OLONEL JOHN A. EHRHARDT, of Stanton, commander of the Department of Nebraska, Grand Army of the Republic, was born at Erbach, Germany, December 6, 1848. He emigrated to this country in

1854 and settled in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where his father died two years later. The son became a member of Company F, Fifty-second Illinois Infantry, and at the close of the war took a course of instruction in the Illinois Military Academy, after which he enlisted in the regular army and was assigned to Company K,

Nineteenth Infantry. After leaving the service he was employed as a clerk in a general store until 1876, when he was admitted to the bar, and removed the next year to Stanton, Nebraska, where he has since pursued the profession, and is now county attorney. He joined the Grand Army of the Republic in 1883, is a charter member of Kendall Post No. 190, was elected junior vice commander and was promoted to senior vice commander in February, 1896. One year later he was elected commander of the Department of Nebraska. He was married to Augusta Moon at West Point, Nebraska, in November, 1879.

ENERAL JAMES DUDLEY GAGE, assistant adjutant general, Grand Army of the Republic, Department of Nebraska, is a lineal descendant of two Massachusetts governors, and was born at Bethel, Vermont, June 27, 1842. He worked on a farm in early life, and received a good common school education. He enlisted in 1861 in the First New England Cavalry, was transferred to the First Rhode Island Cavalry one year later, and was again transferred to the New Hampshire Cavalry in 1863. He served with great bravery in the Army of the Potomac, taking part in thirty-three battles under Generals Bufort, Baird, Kilpatrick, and Custer, was three times wounded, captured by the rebels and imprisoned at Libby and Belle Island. In 1863 he was commissioned a lieutenant and commanded the regiment at Five Forks, Virginia, in 1865, was harbor master at Richmond, and later was given command of

the United States Burial Corps at the same place. He was honorably discharged in 1868, came to Nebraska three years later, homesteaded in Franklin county, and built the first mill in the Republican valley, at Naponee. He was appointed adjutant general in 1893 by Governor

Crounse, served two years, was appointed to his present position in 1895, and is now serving his third term, He married Miss Estelle E. Douglas in 1874, and has two children. He is president of the ex-Union Prisoners of War Association, having been elected at the last encampment of the G. A. R. for the year 1897.