 8
NEWPORT
A GALLANT SOLDIER PERISHES NEAR FT THOMAS
The mail carrier from the military post at Ft Thomas, while driving across the bleak, snow covered ridges of the Kentucky Highlands, overlooking Newport, yesterday morning, saw a man half buried in the snow about a mile from the barracks. A cruel gale was blowing, driving the frozen snow into the face of the driver and his stout little pony. Had it not been that the animal shied at the mound in which the unfortunate may lay hidden, it is possible that the carrier would have gone on.
Jumping down, he uncovered the man, to his surprise to be clad in the uniform of a soldier. Picking him up and carrying him to the mail cart, the carrier hastened to the fort. Here the frozen man was recognized as Thomas Dean, private in Company D, Sixth United States Infantry. He was carried to the post hospital and attended by the the surgeon, Dr. Worthington and his assistant.
Their science was of no avail, for he died about 10 o'clock having been found in the drift at 8. He left the fort yesterday on a furlough that would have expired today. It is known that he went to Newport to visit friends. The road to the fort leads along a wind swept stretch of hill crests, where the blustering blasts from the valley and the frozen river sweep along with merciless force. It was unusually cold night, the thermometers along the line registering as low and ten and fifteen degrees before zero.
Accustomed to the rigors of a winter in the North west, the weather beaten soldier started out to walk to the fort so as to be on time for roll call yesterday morning. It was a fatal resolve on his part. The road was almost knee deep in sticky heavy snow and the strength of the poor fellow was exhausted in climbing the steep hill leading up from Newport.
His bravery, tested in the Indian country against the red devils of the warpath, availed him little in fighting against the storm king. The dead soldier was a veteran in the true sense of the word. He enlisted in the service in 1872 and has served with credit ever since. When he attached his signature to the enlistment roll he was just of age, so that he was 42 years of age at the time of his death. Two years ago his regiment was one those engaged in the battle with the hostile Sioux at Wounded Knee Cree, in which he served with honor and distinction.
His death has caused deep sorrow at the post, whre he was a strong social favorite with both officers and men. Owing to his long service he was well acquainted with most of those in service. it is a strange thing that he should die of exposure in the country, for the regiment was ordered here as a relief from the rigorous climate of North Dakota and the Western plains.
His funeral will take place from the company quarters tomorrow and he will be interred in the cemetery of the fort with all the honors due a soldier who had fallen in battle.