Riley's Death
Unlike the film portrayal of Riley in One Man's Hero it can be surmised that the circumstance of Riley's life after the war were not very pleasant.
Robert Ryal Miller, author of Shamrock and Sword (1989), found Riley's death certificate in book of burials No. 6, entry 133, of the then parish (now cathedral) of Veracruz. Like Riley's Mexican army records, it refers to the name "Juan Reley". It reads:
"In the H. city of Veracruz, on the thirty first of August of eighteen hundred and fifty, I, Don Ignacio Jose Jimenez, curate of the parish church of the Assumption of Our Lady, buried in the general cemetery the body of Juan Reley, of forty five years of age, a native of Ireland, unmarried, parents unknown; died as a result of drunkenness, without sacraments, and I signed it."
Read more about this topic: Jon Riley
Famous quotes containing the words riley and/or death:
“the ache here in the throat,
To know that I so ill deserve the place
Her arms make for me;”
—James Whitcomb Riley (1849–1916)
“half-way up the hill, I see the Past
Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,—
A city in the twilight dim and vast,
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,—
And hear above me on the autumnal blast
The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)