On Sunday evening, November 26, 1865, an old man was picked up on the street and taken to the first District lock-up for lodging.
His clothes are ragged and dirty, his feet bare, and he presents a touching picture of want and misery, combined with feeble old age. His long, silky white locks float about a head of noble proportions, that was once the set of vigorous and powerful intellect, and which must still command the involuntary respect of all who see him. His worldly goods consist of an old bag containing a few oranges and one or two other trifles.
This venerable old man, upon whose once sturdy frame the storms of 82 winters have fallen is John S. Brush of Hancock County, Mississippi, one of the first graduates from the national military academy at West Point, and afterwards professor in that Institution, and a soldier who served with such distinction through the War of 1812, and upon the historic field of Chalmette, as to win personal praise from his commander, General Andrew Jackson.
In 1817 Mr. Brush resigned from the Army and we believe has resided in Mississippi ever since.
Deserted by his former slaves, and rendered penniless by the late cruel war, he, a few weeks ago sent his wife, the aged sharer of his joys and sorrows, to this city, to see if some relief in the way of a pension could not be obtained from the Government, but he soon heard that she died here in the hospital as he most feelingly and tearfully said: “My poor wife died in the hospital.”
He is not come to seek the relief so much needed, in person, for he inform us that he ahs no friends, no home, no nothing.
We know that it will only require these facts to be made known to cause not only our citizens, but he Army Officers stationed here, to at once spring forward, and lift this veteran defender of the Crescent City above the possibility of want and Misery.
Mr. Brush was still at the police station this morning. (Daily True Delta – Nov. 28, 1865, page 1, col. 1 –VF MJS V 00101
Note: The Hancock County Historical Society has found few references to Mr. Brush though Dunbar Rowland mentions him as one of the Early Settlers (prior to 1825) at which time he was a Justice of the Peace.