USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Historical sketch of the Chicago Board of Trade Battery, Horse Artillery, Illinois volunteers > Part 3
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October Ist: We moved north with the Army, keeping close to the rear of the Confederate Army and moving from center to the flanks as our services were needed.
November Ist : General Sherman having divided his Army, we were ordered to turn over all our good horses to General Kilpatrick's command and we moved north under General G. H. Thomas, arriv- ing at Nashville, Tenn., on November 14.
December ist: The Battery having been newly equipped we moved our camp into the city and our guns were placed behind
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breast-works. This being the first and only time the battery was placed behind breast-works.
December 15th : General G. H. Thomas' Army being ready to advance on Rebel General Hood's Army, we moved to the right of the Army and under command of General J. H. Wilson, took part in the Battle of Nashville, and with that Cavalry command fol- lowed Hood's Army to the Tennessee River, arriving at Waterloo, Ala., December 30th, having been engaged with the enemy almost the entire distance.
On the 24th: Being in the advance and engaged every hour, drove the enemy twenty miles, saved the covered bridge over Richland Creek, enabling our army to follow the enemy without delay.
March 22, 1865: Having rested, our battery equipment fully repaired, and having received new horses, we moved with the Second Cavalry Division on the greatest raid of the war under the command of General J. H. Wilson, moving through Alabama into Georgia, crossing Big Creek. Big Warrior and Little Warrior Rivers, one of which was so deep and swift we were obliged to swim our horses, and the powder was carried on the shoulders of the mounted men. Crossed the Cahawba River on the railroad bridge, forty feet above the water, the guns being pulled by the men and the horses led, in some cases being blindfolded. Were engaged with the enemy almost every day.
March 30th : Marched thirty-seven miles, and April Ist, forty- seven miles. One of these days we passed through burning woods for a half mile on a gallop. Fortunately, none of our horses fell and none of the limbers were exploded. The enemy did not succeed in making a decided stand until this day, when their cavalry, under
47
command of General Roddy, made a stand in the afternoon. We went into action, silenced three of their guns, which our support captured, with two hundred prisoners and a train of cars loaded with supplies.
April 2d : After a march of twenty miles, a running fight all the way, we arrived in front of Selma, Ala. The Battery went into action, firing over the charging line until the outer works were carried by our cavalry division, then limbered up and went into the works with the charging line and helped to drive the enemy, which numbered as six to one of the charging force. Such action of a battery going into fortifications with a charging line is not recorded of any other battery during the war.
April 3d to roth: Were engaged in destroying the guns and ammunition in the forts and arsenal, and burning the arsenal.
April irth: Continued our campaign, going through Mont- gomery, Ala., and Columbus, Ga. On the ISth marched fifty-eight miles, and on the 19th, forty-two miles, making one hundred miles in two consecutive days, a record rarely equalled.
April 20th : Arrived in front of Macon, Ga., and were met by a flag of truce and advised by the enemy of an armistice between the Union and Confederate Armies. As the commanding general had had no communication with the Union forces for twenty eight days. refused to accept the news as authentic and moved into Macon and took possession.
May 23d: The war being over, we started North. Marched to Chattanooga, where our guns were placed on cars and forwarded to Nashville. Tenn., while the horses were marched overland.
June 23d : Left Nashville for Chicago, arriving on the 27th of June.
.
July 3d: Were mustered out of the service, to date from June 30, 1865.
There have died since muster out of the Battery, fifty-four mem- bers so far as reported to your Secretary. The address of only seventy-six living members is known to your Secretary.
When the Battery was organized the promise was made that the remains of all members who should die in the service should be brought to Chicago for interment. The Board of Trade provided a lot for such interments. In January. 1866, the remains of our comrades who had been buried in southern soil were brought to Chicago by the Chicago Board of Trade, and on January 7: 1866. we laid to rest the remains of eleven comrades in this lot. Since that date the remains of ten of our deceased comrades have been placed in this lot, making the number twenty-one.
.
At a meeting of the members of the Chicago Board of Trade Battery Memorial Association September 22., 1900, it was re- solved to erect upon the Board of Trade Battery lot at Rosehill Cemetery a monument in commemoration of the deceased members of the Battery. In conformity with the same, the Board of Direc- tors proceeded with the erection of this beautiful monument.
COMRADES : 'In the burning of Chicago in October, 1871, the company papers and records in possession of Captain Stokes were burned with his residence. Later the remaining records in posses- sion of Captain Robinson were destroyed in the burning of his residence at Milwaukee, Wis. These circumstances make doubly valuable any mementoes of our past history that may now be in existence. and all such should be carefully preserved and turned over to the Memorial Association.
NOTE :-- All this is mentioned in full and specially further on.
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Address of Benjamin F. Nourse President of the Chicago Board of Trade Battery Memorial Association
COMRADES OF THE CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE BATTERY - COMRADES OF THE CIVIL WAR - MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF TRADE - LADIES AND GENTLEMEN :
BT IS a grand token when patriots are honored ---- when we lift high the standard of patriotism in our Land: It is a noble tribute to the fallen heroes of the Chicago Board of Trade Battery that we, its living members, have placed here and now dedicate a monument to their memory, showing the love and gratitude of the living. That we passed through three years of war and through thirty-six years of new and exacting duties since the war closed on a united country, is history. The monument standing here proclaims that we love the memory of the heroic dead, that they at whose side we fought were dear to us. We have selected the most enduring material known to mark their final resting place, and we wish it to stand in its simplicity, in its strength, in its mightiness, for time without end, as a reminder to the young and the old who may
50
read the inscription thereupon, showing the names of the battles in which the Command participated. This we have done that, as his- tory is read, these names shall become more firmly imprinted upon the minds and hearts of the living as they year by year strew flowers and honor the memory of the soldiers of the Civil War.
The Chicago Board of Trade Battery was in nearly all the fierc- est battles fought by the Army of the Cumberland.
After the battle of Stone River, General Rosecrans, commanding the Army of the Cumberland, issued a special order, giving the Battery the privilege of carrying the colors presented by the Chicago Board of Trade, this being the first time in the history of the army where a battery of artillery was allowed a stand of United States colors and a battery flag. By a subsequent special order Stone River, Elk River, Chickamauga, Farmington, Dallas. Decatur. Atlanta, Lovejoy, Nashville and Selma were inscribed upon the flags. When the Battery was mustered out the flags were returned to the Board of Trade and later destroyed by the great fire of IS71.
The time will come when the story of the Rebellion will be read in the names of great generals (as we now read of the Revolution) rather than in the incidents and scenes of individual commands.
We, the living, will soon rest, and this monument will represent also three years of our lives, lives spent for the good of these who stand around us to-day, for those who shall stand here in the genera- tions to come. It has been said of our forefathers, " They builded better than they knew." That can truly be said of us, for we were boys then, but thanks to our God, we have been permitted to live to see the fruits of our labor, ripe fruits of others' lives, and of our toils. To see this a unitedly free people, no thought in all our broad land other than the wish that freedom of thought and action.
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of loyalty and love to an universal heavenly Father may be the heritage of every nation on the globe. May the rest of our lives. our remaining days, teach what we have shown our countrymen so far, that there must be free institutions, love for the flag, patriotism taught, union of hearts in love of rights, man to man. By so living we shall have the freest government on earth, the happiest people.
Be not worried for what shall come after us, after we have rested from our labors. Never has a crisis come, but the man for the place and to meet it has come from the people. That will always be a certainty in the future if our faith holds straight. Soldiers of the Revolution brought liberty, soldiers of the Civil War brought equality. soldiers of the Spanish War brought opportunity. Oh, Americans, arise to your position of glorious rivalry among the nations of the world, for you shall stand first. Stand at the top: having, through the golden rule of life, done unto others as you would be done unto, you shall com- mand the respect of all peoples. Seeing this accomplished we shall see the glory of the Lord, and there will be no more tramping out the vintage, for there will be no more grapes of wrath stored up.
Therefore, with this thought in view have we erected this monument where it now stands with these four monuments com- pleting a circle, with the county monument to the soldiers in the center, that all who may enter these grounds, this "city of the dead," this "God's acre," may be reminded of the nobleness. of the grandness, of the self-sacrifices of these heroes.
In 1862. the Chicago Board of Trade purchased this lot, the title being in the Chicago Board of Trade in perpetuity. The
surviving members of the Chicago Board of Trade Battery have erected this monument.
Mr. President of the Chicago Board of Trade :- It therefore becomes my duty, as President of the Chicago Board of Trade Battery Memorial Association, to turn over the same to your Hon- orable Board for care in perpetuity. It has come to my knowledge that the President and Directors of the Board have caused to be deposited with the Rosehill Cemetery Association, a sum of money sufficient to care for and protect this lot and monument for all time.
Mr. President, the living members of your war battery will soon lay aside the duties of life. I, therefore, desire to ask of you, in accepting from us this monument, that you suggest to the Board of Directors of the Chicago Board of Trade, that they will each Mem- orial day in the years to come, provide a wreath for this monument : to this band of noble men, who freely gave their lives for the land they loved.
Mr. President, Members of the Board of Trade, and Comrades, I have the honor to thank you.
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Address of W. S. Warren President of the Chicago Board of Trade
MR. PRESIDENT, MEMBERS OF THE CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE BATTERY MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: HE memories of this hour carry us back through a retrospect of almost two score years-to the 16th day of July, 1862. in a small rented room on the corner of South Water and Wells Streets, the then home of the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago. In point of numbers and surroundings and the volume of its business, it would hardly be recognized as the same institution now located at the southern extremity of LaSalle Street. But it is fair to assume that its membership was composed of the same energetic. hustling, nervous, impulsive and generous class of men as now. Their generosity is never appealed to in vain and while, like all other impulsive men, they have been known to make mistakes, cer- tain it is that they made none on that 16th day of July, 1862, when the following petition was handed to their President :
5.4
CHICAGO, ILL., July 16, 1862.
C. T. WHEELER. President of the Board of Trade :
We, the undersigned members, request you to call at an early day, a general meeting of the Board, to pledge ourselves to use our influence and money to recruit a battery to be known as the Board of Trade Battery.
GEORGE STEEL, WM. STURGES, E. AKIN, M. C. STEARNS, I. Y. MUNN, G. L. SCOTT. T. J. BRONSUN, C. H. WALKER, JR. E. G. WOLCOTT, FLINT & THOMPSON.
So far as I am able to discover, all the signers of this petition, widely known in their day, have passed over to the silent majority. However, the man in whose patriotic soul the whole plan originated. who engrossed and circulated the petition, and who subsequently was the first to enroll himself in the Board of Trade Battery -- Sylva- nus H. Stevens-is still an honored member of the Board of Trade and one of its most highly esteemed and trusted officials, and is present with us to-day.
The meeting was promptly held in the Board rooms on the 21st of July and on the 23d the following telegram was sent to the President of the United States :
BOARD OF TRADE ROOMS, CHICAGO, July 23, 1862.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States:
The Board of Trade of this City have within the last forty-eight hours raised 515,000 bounty money. and have recruited a full company of artillery.
Signed, J. L. HANCOCK, WM. STURGES, GEORGE ARMOUR, C. H. WALKER, JR., H. W. HINSDALE, S. H. STEVENS.
55 .
This must indeed have been a ray of sunshine through the dark clouds of despair then hanging over the great war President. and in fact everybody interested in the welfare of the Union. These were about the darkest days of the whole tragic four years. Doubt and discouragement were permeating the North, and responses to the President's call of July 6th for 300,000 more volunteers had been słow and unwilling. The initiative taken by the Chicago Board of Trade proved contagious. In a short time the subscription. of $15,000 was increased to $50,000, and in addition to the Board of Trade Battery, three regiments of infantry were recruited under its auspices and sent to the front. and within sixty days of the first war meeting of the Chicago Board of Trade the State of Illinois had furnished 50,000 additional troops.
The Board of Trade Battery remained throughout, the especial pride and protege of the Board of Trade. It was promptly equipped, well officered, and on September roth was at the front. On October rith it first engaged the enemy, and subsequently was in action upward of seventy times, earning for itself a most brilliant and enviable record, returning without a blot on its escutcheon, to be mustered out in Chicago, June 30. 1865, at the close of the war.
It can easily be imagined with what intense interest its move- ments were watched during its three years in the field by the com- mercial organization which had the honor of calling it into existence. We can see them now on the busy mart, clustering around a news- paper, a telegram, or a bulletin board, eager for the first tidings of woe or of weal after every engagement, rejoicing in the successes of "our boys," sympathizing with their losses, hardships and priva- tions : - sympathy of the practical kind, too, as evidenced by frequent trips to the front by members or officials of the Board. or
56
their agents, to look after the welfare of their soldiers; provide clothing and blankets and boots, hospital stores and nurses for the sick and wounded, and to distribute delicacies and other gifts prepared by loving hands at home. Ah! those were times that we. in these piping times of peace and plenty and security, wot little of.
At the close of the war the Board of Trade 'purchased this lot in. beautiful Rosehill, and brought from the South the remains of the martyred dead of their beloved Battery. And with memories of their great services still alive, they have provided an endowment fund to insure the perpetual care of the lot.
It is to be regretted that these fallen heroes have been left so long without a substantial monument to mark their final resting place and commemorate their deeds of valor and devotion to country. . But there is compensation in the thought that this occasion, after the long lapse of years, brings us back into renewed and closer touch with the brave boys, living and dead, of the Board of Trade Battery. It rekindles the smoldering embers of our patriotism and civic pride : renews the old feeling of good-fellowship and community of interest, so that we extend the glad hand to these gallant survivors and assure them that we are still just as proud of them as on that June day, thirty-six years ago, when we greeted the returning veterans with open arms and painted the town red in their honor.
In these sordid. lucre-chasing times, we are in great danger of losing our enthusiasms and our ideals. Let us make the dedication of this beautiful monument a fresh starting point to ever glory in the achievements of these men: the cause for which they fought, and bled, and died, and the results of their self-sacrifice. As the brilliant Webster said: "That motionless shaft will be the most powerful of
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speakers. Its speech will be of liberty. It will speak of patriotism and of courage. It will speak of the moral improvement and elevation of mankind. Decrepit age will lean against its base. and ingenuous youth gather round it, while they speak to each other of the glorious events with which it is connected and exclaim, . Thank God, I also am an American !'"
I cannot forbear to quote on this occasion another distinguished American statesman and soldier as well.
"We hold reunions, not for the dead, for there is nothing on all the earth that you and I can do for the dead. They are past our help and past our praise. We can add to them no glory, we can give to them no immortality. They do not need us, but forever and for- evermore we need them."
I love to believe that no heroic sacrifice is ever lost; that the characters of men are moulded and inspired by what their fathers have done : that treasured up in American souls are all the uncon- scious influences of the great deeds of the Anglo-Saxon race, from Agincourt to the present day.
So my friends, the lesson of this occasion for us is, that "it is not all of life to live, nor all of death to die ;" that we may so fash- ion our lives to those of the men we honor here to-day, that they may be an inspiration for those who come after us. This imperishable stone, these grassy mounds, must ever appeal to us, mutely, but eloquently, of the heroic self-sacrifice, the devotion to principle, the tenacious courage, the unswerving loyalty, lofty civic pride, that go to make up the model soldier, the worthy Board of Trade member. the ideal American citizen in any walk of life.
٠
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59 + 60
Mint nf Onmrades Buried in Battery Ent at Rosehill Crmrtery
A. Finury Killed, Battle of Stone River December 31, 1862.
ZU. 4. 2Ditry Killed, Battle of Stone River, December 31, 1862
211. Riddell Died, Chicago, January, 1875
Died, Chicago, February, 1868
Inl. A. Bantry Died, Cincinnati, February, 1863
E. C. Firma Died, Atlanta, August, 1864
Thomas Mygant Killed, Lovejoy, Ga., August, 1864
A. G. Carter
Died, Nashville, Tenn .. January, 1863
C. A. Mr Clelland Died. Chicago, February, IS91
Grorur Dansun Died. Milwaukee, Wis., August, 1898
L. F. Abbott Died, Chicago. April, 1900
3. S. Stany
Killed, Battle of Stone River. December 31, 1862
Died, Wilmington, N. C .. March, 1864
5. Ill. phillips Died, Chicago, August, 187S
C. M. DrCosta Died, Nashville, Tenn .. February. 1863
D. Joubert
Died, Nashville, Tenn., August, 1864
S. Đoàn Died, Murfreesboro, Tenn., March, 1863
3. S. Wallarr
Died, McMinnville, Tenn .. August, 1863
6. C. White Died, Vining, Ga., August. 1864
D. D. Jarobs Died, Quincy, Ill., April, 1890
Charles Frink Died, Chicago, November, 1900
61
List of the Members
of the Chicago Board of Trade Battery present at the Dedication of the Monument
B. F. NOURSE
JAMES IVES
A. L. ADAMS
H. DIPPE
P. L. AUTEN
F. DUPUIS
J. A. NOURSE
F. KNIGHT
G. I. ROBINSON
H. B. CHANDLER
J. H. HILDRETH
E. LUFF
C. DURAND
T. M. LYNCH
W. C. MOLAU
J. M. SEXTON
C. S. DWIGHT
G. W. LITTLE
C. A. BALDWIN
J. G. PETERS
F. S. ROCKWOOD
DAVID BURR
F. B. ROCKWOOD
W. M. RAGAN
S. A. LOCK
J. B. HALL
.G. W. PECK
J. D. TOOMEY
J. J. GILMORE
W. EAKINS
S. M. RANDOLPH
A. W. MERRILL
T. H. WATSON
C. W. ERBY
V. STEELE
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Records and Relics Deposited
N a metal box in the foundation of the moument was placed a copy of the following document, together with the articles mentioned therein :
CHICAGO, May 30, 1901.
The Chicago Board of Trade Battery Monument, dedicated this 30th day of May. 1991, has been erected by the surviving members of the Chicago Board of Trade Battery, and there is deposited in a box in the foundation the following articles :
A muster roll showing the name of every man that was enlisted for the Chicago Board of Trade Battery, and giving a record of his services.
A history of the Battery, compiled by members of the Battery in 1886.
A copper plate giving the record of THOMAS WYGANT.
.A copper plate giving the record of J. H. HILDRETH.
A copper plate giving the record of JAMES A. RUTLEDGE.
A letter from CHARLES HOLYLAND.
Photographic pictures of GEORGE W. GAVITT
JOHN MCDONALD
D. F. BETCHEN
JAMES IVES
GEORGE I. ROBINSON. as a soldier
TRUMBULL D. GRIFFIN
GEORGE I. ROBINSON, as a citizen
JOHN C. CAMBERG
JOHN A. NOURSE
ALEXANDER LEWIS
GEORGE BOWERS
CHARLES FRINK
ALBERT MERRILL.
GEORGE HANSON
B. F. NOURSE
CHARLES S. DWIGHT
W. C. MOLAU
W. B. GALE
ROBERT BARRY FRED W. KING
S. M. CROFT.
A program of the dedication services.
SIGNED J. A. NOURSE,
Secretary,
Chicago Board of Trade Battery Memorial Association.
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Roster of Living Members of the Chicago Board of Trade Battery
August 30, 1902
AUTEN, P. L.
138 Washington Street . Chicago. Ill.
ADAMS, A. L.
611 The Temple Chicago, Ill.
& APPLETON, J. B.
Osage, Iowa.
AVERY, W. O. 610 Temple Avenue . Detroit, Mich. BOWERS, GEORGE York, Neb. BENNETT, HENRY 1263 Mulvane Avenue Topeka, Kan. BETCHEN, D. F. Berlin, Minn.
BROWN, W. W.
BALDWIN. C. A.
HIS2 Millard Avenue
Decatur, Ill. Chicago, III.
BARRY, ROBERT
IS6 South Vernon Avenue
Pasadena. Cal.
BAER, G. J. . 1624 Jefferson Avenue
BURR, DAVID 2596 North Ashland Avenue
. Chicago, Ili.
CHANDLER, H. B. 104 Indiana Street
. Chicago, Ill.
CONKLIN. J. K.
Soldiers' Home . Milwaukee, Wis.
CHAPIN, A. S. 768 Walnut Street
Chicago, Iil.
CRUM, SYLVESTER
Riceville, Iowa.
DURAND, CALVIN Lake and Union Streets
DEPUIS, FRED
Chicago, Ill. Oak Park, Ill.
DIPPE, HENRY
S41 Thome Street
Chicago, III.
DWIGHT, C. S. Marshall Field & Co. (Retail) . Chicago, IlÌ.
Du Bois, S. A.
2 North Fourth Street . St. Louis, Mo.
ERBY, C. W. 303 South Hoyne Avenue . Chicago, Ill.
. Kansas City, Mo.
6.4
EAMES, C. O
414 Union Station . St. Louis, Mo.
EAKINS, WM.
6106 Normal Avenue . Chicago, Ill.
FLEMING, J. C.
.
Marquette Building
.
Chicago, Ill.
FOSTER, R. C.
467 Flournoy Street
Chicago, Ill.
FORD, S. L.
. Takoma Park . Dist. Columbia.
FINLEY, J. B. 354 South Canal Street
Chicago, Ill.
GEORGE, WM.
314 South Twelfth Street
. Tacoma, Wash.
GARNSEY, C. A. P.
Evanston, Ill.
GILMORE, J. J.
Soldiers' Home . Danville, Ill.
GRIFFIN, T. D. .
2314 Pine Street
.
St. Louis, Mo.
HALL, J. B.
107 Dearborn Street
.
Chicago, Ill.
HILDRETH, J. H.
746 West Monroe Street . Chicago, Ill.
HOLYLAND, C.
244 Fifth Avenue . Pittsburgh, Pa.
IVES. JAMES
3621 Princeton Avenue
. Chicago, Ill.
JOHNSTON, ROBERT
374 Palm Avenue . Riverside, Cal.
KNIGHT, FRANK
2169 West Twenty-Fifth Street
.
Chicago, Ill.
LOCK, S. A.
2556 Wabash Avenue
.
Chicago, Ill.
LUFF, RDMUND
620 N. Oak Park Avenue
.
Oak Park. Ill.
LYNCH, T. M.
Soldiers' Home
.
Milwaukee, Wis.
LITTLE, G. W.
4923 Lake Avenue
. Chicago, Ill.
LASUER, CHARLES
Toledo, Ohio.
MCELEVY, ALBERT
378 So. Negley Street
Pittsburgh, Pa.
MOLAC, W. C.
5809 Indiana Avenue
Chicago, Ill.
MERRILL, A. W.
269 Avers Avenue
Chicago, Ill.
NOURSE, B. F.
. 186 Michigan Street
Chicago, Ill. Chicago, Ill.
NOURSE, J. A. Chamber of Commerce
PAYNE, ORMANSO
Conway, Mass.
PETERS, J. G.
220 Randolph Street
Chicago, Ill.
PECKHAM, S. C. .
Canarsic Station
PECK, G. W.
Soldiers' Home
RAGAN, W. M.
Waukegan, Ill.
ROCKWOOD, F. B.
Elmhurst, Ill.
ROCKWOOD, F. S.
,State and Ohio Streets . Chicago, Ill.
RANDOLPH, W3I. 208 Union Trust Building . St. Louis, Mo.
RANDOLPH, S. M.
311 S. Scoville Avenue
.
Oak Park, Ill.
ROBINSON, G. I.
315 E. Water Street . Milwaukee, Wis.
STEVENS, S. H.
Board of Trade
Chicago, Ill.
STEVENS, S. C.
69 Dearborn Street
.
Chicago, Ill.
Brooklyn, N. Y. Danville, Ill.
05
SMALL. H. N. . Chicago, Ill.
SEXTON, J. M.
Soldiers' Home . Danville, Ill. Chicago, Ill.
STEELE. VALENTINE
4848 Indiana Avenue
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