A 401322

UNIVERS
ITY

THE
THE
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1817
'RIES

MAJOR-GENERAL HUGH LENOX SCOTT
PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AT FOLKESTONE, ENGLAND, 1917
Some Memories of
A SOLDIER
BY
HUGH LENOX SCOTT
MAJOR-GENERAL U. S. ARMY, RETIRED
ILLUSTRATED
THE CENTURY CO.
New York
London
E
181
543
Copyright, 1928, by
THE CENTURY CO.
First printing, April, 1928
Printed in U. S. A.
ΤΟ
MARY MERRILL SCOTT
Who has followed the fortunes of the Army of
the United States all her life, on both sides of the
world; has cheerfully given me of her aid and
counsel through all the changes and chances of
this mortal life; has brought up a family of
children who "rise up and call her blessed"; who
has suffered hardships in her youth in the Indian
country unequalled by any Army woman of her
time, and with whom I am now growing old after
a delightful life together of forty-seven years.
hebass
6-21-28
16041
1
FOREWORD
It is considered fortunate indeed for anyone to have lived
in this age, the most interesting of all in the world's history,
which has witnessed the birth of so many wonderful scientific
discoveries; discoveries that remove us further in knowledge
and the comforts of life from our great grandfathers than they
were removed from Julius Cæsar, and in which so many im-
portant historical events have transpired. We all have read
with deep interest in our youth of the decline and fall of the
Roman Empire, but you and I have seen three of the greatest
empires of the world crumble in a short time before our eyes,
and we are thankful that we were permitted to do our part in
bringing about some of this crumbling for the salvation of the
freedom of the world. My own life saw the end of the era
of the buffalo and the wild Indian before that era passed away
forever, allowed me to assist in the settlement of the plains
of the West, in the Spanish War, in the regeneration of Cuba,
in the subjugation of the Moro, in laying the foundation for
civilization of the Sulu Moro, in the training of four classes of
officers at West Point, and in the preservation of peace, time
and again, on the Mexican border and in the Indian country.
It enabled me as chief of staff to prepare the entrance of
our army into the World War. It included service in France
and Russia, while after retirement from active service because
of age, I was given control of one of our great war camps. It
brought service in every grade in our army from cadet to
secretary of war ad interim, between the incumbency of Secre-
taries Garrison and Baker, which latter carried with it the
invitation to sit in the cabinet of the President of the United
vii
viii
Foreword
States, an experience rarely enjoyed in all our history by an
officer of the regular army, because it required a simultaneous
culmination of many things to render it possible.
These episodes have produced many experiences which the
memory looks back upon with interest. Of these only a few
of the most vivid are here recorded, only those which come
most readily to the mind. They are not recorded for the pur-
pose of defending any cause, proving any theory or enforcing
any moral, but solely to outline the manner of life of a soldier
of our time, whose span has covered so many epochs. Because
these memories are mostly of a personal nature, it has not been
possible to retire the first person in this narrative as much as
seems desirable. Since the greatest master of English prose
was not able to write the play of Hamlet without mentioning
Hamlet, it may perhaps be excused if this Hamlet appears and
is portrayed by one who, while he has had some training in the
use of the sword, must use the pen as a simple soldier-man; as
one whose life has been intensely occupied in practical affairs,
ofttimes in the far places of the earth, and among illiterate
peoples, and whose wildest fancy never led him to suppose that
some day he would be asked to record his memories because
they might possibly interest other people.
I have been highly fortunate in my contacts with many dis-
tinguished men of affairs. I could write a volume each on Gen-
erals Miles, Wood, Ludlow, Sanger, Bliss, Pershing, Hare,
Liggett, McCoy, Funston, Jesse and Fitzhugh Lee, Drake, Sum-
merall, and many others—some, like Colonel O. J. Charles of
lesser rank, and my intimate friends, who deserve the best that
anybody could write of them.
I would like especially to dwell on the accomplishments of
General Miles on the Plains, on Generals Wood and McCoy in
Cuba and the Philippines, with whom I have been more in-
timately associated for many years. But this story must per-
tain merely to my own life, with some of its contacts and a few
Foreword
ix
of the memories that rise first in the mind. Too much digres-
sion would spoil the thread of the narrative; and any attempt
to do justice to those others, in and out of the army, by whom
I have been greatly helped throughout my life—some white,
some red, some black, some brown, and some yellow-would
lead us far afield, fill volumes, and require another lifetime to
record.
CONTENTS
PART I
BOYHOOD AND WEST POINT
•
My early home and family. Fishing and hunting. Prep
school days. Princeton and West Point. Plebes and
cadets. Hazing, swimming, and a rescue. The old and
the new.
PAGE
3
PART II
SERVICE ON THE PLAINS
News of the Custer disaster. My transfer to the Seventh
Cavalry. Bismarck. Fort Lincoln. With the Indians.
Mastering the sign language. Into the field. Disarming
the Sioux. Troubles at home. Prisoners and whisky.
Fort Leavenworth. The annual expedition. The great
Crow camp. After the Nez Percé. A raid and recon-
noitering. Buffalo running. On the march again. Indian
customs. Winter on the Plains. Frustrating the Indians'
escape. Red Cloud's ire. Fort Totten. A makeshift boat.
Leave of absence. Mary Merrill and my marriage. A
mission of pacification. A difficult bridge. My last wild
buffalo. Recruiting service in the East. The Southwest.
"Grass money." Opening of Oklahoma. Dispersing the
thugs. Diverting cattle runners. Problems of Fort Sill.
A Messiah of the Plains. Sitting Bull and I-see-o.
Memories of Buffalo Bill. Chiricahua Apache prisons of
war. Leonard Wood and Frederick Remington. The
Apaches of Fort Sill. Halting an auction. President
Cleveland and the Indians. End of the Plains.
PART III
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR AND CUBA
At the Bureau of Ethnology. War with Spain. Regi-
ments and political influence. Chickamaua. Soldiers
and sermons. The protocol. The division moved to
24
216
xi
xii
Contents
Georgia. Reporting at Havana. Work of regeneration
in Cuba. Establishment of military jurisdiction. Cuban
press attacks. Jails, sanitation, and the law. Cleaning
up Havana. A grandee punished. Schools and libraries.
Railways and bridges. Isle of Pines. Cuban politics.
The Cienfuegos dispute. Bandits and Lino Lima.
Church reform. Yellow fever, deaths, and the work of
Walter Reed. A constitution and a president. Fare-
well Havana.
PAGE
PART IV
•
273
THE PHILIPPINES
To Manila via the world. With General Wood to Min-
danoa. The sultan of Sulu. My first sight of Joló. Bor-
neo. A tour of Sulu. My appointment as governor of
Sulu Archipelago. Interpreter Schück. The Moro and
his barong. Farce of the sultan's government. Historical
sketch of Joló. Danger of the Bates Agreement. Pang-
lima Ambutong and the Raja Muda. The wives of Hadji
Taib. A looking-glass saves a life. Hostility toward our
rule. Enter Indanan. Steps toward abolishment of
slavery. Cavalry advance beneath the Southern Cross.
Surrender of Biroa. Efforts to avert bloodshed. The
Juramentados. New tactics. Attempts to divert Joló's
revenue. War-gongs.
War-gongs. A landing and advance through
the jungle. Capture and escape of Hassan. Return of
the Prophet. Mohammed jailed. Assaults on other Moro
strongholds. Pursuit of Hassan and his death. Schools
and more adventures. A Moro damsel in distress. The
sultan visits Manila. Trials with the tax. A visit home
and news of a battle. Return to Joló. Warfare again.
Rarities of Sulu. Fruits of three years.
Farewell to
Joló.
PART V
SUPERINTENDENT OF WEST POINT
·
The old gray barracks again. A moderate policy. Press
problems. Buildings and batteries. The new chapel.
Colored troops. Athletics and hazing. Roosevelt and
mathematics. Distinguished visitors. Lord Kitchener.
An Australian West Point. The "Scott Last." In retro-
spect.
417
Contents
xiii
PART VI
WASHINGTON AND THE BORDER
·
Passing snapshots. President Roosevelt. A diplomat's
bathing suit. A visit from the sultan. President Wilson.
The Hopi Indians. To San Antonio. General Felipe An-
geles. Promotion to brigadier-generalship. Concerning
the Philippines and Bryan. The Navajo menace.
border ambassador and Villa. In support of Pershing.
General Wood and the border. Arrest of the Paiutes.
A
PAGE
461
PART VII
WASHINGTON AND THE WAR
Promotion to assistant chief of staff. Europe afire. The
army and Congress. Promotion to chief of staff. My
efforts for new guns. Entrance of United States in the
World War. The British and French commissions. The
pacifist menace. The fight against conscription. Com-
missions. Action-and why possible. Our officers. Act-
ing-Secretary of War.
PART VIII
542
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
·
President Wilson and the United States Commission to
Russia. The Pacific passage. Arrival at Vladivostok.
Impressions en route to Petrograd. The Winter Palace.
The Russian Army and the Cossacks. Disintegration in
the ranks. An offensive promised. Tarnopol and the
Russian front. Over the top. Romania's plight. Grimm
and a lost cause. Kerensky's failure as a leader. Return
to United States. Tribute to Elihu Root.
FRANCE AND ENGLAND
PART IX
De-
My retirement and reinstatement to active duty.
parture to study warfare at front. Old friends in Lon-
don. Folkestone, across the channel, and Paris. The
British front. Paris again. The French trenches. A
London air raid. Home.
570
594
xiv
Contents
IN COMMAND OF CAMP DIX
PART X
The Seventy-Eighth Division. A gigantic program. My
disappointment. Forty thousand men and more. How
the wheels go 'round. Secrets of discipline. Fire and
race riot menaces. Vice conditions. Influenza. End
of the war. To the quiet life. The Board of Indian
Commissioners. Marshal Foch. The State Highway
Commission. Millions for roads.
PAGE
611
INDEX
·
·
629
ILLUSTRATIONS
Major-General Hugh Lenox Scott. Photograph taken at Folke-
stone, England, 1917
•
•
Joseph, Chief of Nez Percé Indians in Idaho, 1877 .
Quanah Parker, Chief of the Comanches
Ahpiatom, Chief of the Kiowas
·
Sergeant Iseeo, Kiowa Indian, Fort Sill .
Fort Sill, Indian Territory
•
Jack Wilson and General T. J. McCoy
Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
33
40
57
64
73
88
97
113
128
·
Members of Troop L, Seventh U. S. Cavalry (Indians), Fort
Sill, Oklahoma `.
Discharged Indian soldier, Troop L, Seventh Cavalry, farming
his own land
152
General Scott and Colonel W. F. Cody, Washington, 1916.
Geronimo and family Apache prisoners of war, Fort Sill farmers 137
Geronimo and Naiche, Chiefs of Chiricahua Apache
Captain Scott entertains General Miles at his hunting camp 160
At enlistment and after six months' training in U. S. Army
One of seventy homes built by Apache prisoners of war, Fort
Sill
·
·
169
184
•
Arrival of Apache prisoners of war at Fort Sill, 1894
Apache prisoners of war baling hay at Fort Sill, 1905
Indian prisoners of war branding cattle, 1905
Nelson A. Miles
.
·
193
•
201
·
208
216
General William Ludlow, Governor, and Staff at Havana
Entrance to the Palace of Havana at Havana, Cuba
Cathedral of Havana at Havana, Cuba.
Major-General Leonard Wood, Governor-General of Cuba, 1902 280
•
225
•
256
265
XV
xvi
Illustrations
Hadji Abdula Moro, 1904
.
FACING PAGE
320
•
General Scott with the sultan of Sulu and his suite in the office
of the Commanding General, Manila, P. I.
General Frank R. McCoy, A. D. C. to President Wilson
"New" Chapel at West Point
353
·
400
417
"Old" Chapel at West Point .
Lord Kitchener and Colonel Scott at West Point
424
441
Woodrow Wilson
Colonel Scott with Lord Kitchener and Butler Duncan, Jr.,
West Point, 1910
General Scott with Captain David Hunter Scott, A. D. C. 1914
Colonel Scott and daughter, Colonel W. F. Cody, Captain
Julius Conrad and children, at San Antonio
448
457
464
472
Sergeant Randolph with Bizoshe and other Navajo Indians,
New Mexico
484
·
489
General Ynez Salazar of Mexico, a prisoner, Fort Bliss, Texas,
1914.
Mr. W. S. Stewart, General Francisco Villa, and General Scott
On the international bridge over the Rio Grande, General Ob-
regon (second from left), General Funston, and General
Scott
Telegram from General Villa to Governor Maytorena, Janu-
ary 9, 1915 . .
General Scott in council with Paiute Indians, Utah, 1915.
Lindley M. Garrison .
Major-General Tasker H. Bliss (left) with Major-General
Hugh L. Scott, Washington, D. C., 1917 .
•
504
509
•
513
·
528
544
552
557
General Scott's sons at Plattsburg
564
M. Terestchenko, with Mr. Elihu Root and General Scott on
their mission to Russia
569
Secretary Baker and General Scott in Washington .
577
General Scott welcomes Marshal Joffre to America, 1917, with
M. 'Jules Jusserand, French Ambassador
Illustrations
xvii
·
FACING PAGE
·
U. S. Commission to Russia, 1917; Mr. Elihu Root and asso-
ciates, with D. R. Francis, American Ambassador to Russia,
and Charles R. Crane, at the Winter Palace, Petrograd.
General Scott in the Winter Palace at Petrograd, 1917
General Scott, General Broussilov (center) and General Lucom-
ski (right), Chief of Staff, Russian Army in Russia, 1917
Photograph presented to Major-General Scott by the late King
Ferdinand of Romania .
580
592
605
608
•
612
617
625
Generals Pershing, Scott, Shanks, and Duncan at dedication
of monument, Camp Merritt, New Jersey
General Scott addressing members of thirteen Indian tribes in
sign language at Old Fort Union, Montana, 1925
General Scott and other members of the N. J. state highway
commission with Chief Engineer Sloan (left)
·
1
SOME MEMORIES OF A SOLDIER
SOME MEMORIES OF A
SOLDIER
PART I
Boyhood and West Point
LOOKING back now upon a happy childhood surrounded by
many friends and relatives, my memories, with a few excep-
tions of people and places in the Middle West, cluster about
my grandfather's house in Princeton, New Jersey, where my
father died when I was eight years old and my mother brought
up her brood of three sons until they left the home nest.
Life there seemed a matter of course, and it was only after
getting out into the world and seeing that of other people that
I was able to make comparison and appreciate its beauty.
This quiet spot was, above everything, a home—a spacious
cultured home pervaded by a dignity and serenity, a hospitality
and loving-kindness, that emanated from my grandfather and
grandmother; in winter, a place of light and warmth; in sum-
mer, of cool shade and the hum of bees among the lindens;
where friends and relatives and their children loved to con-
gregate; where all found a boundless love and welcome. Small
wonder the children looked back to it from the far corners of
the earth, homesick to return.
The house was at its best at the time of the Princeton com-
mencement when the great trees planted by my grandfather
in his youth cast a grateful shade and the flowers were in
bloom. Its doors were wide open to the friends who had gradu-
3
4
Some Memories of a Soldier
ated at college and seminary and were now returning from far
and wide to renew the ties of friendship—and who looked up
to my grandfather, as did the whole town, with reverence and
admiration.
My grandfather was the Rev. Dr. Charles Hodge, for many
years head of the Theological Seminary at Princeton, the fore-
most theologian of his day in America. He was born in Phila-
delphia in 1798 and died at Princeton in 1878. My grand-
mother, Sarah Bache, whose mother was the sister of Dr.
Caspar Wistar of Philadelphia, I never knew, since she died
at Princeton, December 25, 1849, before my birth. Her lovely
character was attested by her children who all "rose up and
called her blessed." I was born at Danville, Ky., September
22, 1853.
Some years after the death of my own grandmother, my
grandfather took a second wife, a widow, Mrs. Mary Hunter
Stockton, of Princeton, who was everything to me that any
grandmother could be, and I always looked upon her as my
own, and upon her son Samuel who married my aunt as my own
uncle. She presided over the large family with dignity and
sweetness, admired and loved by all.
Her father, Andrew Hunter, was the chaplain of the House
of Representatives at Washington during the war with the
British in 1812. She often told of the way he had hurried her
and her two brothers out of Washington in a farm wagon to
save them from the British when they burned our White
House. She was always full of fun and humor, describing the
men of note in the Washington of her day, and she often sang
for me the negro songs learned in Virginia in her youth.
Possum up a gum tree
Cooney in de holla',
Fetch 'em down to ma house,
Gib you haf a dolla'.
Boyhood and West Point
5
་
She told stories of the old times at Morven, the old Stockton
place at Princeton, built in 1702, and the land-title for which
was obtained from William Penn. Here much of her girlhood
was spent, and I greatly fear that there was mischief afoot
when she and her cousins, the sisters of Commodore Stockton,
afterward Mrs. Mary Harrison and Mrs. Julia Rheinlander
of New York, were abroad together. The slaves were manu-
mitted in New Jersey in 1825, but there were many about
Morven during the youth of my grandmother, and I have
heard a tale about one of them who turned sulky, suddenly too
ill to carry out one of the girls' projects, and was given a
Seidlitz powder in separate doses by his young mistresses;
foam came bubbling out of his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, to
the great horror of his victimizers, who believed they had killed
him. All three had quieted down, however, and become great
ladies long before my time.
The death of Mrs. Rheinlander from a stroke of apoplexy
during a visit to our house was a great shock to my youthful
mind, and I was long afraid to enter the room in which she
died, or even pass the door, after dark. Not long before this
happened, Princeton's first murder about 1861 or '62 had
stirred the town to its foundations and is talked of even yet.
If you do not know all about the Rowen murder and do not
talk still of riding in the "dummy," the first little car that
carried passengers back and forth to the main-line Pennsyl-
vania Railroad about sixty years ago, you are not a real Prince-
tonian. The horror of this murder long caused me to cling
closely to my mother's skirts as soon as dusk fell.
When grandmother had become a very old lady, I asked her
once to tell me the pleasantest episode of her life, and she said
it was the summer of 1821 which she spent at West Point,
her brother's last camp. Grandmother had a very great influ-
ence upon my after life, since it was at her instigation that her
brother, General David Hunter, a friend of Lincoln and of
6
Some Memories of a Soldier
Grant, secured for me from the latter the appointment to West
Point which was to shape my whole career.
Uncle David was himself a graduate of 1822, and went, on
graduation, to Fort Snelling, Minnesota, which it took him six
months to reach. He was obliged to walk three hundred miles
on the ice of the Mississippi, from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.
He was in the Fifth Infantry at Fort Dearborn at the mouth
of the Chicago River in 1828. Fort Dearborn was a small col-
lection of log huts surrounded by a high palisade, then the
only settlement save the house and trading-post of John Kinzie,
the trader, whose daughter, Maria, my uncle married, and
whose family had been saved at the Chicago Indian massacre
in 1812.
One night Uncle David heard some one calling from across
the Chicago River, and, borrowing a Pottawatomie Indian
canoe built for one man, paddled across and found it was
Lieutenant Jefferson Davis coming from West Point. Making
Davis lie down in the bottom of the canoe, he straddled and
sat upon him in order to get the center of gravity low enough
to carry two men safely in a one-man canoe, and ferried him
to the other side. The two were warm friends until the Civil
War.
Uncle David pointed out to me once the place where he had
slept on the floor of the White House guarding Lincoln with
other friends of the president, who, fearing his assassination,
had rallied about him at Springfield, Illinois, and come on with
him as a self-appointed bodyguard to Washington for his in-
auguration.
My mother, Mary Elizabeth Hodge, was born in the old
house in 1825 and died in Princeton in 1899. She married my
father, the Rev. William McKendry Scott, upon his graduation
at the Princeton Seminary and went to live with him at Dan-
ville, Kentucky, where he was a professor at Centre College
and pastor of the Presbyterian Church. Here their first four
>
繁
​بھر
Boyhood and West Point
7
children were born: Charles Hodge, John Bayard, Mary Blan-
chard, and myself, born September 22, 1853, and named after
my grandfather's brother, Dr. Hugh Lenox Hodge of Phila-
delphia. John Bayard and Mary Blanchard died in infancy at
Danville. In 1856 my father was called to the pastorate of the
Seventh Presbyterian Church at Cincinnati, where my brother
William was born in 1857.
In 1859 the Presbyterian General Assembly elected my
father professor in the Northwestern Seminary at Chicago,
later called McCormick Seminary.
My father's father, William Scott, migrated from the North
of Ireland in 1798 and settled on a farm at Mount Pleasant,
Jefferson County, Ohio, where he raised a well-to-do family
prominent in their section, and he died in 1851 at the age of
seventy-five.
My mother came from a family of students leading seden-
tary lives with indoor tastes, and could never understand my
passion for the outdoors and for hunting and fishing, inherited
from my father, who during his youth in Ohio had been a very
noted shot with the squirrel-rifle. She looked upon me very
much as a hen would look at a duckling she had hatched, and
upon my tastes as a tendency toward wildness which ought to
be suppressed, until advised by a brother that I was following
my strongest instincts in a perfectly innocent way and that by
interfering she might divert me to something harmful.
She was always afraid that I might shoot some one acci-
dentally, and although the gun was there, I was not allowed to
use it until my fifteenth birthday, when I was supposed to have
arrived at some degree of discretion, so until that time I had
to content myself with a bow and arrow made by myself, with
which I became extremely skilful.
I took no interest in boys' games and never played ball with
the others except when drafted to help fight for the possession
of the ball-grounds of the college during vacations and defend
8
Some Memories of a Soldier
them from another set. Every Saturday found me hunting or
fishing somewhere at daylight, sometimes with some of my
friends, more often alone.
This was the very best school that could have been devised
for a soldier, as I found later on the plains; it taught me to
find my way about and take care of myself in the woods day
and night and in all kinds of weather. I could hunt only on
Saturdays during the school term and had to take the weather
as it came or lose my week-end; so, many days in the dead of
winter, I would be found starting a fox at four o'clock in the
morning four miles from home with a strong cold wind blowing
and a foot of snow on the ground. We often chased a fox on
foot ten miles along the ridge of Rocky Hill covered with
timber and heavy rocks as large as a small house, where no
horse could travel; and night would find us eight or ten miles
from home, hungry, wet, cold, exhausted, with clothes torn to
rags, and home to find in the darkness.
This bred a disregard of obstacles; it bred also the initiative
and the optimism essential to the success of any enterprise, as
well as the undespairing courage and the resolution never to
give up a project without which no soldier can be a success.
It brought in addition a practice in the arts of the field-swim-
ing, handling a boat, riding a horse, shooting a gun-and it
built up an enormous lung power and muscular force that has
lasted to this day. I have seen so many come West brought up
entirely to the life of the city, unhappy and helpless out of
sight of the post, actually unable to command in the field
and forced to go about with somebody else to guide and take
care of them, without initiative of their own, and daunted be-
fore every obstacle. Not one of these has ever risen to eminence
as a field soldier.
Shortly after our mother was left a widow, another widow,
Mrs. Ricketts of Maryland, came with her three sons and a
daughter to live in Princeton, and the families soon became
Boyhood and West Point
9
intimate. My own contemporary was the oldest son who died
early. While walking one day with the next oldest, who now
for many years has been the honored president of the Poly-
technic Institute of Engineering at Troy, New York, together
with a boy who was larger than either of us, the latter began
to tease the Ricketts lad, refusing to stop until I gave him
a bloody nose.
I encountered the offender in 1889 at Wichita Falls, Texas,
where he was then mayor, and I was able to serve him by
obtaining permission for him to hunt wild turkeys on the
Kiowa and Comanche Indian reservation. In 1908 Dr. Ricketts
made a visit to me at West Point and asked me if I remem-
bered the episode in our youth when the president of the Poly-
technic at Troy was being annoyed by the mayor of Wichita
Falls, Texas, who refused to stop until punched in the nose
by the superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point.
These two devoted mothers educated their children with
much toil and sacrifice. I wished so much that after suffering
the loss of their oldest sons, they might have been present
several years ago, in front of old Nassau Hall in Princeton, at
commencement time, to see the youngest of these boys, now the
most eminent mining engineer in the Southwest, receive his
degree, while the three others, all that are now living, sat on
the platform and saw him get it, each with a degree of his
own from the same university.
My brothers and I attended the local schools at Princeton,
my brother Charles graduating from Princeton College in
1868, leaving at once to take up a mercantile career in Pitts-
burgh. My brother William, after taking high honors at Prince-
ton, Cambridge, and Heidelberg, became professor of paleon-
tology and geology at Princeton. He now holds a high place
among the scientists of the world and has taken every sort
of honor belonging to his profession.
After the school at Edge Hill was discontinued, my mother
10
Some Memories of a Soldier
took me to Lawrenceville, the school presided over by Dr.
Samuel Hammill for so many years, which developed into the
present John C. Green Foundation at Lawrenceville. Dr. and
Mrs. Hammill were respected and loved by everybody, and
when in after years they traveled through the West they
found many of their old Lawrenceville boys in positions of
trust who rose up everywhere to do them honor.
There was a younger son of one of our Princeton neighbors
whom I had saved from drowning in the old mill-pond at
Stony Brook, and whose mother felt that I ought therefore to
be his guardian, and, although too young for Lawrenceville, he
was sent there to be under my care. Shortly after our arrival
at the school he came upstairs late one night crying and said
that he had been knocked down by one of the older boys.
This boy was considerably taller than myself; and I lay
awake all night thinking of the drubbing he was going to give
me in the morning when I called him to account, as I intended
doing. We met going downstairs, and I asked him if he had
struck my little friend. He acknowledged that he had, adding
that my protegé had been teasing him. I then struck him
across the bridge of the nose with the back of my hand by way
of challenge. Instead of attacking me fiercely, as I expected
him to do, he burst out crying, saying he could not fight,
whereupon I told him that he must let little boys alone or he
would have to fight. This episode, in spite of its pacific cul-
mination, gave everybody to understand that we would fight if
imposed upon, and we passed the rest of our course there un-
molested. After becoming better acquainted at the school, we
realized that our adversary had outgrown his strength and was
really younger than he appeared.
I was quite homesick during the entire period of my stay at
Lawrenceville and every now and then would climb out of my
window after everybody had gone to bed, walk the five miles
to Princeton, go around to see the horses and dogs, and look
Boyhood and West Point
11
through the window at the people from the outside, afraid to go
in for fear of a scolding for leaving school, then walk the five
long miles back to Lawrenceville, stumbling along the road
sound asleep for a hundred yards at a time, and climb back
through my own window, at length, in safety. I often pass the
old house in Lawrenceville now and look up at that window,
in and out of which I crept more than fifty years ago.
In 1870 I passed all of my examinations for Princeton Col-
lege, but before the session began I was informed of my ap-
pointment to West Point; and it was thought best that I
should continue with a tutor, studying both courses so that I
might enter the sophomore class at Princeton without losing
any time in the event of failure to enter West Point.
As I look back I recognize that my mother would rather
have had me choose some other profession. She thought the
life on the Plains in a military post extremely narrow and
dangerous, and would have preferred that I follow her uncle,
the celebrated Hugh Lenox Hodge, M.D., of Philadelphia,
after whom she had named me. There seemed in those days to
be no future in the army; and, graduating into cavalry, it
seemed that my life was destined to be passed in the Buffalo
country far from civilization and culture. If I were fortunate I
might see a little of England and France on a four months'
leave, but nothing more of the world.
On the contrary, however, I have been once completely
around the world and twice more with the exception of the
width of Germany. In addition my duties have taken me into
Canada, Mexico, and Cuba, as well as into every State in our
Union, so that my life has been extremely interesting to me,
and I consider myself most fortunate in that my profession
and pleasure have gone hand in hand. I have had immense
freedom in the Indian country given me by Generals Sheridan,
Miles, Merritt, Ruger, and other commanders, and have shaped
my own service very largely by their help.
12
Some Memories of a Soldier
Many individuals of our race have been forced by circum-
stance to engage in professions distasteful to them, from which
they find themselves powerless to escape. I shudder at times,
reflecting upon what my life might have been had I allowed
myself to be confined to a sedentary occupation along with the
thousands craving freedom and adventure, condemned to go
through life with their longing unsatisfied; square pegs in
round holes, working to-day to get something to eat so that
they may work to-morrow; seeing no deliverance, no future
for themselves in this life.
The prospects for a lieutenant of cavalry, to be sure, were
very poor for many years. I was nineteen years a lieutenant
and five years at the head of the first lieutenants without gain-
ing a single file. But this was never allowed by either my wife
or myself to sour our dispositions as some have permitted
slow promotion to do, and we enjoyed our daily life on little
/ money.
A WEST POINT CADET
In May, 1871, my Uncle David took me to West Point.
He piloted me over the whole place, pointing out the changes
since he had been a cadet in 1822, forty-nine years before.
He had many stories to tell of the old days, describing the
buildings which had disappeared, the foundations of which
may still be discovered when the drought scorches the grass off
the thin soil above them.
He introduced me to the superintendent and the com-
mandant of cadets, as well as to his other acquaintances. He
was a friend and contemporary of all the professors of that
period-Mahan, Church, Kendricks, Weir, and many others—
Professor Weir being a kinsman of my own through the
Bayards.
In those days West Point professors were sure-enough pro-
fessors, with a lofty dignity all their own and a uniform by
Boyhood and West Point
13
which they were distinguished from afar at a single glance—
a high hat, a swallowtail coat, and a waistcoat with brass but-
tons. They would take off their high hats to each other thirty
feet away in the most ceremonious fashion, saying, "Sir, your
most obedient sir," at the same time bowing and scraping with
one foot in a way I have never seen either before or since,
evidently a relic of the military etiquette of the past.
There was no regular time for the retirement of officers for
age in those days nor for long afterward. While at West Point,
General Grant signified his intention of placing Professor
Mahan, who was then more than seventy, on the retired list.
This news so preyed upon the professor's mind that, while
on a trip to New York, he jumped off the Mary Powell, strik-
ing his head on a paddle-wheel, and was drowned. His funeral
was the first military funeral attended by my class. Eugene
Griffin, in after years the vice-president of the General Electric
Company, marched by my side, and many years afterward I
marched over the same ground behind a like caisson which
carried his body to its grave.
Few of our people to-day are aware of the great part which
West Point has played in the education of America. It was for
many years the only school of engineering in the country, and
its early graduates did most of the engineering work of the
nation. Its textbooks, written by its own professors, were
adopted by Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and other colleges. The
names of Mahan's "Civil Engineering," Church's "Calculus,"
Church's "Descriptive Geometry," and David and Legendre's
"Algebra" were once household names all over America. Col-
onel Sylvanus Thayer, Father of the Military Academy, estab-
lished the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth, while
another superintendent of West Point, Captain Alden Part-
ridge, established the University of Norwich, and still another
Military Academy superintendent started the Naval Academy
on its way. Many of West Point's graduates who went into civil
14
Some Memories of a Soldier
life became presidents and chancellors of universities. Hundreds
became professors, and all made a deep impress upon their
time.
PLEBE DAYS
Uncle David warned me on entering that I was going into a
new world with strange customs, where it was expected that the
new cadets would fag for the older, just as the new-comers
did at Eton and the other great schools of England. This had
been the custom at West Point since the beginning, and all the
distinguished graduates, such as Grant, Sheridan, and Sherman,
had complied with it. Since no insult would be intended, my
uncle explained, it would be better for me to do likewise,
and if ever it were meant to insult me, I would know it at once
and should then draw the line hard and sharp.
My uncle left me to the tender mercies of Fred Grant and
Tony Rucker, both sons of old army friends, about to gradu-
ate. George Anderson from New Jersey of the same class gave
me his overcoat, dress-coat, and many pairs of white trousers.
In these days a low limit is placed on the number of white
trousers allowed, for otherwise no laundry could cope with
them, but we were allowed then as many as anybody would
give us. Friends in different classes graduating gave me their
trousers, and in my turn five years later I left my cousin,
Charles Hunter, many pairs.
President and Mrs. Grant came to West Point to see their
son Fred graduate and were taken to hear the prima donna,
Christine Nilsson, sing in our mess-hall. She rested after sing-
ing a while, and in the interim George Webster of '71 sang,
"I am dying, Egypt, dying." Then Miss Nilsson sang, "'Way
down upon the Swanee River" and "Home Sweet Home." This
was too much for the poor, tired, miserably homesick new
cadets to stand, and they wept. I was no exception.
Miss Nilsson expressed her desire for a cadet bell button,
Boyhood and West Point
15
and she soon had a bushel, although it is supposed to be a more
or less great crime to give them away.
The West Point of 1871 was very different from the West
Point of to-day. The entire corps was only a third of its present
size and was quartered in the old barracks. The superintend-
ent's office was a small ugly building with a mansard roof, on
the site of the present office. The old hospital academy building,
chapel, and riding hall-the last built by Colonel Robert E.
Lee when superintendent in 1855, at the time when Mrs. Scott's
father was a cadet-were all very small. Winter afternoons,
after recitations were over, were taken up in boxing, fencing, or
dancing with other cadets to improve our technique; and our
summers were spent mainly in outdoor drill, dancing, and
swimming by night in the river. There were only a few
horses, and all had to do duty in the riding-hall as well as in
the battery. The enlisted men and horses were all quartered
at the north end of the Post under the hill.
The class of new cadets in those days were placed under
the charge of a few upper-classmen. Ours was under the first
captain of the class of 1872. We thought he treated us badly
but said nothing about it until he went too far in the mistreat-
ment of one of our number whom we considered unable to
look after himself. A meeting was held at which it was de-
cided that a challenge to fight should be sent to the first
captain, and it was also thought that the challenge should
emanate from me. This rôle had not been sought after by me,
but since it seemed the decision of the class it was carried out.
It developed that the captain did not propose to lose his posi-
tion by fighting a miserable plebe, but his roommate, Jug
Wood, later of the Fourth Cavalry, said that "if that plebe
wants to fight I'll fight him." The second explained that no-
body wanted to fight, and if the proposed fight took place it
would do us no good. We held that all we wanted was justice
for our classmate and that we would have to get it somehow.
16
Some Memories of a Soldier
There was no fight, but the situation regarding our classmate
was relieved.
There was a fight, however, after we returned to the bar-
racks in September. The vacancies left after the general exam-
ination were filled during the summer by what we called
the "Seps," who came into the corps in September after we
old and experienced men of the same class had been hazed by
the upper-classmen in June. It was the custom for us June men
to haze the Seps mildly for a few days. During this process
a small man by the name of Marrin from New York was
knocked down a whole flight of steps by a big man from the
west. A class meeting was held over this, and again the star
part fell to me and my challenge was carried by Hoyle and
Isbell. We met after reveille at Fort Clinton, one of the old
forts of the Revolution, under the rules of the Marquis of
Queensbury, each with two seconds before a referee or umpire.
My opponent did not have so much skill with his fists, but he
was a good head taller and twenty pounds heavier and his rush
was like that of a locomotive. He knocked me down twice, the
last time by what is usually a knock-out blow on the point of
the chin, which dented the bone and stunned me so that I was
almost counted out. He had been knocked down only once, and
I was almost all in when happily I placed a blow on the point
of his chin, landing him on the small of his back, and he was
counted out just in time to save me from a Waterloo. He failed
to graduate, and I lost sight of him for many years when one
day I learned that he was a lawyer in New Orleans, instru-
mental in putting the Louisiana Lottery out of business. I
wrote him a letter telling him I still had that pretty little
dimple he had given me on the chin. He wrote back that that
was "one of the things it was better to give than to receive."
Our lives crossed in another way, we found, as it was his fa-
ther who, as a Congressman, brought into question the enlisting
of 1500 negroes in the Civil War by my uncle, David Hunter.
Boyhood and West Point
17
YEARLING MISFORTUNE
Winter and spring examinations were safely passed, en-
titling me to become a yearling. We were all warned not to haze
members of the new class, but we all disregarded this, giving
them, however, a far milder hazing than we had received our-
selves. As luck would have it, I happened to be the one caught.
It was set down in the drill regulations that the hands should
be carried with the palms to the front, but in practice this
was made to apply only to the new cadets. I told one to carry
his palms to the front and, upon his failure to obey, caught
him by the wrist and turned his hand around for him. He
saw my name on my shirt and reported me for hazing him, for
which I was suspended for one year and ordered to join the
next lower class. I and my class were much aggrieved at this
severe punishment for what had been a custom ever since the
founding of the Academy. Far rougher things were done in
those days in civilian colleges as a matter of course, and no
notice was taken of them.
I now, however, look back on the occurrence far differently.
In the first place, West Point is a national school where men
are being fitted to command armies for the defense of our
country. Although hazing might be permitted in a mild way
in a civilian college, it cannot be permitted at West Point, as
all cadets have taken an oath to obey the orders of the Presi-
dent of the United States and of the officers appointed over
them, who have forbidden this practice. Many old graduates
who were well hazed in their times excuse hazing by saying
that it does a plebe good, operating to cut his mother's apron-
string as well as to give him a sense of discipline which he
might otherwise never attain. This is eminently true, and I
myself recognize the benefits received from hazing. But this
is a mere sophistry which has nothing to do with the case.
18
Some Memories of a Soldier
The facts are that the foundation of all military discipline is
obedience to orders, and that, therefore, since hazing has been
forbidden by the proper authorities, it cannot be tolerated.
To teach otherwise at West Point would go far to sap the
foundations of the republic by producing a type of officer
who could not be trusted at the critical moment to obey his
orders. West Point furnishes the initiative, the directing and
informing spirit of American armies, the leaven which leavens
the whole lump, the standards of duty and honor without which
an army is but an armed mob; and nothing should be spared
to keep these standards of the highest quality and to cause
them to be adhered to, for upon these in crucial moments de-
pends the life of this republic, and certainly neither politics nor
sentimentality should be allowed to interfere.
In those old days, many years before the beautiful swim-
ming-pool in the gymnasium at West Point, the cadets were
allowed to swim in the Hudson River off Gee's Point. This is
rather a dangerous place, for the water deepens rapidly, and
the tide is apt to turn and carry one far out into the river,
and in fact a number of cadets have drowned there, including
a member of my class. The cadets were allowed to swim only
in the late evening because the location was too public.
Notwithstanding the danger, cadets constantly took advan-
tage of this permission, and in the summer of 1871, while
swimming away from the others, I kept going until I reached
the other side, and I acquired much merit for crossing the
river and returning. No doubt there have been many who have
accomplished this same feat in the years both before and since,
but nobody else had achieved it in our time.
A classmate of mine named Josiah King asked to swim
over with me, which I always refused, telling him that while
I knew my own ability I did not know his, and I did not wish
to be drowned on his account. His requests were renewed in
Boyhood and West Point
19
the summer of '72 and became so insistent that I gave way to
his importunity.
We swam out very comfortably but suddenly the tide turned
and carried us far down toward the railway embankment.
King did not want to land and rest, as seemed best, and when
we were near the embankment he started back without me,
and I was obliged to follow and catch up with him. We swam
a long time against the tide, but it had become so dark by that
time that we were unable to gage our progress by anything on
the banks. We seemed to be swimming out into infinite space
and getting nowhere. This got on King's nerves after a while,
and he announced that he was all in and could go no further
and that I must leave him as there was no reason for us both
to be drowned. I encouraged him to persevere and told him that
I would never leave him under any circumstances. He strug-
gled along for some time with assistance, but finally it be-
came necessary for me to take him on my back, strug-
gling all the time against the tide until at last we both got
ashore.
It was the feeling of my class that the saving of King had
offset this breach of discipline in turning the new cadet's hands
around, but none of us knew how to present it to the author-
ities, who seemed indifferent to such matters, possibly because
they did not wish to let the only fish they had caught escape
through the net, although a somewhat similar case occurred
about the same time at the Naval Academy where the cadet
was forgiven. But those were not the days of forgiveness at
West Point; "Stand on your own feet!" "Behave yourself or
take the consequences!" "Work out your own salvation!" and
"Root, hog, or die!" were the sentiments which dominated
there. While a good many did die metaphorically, there is not
a doubt that those who survived were a hardy band and fully
earned their commissions.
20
Some Memories of a Soldier
Twenty-five years later I received the following recognition
of this rescue:
My Dear Scott:
War Department,
Adjutant General's Office.
Washington, December 31, 1897.
In recalling an act of heroism of yours which occurred while we
were both cadets, I have been struck with the fact that your conduct
has not only never received any official recognition, but that there
seems to be no record of it except in the memory and the applaud-
ing recollections of your classmates and friends. I desire, therefore,
to put this letter in your possession as a brief and unpretentious
record of the facts as known to myself.
In the early summer of 1872, some time after we had gone into
camp, I was one of a party of cadets that went in the evening to
our usual bathing place, Gee's point. While there several cadets
undertook to swim across the river. I think you and King were the
only ones who achieved the feat. The Hudson at this point is very
wide and the swimmers have to encounter the swell caused by passing
steamers or other craft. On the way back King's strength gave out
and he was unable to keep afloat. You took him on your back,
though he was a man as large as yourself; and, at imminent risk of
losing your own life, brought him safely to shore. I think you must
have sustained him in the water for at least half an hour. We cadets
on the bank were very much excited and were straining our eyes
through the darkness-for it was in the evening-to get a sight of
you and King. As you drew near we could hear you encouraging
him by the assurance that you were approaching shore. When you
finally succeeded in landing him he was completely helpless, and
your own strength seemed nearly exhausted. If ever a man deserved
recognition for the most commendable of all acts-the saving of
the life of a comrade at the risk of his own existence-you certainly
deserve such recognition. Many people have received life-saving
medals and public commendation for acts requiring less courage and
less nerve; but with characteristic modesty you have made no men-
tion of your own heroic act, but left it to your friends to remember
or to forget as they saw fit. I am one of those who can never forget
the occurrence, and who take pleasure in recalling it not only as
a very brave action, but as one that was so thoroughly characteristic
Boyhood and West Point
21
of yourself as to have occasioned less comment than it would have
aroused had it been performed by almost any other member of our
class. After the lapse of these many years I recall the occurrence as
distinctly as though it had occurred last evening, and I take the
greatest pleasure in making at least this unassuming record of one
of the most pleasing recollections of my cadet days.
With cordial regards and best wishes, I am, my dear Scott,
Very sincerely yours,
Captain H. L. Scott, 7th Cavalry,
Washington, D. C.
ARTHUR L. WAGNER,
Assistant Adjutant General.
THE OLD AND THE NEW
Those old superintendents, whose character it was that
governed the spirit of the West Point of that day, were imbued
with the doctrine of rigid discipline inherited from the British
Army; and although they were just as hard on themselves as
on every one else, their methods in dealing with young sub-
ordinates may seem a bit unfeeling to this more humane
generation.
As a specific example of their inflexible attitude, a mother of
a cadet who had graduated before the Civil War once told me
that she would never forgive a certain superintendent, because
when her son asked for a permit to go home, as his father was
dying, the superintendent said: "Young man, the government
is your father and mother both; if you feel badly you can
trot around the parade-ground once or twice and you will feel
better."
In the old days the superintendents did not want any out-
sider to come on the Post nor any insider to go off. It had
been the custom in the classes before ours for the yearlings
to purchase some rowing shells from the graduating class for
their use on the river, but when we made application to pur-
chase them in our turn, we were met with a firm "no," and the
22
Some Memories of a Soldier
shells remained at least four years in the boat-house without
being used. We thought that it was because Fred Grant's class
had been too undisciplined. Whenever discipline gets below
the standard at West Point, the War Department sends some
case-hardened superintendent who pushes the pendulum of
discipline to the opposite extreme. That is what happened to
us. Conditions were much harder in our time than they have
ever been since. Nowadays there are many sports and other
alleviations unheard of and unthought of in those days, and
whereas we look back upon the old gray barracks as a jail
where we served four years at hard labor, the great majority
of present-day graduates leave the Academy with actual regret.
Aside from the more sympathetic trend of present-day dis-
cipline, the entire modernization of barrack facilities has much
to do with this new attitude of graduating cadets. No longer
does the plebe struggle up four flights of stairs carrying water,
nor is he obliged to trudge down icy halls in the middle of the
night and across the area knee-deep in snow, or to steal hot
water out of the radiators for shaving, to be punished if caught.
Neither is he restricted to the two baths a week "permitted"
formerly; he goes down heated halls into a tiled bath-room in
the basement, and takes as many baths as he likes with warm
water and in warm air. Thirty years after my own graduation,
I replaced with hot and cold water on every floor the ancient
hydrant at which old Bentz, the bugler, who called Cadet U. S.
Grant and others of fame to recitations before my time, used
to wash out the "nails" those bad cadets put in his "pugle."
Bentz, by the way, lies out with other honored dead in the
cemetery above the river, and his "pugle" is shown to visitors
in the museum, where, the moment I laid eyes on it, I recog-
nized the patches where his faithful fingers had worn through
the metal.
I have heard old graduates groan over this "coddling of
cadets" which they claim is carrying West Point straight to
Boyhood and West Point
23
the dogs at a rapid stride. But no deterioration was evident in
France that was ever directed to my attention. It is very
easy for the old to think that the young are retrograding if
things are not run for them in exactly the way to which they
themselves were brought up. But association with the armies of
England, France, Russia, and Rumania has convinced me that
our regular army officers are the peers of any, and from my
own experience at West Point, covering eight years both as
boy and man, supplemented by various inspections made as
chief of staff and numerous visits since as an alumnus, I have
become firmly assured that there is in our venerable military
institution a constant evolution upward. Every time I go back
I note some new improvement, and ask myself, "Why didn't
I have the wit to do that long ago?"
So far as the slackening of the iron bands of the old-time
discipline goes, one hears nothing any more of "butter riots,"
nothing about the reveille gun being brought up to take a shot
at the quarters of the superintendent, nor of a companion to
the ancient ditty:
Seventy-three, seventy-three,
They fired the gun in the a-ri-ee!
Instead, in these saner, more wisely directed days, surplus
energy is expended in baseball, football, lacrosse, hockey, polo,
and other athletic games unknown in our time; and tactical
officers, instead of rushing distractedly about in the middle of
the night to forestall some nefarious plot, are like Shakespeare's
men o' substance who "sleep o' nights all to the glory of God
and the good of this commonwealth."
PART II
Service on the Plains
I WITNESSED the graduation of the West Point class 1875 with
deep sorrow and bade good-by to my roommate, George L.
Scott, from Oregon. I saw him only once again in after years,
and there were others, too, I have never seen again.
I myself graduated on June 14, 1876, ranking thirty-six
in the class of forty-eight, but high enough for the cavalry,
which was my ambition. If I had missed the cavalry I would
have considered that all my toil at West Point had resulted in
failure. I asked for an additional second lieutenancy in the
cavalry in preference to being assigned to a full lieutenancy in
any other branch.
We were marched into the old chapel to receive our hard-
won diplomas from General W. T. Sherman, commanding the
army, and paid about as much attention to his words of
admonition as do other classes, members of which are mainly
intent on donning civilian clothes and getting down to New
York in a hurry. Whenever I have since had to speak at a
West Point graduation I have remembered Father Isadore, the
old Belgian priest in charge of the Kiowa Indian Catholic
school at Anadarko, Oklahoma, who said that when those little
folk were seated at the dinner-table he could see their hungry
eyes fixed on the bread and gravy and made his grace very
short.
I was assigned to the Ninth Cavalry on the Arizona border,
then a quiet sector. There was only one vacancy available for
our class, in the Seventh Cavalry then operating on the Yellow-
24
Service on the Plains
25
stone against the Sioux of Montana, since one of the only two
vacancies had gone to a civilian as a political appointment, and
the first had been obtained by my classmate, Garlington, who
graduated some four files above me. He, because of the Custer
fight, joined the regiment as first lieutenant. But I was glad to
be admitted into any cavalry regiment and returned home a
free man for a while, rejoicing to see my family.
With my brother William I went down to see the Centennial
in Philadelphia, where I first met and grew to know that splen-
did old soldier and my lifelong friend, Colonel Dan Appleton,
afterward colonel of the Seventh Regiment of New York. The
Corps of Cadets and the Seventh Regiment were both camped
there, but discipline was somewhat stricter in the cadet camp,
as was very natural. Any soldier who got into one of the com-
pany streets of the Seventh Regiment was in for a strenuous
time. Each tent floor had a small cellar under it, filled with
ice, champagne, roast chicken, and other delicacies, and a
passer-by would be hauled into those tents, one after another,
and, with the cellar door opened wide, he would not be allowed
to leave until some duty called his hospitable hosts elsewhere.
There were no such cellars under the tents of the cadets.
I met one of my friends from Princeton on July 5 in the
street, who told me that Custer and all his men had been killed
in battle with the Sioux. I answered that I did not believe it.
He suggested that I get a newspaper, and I soon verified the
news. Custer was killed on June 25, and it had taken ten days
for the news to get to the nearest telegraph station, Bismarck,
Dakota, first coming down-stream on a steamboat on the June
rise, the fastest possible way for it to travel.
After recovering somewhat from the shock of the tidings and
the death of my classmates, Sturges and Crittenden of '75, I
began to see that there were many vacancies now in the
Seventh Cavalry and hurried back to Princeton to consult my
uncle, Sam Stockton, who had been a captain in the Fourth
Some Memories of a Soldier
city, as to the best means of securing a transfer. He told
ne to sat down at once and write an application and send it
through our uncle David, in Washington, who knew everybody
in the War Department. I demurred at this haste, as jumping
for the shoes of those killed in the Little Big Horn before they
were cold, but I was advised not to delay.
Our uncle got my letter at breakfast, went at once to the
War Department, where they were then making out the trans-
fers to the Seventh Cavalry, and saw to it that my name was
included in that fighting regiment, much to my satisfaction.
Things were now coming my way, and I would soon be in the
Indian country.
It took some time for my transfer to the Seventh Cavalry to
be effected with the making out of a new commission as second
lieutenant of cavalry, which was dated June 26, 1876, the day
after the Custer fight. At length, however, my orders came to
report at the headquarters of the Seventh Cavalry at old Fort
Abraham Lincoln, Dakota, across the Missouri River and five
miles away from Bismarck-not to be confounded with the new
Fort Abraham Lincoln of this day, on the Bismarck side of
the Missouri.
Bismarck was very crude in those days. The houses were
mainly board shanties, few in number. It was for long the end
of the Northern Pacific Railway and the jumping-off place of
the Northwest. One might go a thousand miles west or travel
north to the Arctic Circle with the probability of not seeing
a human being. That country was the home of the buffalo and
the wild Indian, a land of romance, adventure, and mystery;
and I had carried it in mind during those five long years at
West Point, fitting myself for service within its borders.
No boy ever left home with brighter anticipation or with
more affection and love from those left behind. Going out from
the East I stopped at Pittsburgh to see my brother and his
new wife; again at Chicago, the headquarters of General Sheri-
Service on the Plains
27
dan, who commanded all the Plains country, and at St. Paul,
where General Terry commanded the Plains of the Northwest
clear to the Rocky Mountains. St. Paul was not then the great
city we know now. Mrs. Scott and I have lately been in St.
Paul again, and about the only thing we could recognize of
that early time was the Mississippi River.
Staying at the old Merchants' Hotel on Third Street, I ex-
plored the town, not then a lengthy process, and saw tall,
straight Chippewa Indians, wrapped in their blue and scarlet
blankets, striding about in a very dignified way, giving me the
feeling of proximity to the frontier which, however, was still
far to the West. All Minnesota then was up in arms, aflame
with excitement over the chase after the James and Younger
brothers from Missouri, who had attempted to rob the bank at
Northfield, Minnesota, and had killed the cashier. Some of the
gang had been killed, and the body of one was exhibited in the
window of a store on Third Street, St. Paul.
Bob Younger had been wounded, and Jesse James wanted
the brother, Cole Younger, to kill Bob so as to facilitate their
escape, but Cole refused. Both were captured and served a long
sentence in the penitentiary at Stillwater, Minnesota. Frank
and Jesse James escaped and reached their asylum in Mis-
souri, to which they always returned after some deed of
iniquity in other parts of the country, and received protection
as heroes.
At the Merchants' Hotel I met Captains Frederick Benteen
and MacDougal of the Seventh Cavalry, fresh from the Yellow-
stone and Missouri after the Custer fight. Benteen was then
the hero of all America, credited with saving the remnant of
the Seventh Cavalry. They both gave me a cordial welcome to
the regiment and were strong friends of mine as long as they
lived. With them was Texas Jack (John Omohundro), just off
the Yellowstone, with long hair, dressed in buckskin, on his
way east to join the new show of Buffalo Bill. I was to see him
28
Some Memories of a Soldier
again in the Nez Percé war in the confines of the Yellowstone
Park, but at that time he was the first of his kind that I had
met.
Leaving St. Paul, I stopped a few days at Fargo on the Red
River of the North, where a friend of Benteen's furnished me
with a boat in which I had my first duck shoot in the North-
west. I had brought out a pointer and a setter from home,
given me by friends, and saw my first live prairie-chicken not
far from Fargo. From Fargo two hundred miles west to Bis-
marck, the end of the track, I did not see a house until I
reached the Missouri River except those of the section hands
along the railroad, and the passengers got their meals at
Jamestown in a freight-car standing on the side-track.
We arrived at Bismarck after dark, the train having taken
the entire day to come from Fargo. Trains did not run then
at night, and it required three days to make the run from St.
Paul to the Missouri River.
I drove down to the Missouri the next morning and sat on
the bank, waiting for the ferry, as I was to do many times in
the years to come. This was my first sight of the wild Mis-
souri, and I looked at it with deep interest. Nowhere is it
described so fitly and so beautifully as by Francis Parkman,
the great historian of the North, in his "Conspiracy of Pon-
tiac," which I carried, with the report of Captain Raynolds's
expedition of 1859 through the Northwest, in my pack-basket,
for ten thousand miles and read again and again, as I still do
at intervals with perennial pleasure.
Reporting at the headquarters of the Seventh Cavalry, I
found Major Marcus A. Reno in command, Lieutenant George
D. Wallace, the adjutant, of the class of 1872, and many
classmates and friends from other classes at West Point. I
received a genuinely warm welcome and was assigned to the
Gray Horse Troop of the Seventh Cavalry, with Lieutenant
De Rudio in command; our captain, Charles Illsley, was then
Service on the Plains
29
away on the staff of General John Pope at Fort Leavenworth,
Kansas. I looked rather askance at Reno, whose reputation
was being pulled apart all over the United States, and my im-
pression of him was not improved by observation.
The regiment had got back to its post from the Yellowstone
only a short time before and was in process of reorganization,
with thirty new officers, some of whom had reported before me,
while others were still to come in one at a time. Five hundred
new recruits and five hundred new horses had just been
received from the East. It was in the air that we were to take
the field again in a short while, and the only property we each
had was a saber, a trunk, and a roll of bedding, to which I
added a couple of dogs, two shot-guns, and a Henry rifle. No
one thought it worth while to acquire any furniture for the
short period we would be able to use it.
Wallace and Varnum took me in with them to sleep in the
drawing-room of the quarters just vacated by Mrs. Custer,
who had gone East. Eight of us slept on the floor in our field
bedding until the regiment started off on a new campaign; thus
the house that Custer had left with such bright hopes the
spring before was my first habitation on the Plains of the
West. The first subscription in the Seventh Cavalry I was
asked for was in the purchase, from the government, by the
officers of the Seventh, of Custer's horse, Dandy, to be sent to
Mrs. Custer.
Fort Lincoln at that time was the station of headquarters
and eight troops of the Seventh Cavalry, and of two infantry
companies that took care of the post in the absence of the
cavalry, the latter living in what was called the Upper or
Infantry Post on a high hill a mile distant from the Lower or
Cavalry Post.
The Seventh Cavalry had come in from an expedition on the
Yellowstone in the autumn of 1873, to find its winter quarters
still unfinished, and had turned-to and nailed shingles, in order
30
Some Memories of a Soldier
to get some place to live before winter, which sets in early in
the Northwest and usually rages with great fury. North Dakota
is where the blizzards reach us out of Canada, straight down
from the Arctic Circle, and a winter out of doors is not to be
looked forward to with pleasure.
The constructing quartermaster was enabled, partly through
this voluntary labor of the Seventh Cavalry, to save thirty
thousand dollars from the appropriation made for construc-
tion; and although he did not finish the post, which never was
completed before it was torn apart and destroyed, he thought
he would acquire merit for economy by turning this thirty
thousand dollars back into the Treasury as a saving, leaving
successive garrisons, who had to live in an unfinished post, to
execrate his memory. General Pope at Fort Leavenworth heard
of this saving and went to Washington, where he induced the
quartermaster-general to spend the sum on a road between
Leavenworth and Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
The country began to roll just behind the post, the brakes
and ravines of the Missouri dotted with little oak groves con-
taining deer, and the river bottoms full of prairie-chickens
beginning to pack for the winter. This was the country of my
dreams and the Seventh Cavalry my choice of all the regiments
in the army, which I would have chosen had I graduated at
the head of my class. The great Sioux agency of Standing
Rock was only sixty miles down the river, and we were on the
Sioux reservation.
Francis Parkman wrote that "the Indian is a true child of
the forest and the desert. The wastes and solitude of Nature
are his congenial home, his haughty mind is imbued with the
spirit of the wilderness, and civilization sits upon him with a
blighting power. His unruly mind and untamed spirit are in
harmony with the lonely mountains and cataracts, among which
he dwells, and primitive America, with her savage men and
Service on the Plains
31
savage scenery, presents to the imagination a boundless world,
unmatched in wild sublimity."
Here then before me was this primitive America for which
I sought, and here was I with a spirit attuned to understand it
and to rejoice in becoming a part of its life. Many of my com-
temporaries were children of the East, always looking eastward
and longing to get back; but no matter how cold, how wet, how
hungry I found myself during all the years of Plains life that
followed, I felt that I was where I belonged.
WITH THE INDIANS
Wallace, who commanded the Sioux and Arikara scouts at
that time, took me down into their village on the second day
of my sojourn to make their acquaintance. There were always
a few scouts kept there to carry despatches in the Indian coun-
try and to guide detachments out from the post. When an
expedition was on foot there would be a large number of
scouts brought from their agency to scout the country in front
of the command, guide it through the country by the best
route, and show where water could be found. The tribe from
which they came would be chosen according to the country in
which we were to operate and the tribe we were to operate
against, taking advantage of their knowledge of the country
where they had been brought up and of their enmity against
their neighbors. Now and then there would be some willing to
combine against their own tribe.
Realizing that the Sioux tribe was the largest and most
powerful in the Northwest, I thought that their language
must be the court language of that section, especially as the
Arikara scouts all spoke it, and I made arrangements to have
them teach me Sioux. I thought that a knowledge of the tongue
would help me in getting command of the scouts, a position
32
Some Memories of a Soldier
sought after by the more adventurous lieutenants with no troop
of their own. The position was analogous to that of an aviator
of to-day; one could always be ahead of the command, away
from the routine that was irksome, and sure to have a part in
all the excitement.
I soon found that the Sioux language was quite limited in
the scope of its usefulness, but that the sign language of the
Plains was an intertribal language, spoken everywhere in the
buffalo country from the Saskatchewan River of British Amer-
ica to Mexico, east of the Rocky Mountains and west of the
Missouri, and I began the study of this at the same time with
the Sioux, and have continued its study down to this very day.
Through my mastery of this means of communication with
the natives, I soon became known to commanders of every
grade, clear up to generals Sheridan and Miles, who befriended
me as long as they lived; they gave me a freedom and scope
I have seen extended to none else in the Indian country, per-
haps because I was satisfied there and took pleasure in carrying
out any work they might have for me. Generals Ruger and
Merritt did likewise, and, in fact, I came and went as I pleased
without question, but I always pleased to be on deck when I
was wanted.
I began then an intensive study of every phase of the Indian
and his customs, particularly as to how he might best be ap-
proached and influenced, a knowledge that has stood me in
good stead many times, has doubtless saved my life again and
again, and has also been used to the national benefit by differ-
ent Presidents of the United States, by secretaries of war and
of the interior.
It was the custom in those days for the cavalry to spend the
greater part of the year in the saddle, either in pursuit of
hostile Indians or in holding in check the semi-hostile. This
was so much a matter of course that no officer could obtain a
leave of absence, except under the most exceptional circum-

Fell
JOSEPH, CHIEF OF NEZ PERCÉ INDIANS IN IDAHO, 1877
Service on the Plains
33
stances, until after the return of the annual expedition from
the field; the longest time the cavalry might expect to spend
at the post would be the few months in the dead of winter,
and often even this was not possible.
When operating in the Big Horn country we had scouts from
the Crow tribe, who lived generally along the base of the Big
Horn and Pryor Mountains and hated the Sioux with a mortal
hatred. The scouts were kept always in advance, often ten,
twenty, or thirty miles ahead, watching the whole country with
a glass from the tops of high landmarks, themselves unseen,
and a bird could scarcely fly over that country without their
knowledge, for they knew of certain lookouts that commanded
views of wide areas. Lying on top of one of these points, his
head screened by a bunch of grass or sage-brush, a keen young
Sioux, Cheyenne, Arikara, or Crow scout, eager for the fame
only to be gained by military prowess in war, seeing a raven
fly up suddenly, or a wolf or a coyote run up out of a ravine,
stopping now and then to look backward, or a band of antelope
or buffalo suddenly begin to stampede, would know that some-
thing had frightened them and would not leave his place until
he had ascertained the source of the fear. Then he would back
down out of sight on the reverse side of the hill and make his
signals to the other scouts far in the rear.
While traveling with the scouts I lived just as they did, and
allowed no custom of theirs to go unnoticed, never resting until
I found the motive, which they were often unable to formulate
themselves, although they were always the very soul of affabil-
ity, anxious to impart information wherever possible. I know
that I have been a sore trial to the patience of thousands of
friendly Indians of different tribes by boring away at a subject
which they were unable to elucidate, attacking the matter from
every angle until they were worn out or I had attained my
object. They must often have felt that I had been sent to them
for their sins, or would have, had they thought they had any
Some Memories of a Soldier
34
sins for which to be punished. But the idea of sin is the white
man's invention, and is foreign to the Indian.
INTO THE FIELD
Everybody in the Seventh Cavalry was feverishly engaged in
training the "green" men and horses for the new campaign
that everybody felt was imminent. I soon got an order to go
down the Missouri, twenty-five miles to old Fort Rice, and
bring back some artillery harness and make a battery out of
some muzzle-loading guns, with cavalry soldiers and con-
demned cavalry horses, unfit to ride. Long before these new
men and horses were properly trained and disciplined, orders
came to cross to the east side of the Missouri. We were ferried
across the river and went into camp on the Missouri bottom,
my first night in the field with the Seventh Cavalry. Hare, whom
I had known well in the class of '74, took command of the bat-
tery as my superior, as well as of his own Troop I, to which I
had been transferred from E. We tented and messed together
from that time on whenever we were in the same camp.
I was awakened in the middle of the night by a fearsome
sound, which to my tenderfoot mind could only be caused by
an attack on the camp by the whole Sioux tribe, and aroused
Hare to help defend the camp. This caused Hare much merri-
ment, for his longer experience had taught him that those
incredible sounds were caused only by the ardent efforts of one
lone coyote to impart his sorrows to the moon. I have since
heard this sound times without number and always with pleas-
ure. Although he is proscribed and hunted by men, I have the
same friendly feeling for the coyote that actuates the Indian.
We were joined in this camp by our colonel and headquar-
ters and remained here several days. No one knew where we
were going or against whom we were to operate until orders
were received to go down the Missouri River to disarm and
dismount the Indians at the various Sioux agencies below, who
Service on the Plains
35
had been sending ammunition, rifles, and supplies to the hostile
camps of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull near the mountains.
The Indian Department had at last awakened to the advisabil-
ity of ending the traffic in arms and ammunition with the
hostile camps.
Although there was a strong probability that the Sioux would
resist having their arms and horses taken from them, we were
going to attempt it with a force composed largely of new men
and horses that had not had time to become half disciplined
and instructed, and my battery was the least efficient of all
because of the wider scope to be covered by instruction. I kept
instructing them every day, but I well knew that my efforts
and ability were inadequate if we were going to fight. How-
ever, it was the best that could be done under the circum-
stances, and I was too young and reckless to worry much.
What bothered me infinitely more was that I had come west to
be a flying cavalryman, to be free and far ahead with the
scouts, and instead my adverse fate had nailed down my coat-
tails to a battery that had to travel at a walk behind the
column. I had not undergone five years of toil at West Point
to come out to the Plains to be a wagon soldier, and my spirit
chafed at the idea. I made every effort to get away from the
battery to travel with the scouts, who broke camp and were
on their way before daylight, covering the country far in front
as carefully as pointer-dogs in search of quail.
We were furnished with that bane of the soldier's life, "con-
tract transportation," that was continually breaking down on
the road, by reason of which the command was often without
its tents and dinners until one o'clock in the morning, wearing
out men and animals uselessly. The battery, however, was
allowed to keep its wagons with its guns and not in the quarter-
master's train, and whenever one of our wagons got stuck in
the mud a four-horse battery team would soon jerk it out. We
saw to it that whenever we reached camp our wagons would
36
Some Memories of a Soldier
be with us, and we soon had our tents up and dinner ready.
Seeing our colonel waiting for his, we would always invite him
to dine with us, and it happened that he dined at our mess
more frequently than at his own. The procurement of game
made him more willing to let me go ahead with the scouts,
and I would come into camp laden with chickens, snipe, and
ducks for our mess and his, and it soon became a matter of
course for me to leave the battery with Hare, my superior, in
command, and go off with the scouts before daylight every day.
1
As we approached Standing Rock the signs of excitement
among the Sioux began to be frequent. Every now and then
we would find a travois ¹ lying on the ground where the owner
had left it on learning of our approach, cutting the lashings,
allowing it to fall to the ground, then jumping on their horses
and getting away in flight, abandoning all their property. This
carried small message of danger to my tenderfoot mind, and
the efforts of the Arikara scouts to make me join the others,
motioning me back with their hands, saying, "You go home,
Sioux kill him-Sioux kill him—Ktepi Ktepi!" made as little
impression.
While I traveled carelessly along with my orderly we saw
in the middle of the river bottom some Sioux bodies lashed on
high platforms and went to examine them. We had seen a long
line of Indian heads skirting the edge of the timber, watching
our movements, but that made no difference to us until the
orderly, looking up, called out, "Hurry up, lieutenant; they
are going to fight!" and we saw the eight troops of the Seventh
Cavalry coming front into line at a gallop over the bluffs, and
Hare going into battery on a high knoll, while we were out in
the middle of the bottom, half-way between the two forces.
We thought we had better join our battery in a hurry to take
part in anything that was going to happen.
'A litter made of two lodge poles drawn by horse or dog, the rear ends
dragging on the ground.
Service on the Plains
37
After a short time some Indians started toward us, and old
Two Bears, long chief of the Yanktonais Sioux, approached
with several followers. He was dressed in buckskin, covered by
a scarlet blanket with a broad band of beads across the center
of the back, his face painted a deep red, and he carried a
large red-stone pipe on his arm.
The colonel told him what he had come for. This caused the
old man great excitement, the perspiration popping out through
the greasy paint. He tried to make an argument, but the colonel
told him he was there under orders from higher authority and
was compelled to carry them out, whether he wanted to or not,
and there was no use in discussing a matter which had been
determined in St. Paul or Chicago; it was not in his power to
alter the arrangements, and it would be best for all if Two
Bears were to give up his horses and arms quietly and cheer-
fully, because he would take them anyhow and greatly pre-
ferred to do it without bloodshed. Two Bears agreed finally to
give them up quietly and went back to the other Indians in
the brush. Although several hundred Indians had been seen,
nobody knew how many more there were in the woods.
The colonel and staff rode forward near the edge of the
woods, and I went along uninvited, in an unostentatious posi-
tion in rear. After a long wait Two Bears came out with some
of his head men and laid an old broken cavalry saber, with
half a blade, down at the feet of the colonel's horse, stepping
back with a grand flourish as if saying, "There! See what I am
doing for you!" After another long wait, probably utilized in
hiding the good guns, a rusty old muzzle-loading rifle without
a hammer was laid down beside the saber; then a Hudson's Bay
fuke, without any flint, and some other guns equally as
serviceable.
Although the proceedings were very ceremonious and the
conditions highly tense and dangerous, I was obliged to hold
on to my saddle to avoid falling off my horse with laughter. The
38
Some Memories of a Soldier.
colonel's temper began to give way, and thinking that he was
possibly being spoofed by wild Indians, he directed some de-
tachments to dismount and search the lodges hidden for a long
distance among the willows up and down the river. I joined one
of these detachments. We searched the lodges up the river with
a lot of other ignorant tender feet, some of whom acted very
rudely and had to be severely checked. Looking back now I
perceive that we were all in great danger of being killed, espe-
cially in view of the insulting mien of some of the recruits.
We gathered up a number of rifles and some carbines that
showed by their numbers that they had been taken from
Custer, but most of the good rifles had been hidden away earlier
in the day and were never found.
It is more difficult, however, to hide a horse, and some three
thousand were taken here and at the Cheyenne River agency
and driven to Bismarck.
The colonel attempted to swim a bunch of horses across the
Missouri and desisted only when he had succeeded in getting
forty of them mired in a quicksand out of reach of help, where
they were slowly sinking out of sight in the cold water in which
a cake of ice would now and then float past. We had no boat
with which to go to their assistance, and I asked permission to
shoot them to put them quickly out of their misery, as their
slow drowning was a heartrending sight to a cavalryman. I
was told that certainly I might shoot them, if I wanted to, but
that I must first pay their market price in St. Paul, and I had
to go away in helpless sorrow.
Another sad thing happened here. I was sitting at headquar-
ters when a Sioux chief named Mad Bear brought in a letter
signed by General Sully in 1862, commending Mad Bear for
saving a white woman at the Sioux massacre in Minnesota,
having led her along by the hand, carrying her child on his
back. When the colonel finished reading the letter, Mad Bear
asked if he were going to take his rifle and horse away, treat-
Service on the Plains
39
ing him just as he did the wild Sioux who were at war with the
soldiers half the time. The colonel told him that he had no
authority to make any distinction and would have to take them.
This embittered me beyond words; had I had my way, I would
have given Mad Bear his horse and gun, making an example
with ceremony to draw the attention of all the Sioux, and
would have gone to the mat afterward with St. Paul by tele-
graph, but I was powerless to take any action.
Orders came from the secretary of the interior, through the
War Department, to drive the horses to Bismarck, and then to
St. Paul to be sold in that market. Every second lieutenant
well knew the futility of trying to drive three thousand horses
four hundred miles to St. Paul in the snow and cold of a
Dakota winter. The consequence was that when the snow
melted in the spring the passengers on the Northern Pacific
Railway saw the road lined with the carcasses of horses on
both sides of the track for four hundred miles to St. Paul. It
was impossible to properly guard so many horses in a snow-
storm on the open prairie, and large bunches were stolen at
night along the way, a bare remnant of those starting from
Bismarck reaching St. Paul, nothing but skin and bone, to
meet a dead market. Under the circumstances, it would have
been far more humane and less expensive to shoot every animal
before leaving Bismarck. If the taking of the horses had been
postponed until the grass started in the spring, all would have
been saved.
Riding along one day with the scouts and the celebrated
scout guide and interpreter, F. F. Gerard, we stopped for lunch
near Blue Blanket Creek and Gerard gave me my first taste of
beaver-tail, that celebrated prairie delicacy. It looked and
tasted to me like tender cold roast pork and was very much
songht after in the northwest by mountain men.
The Seventh Cavalry arrived once more opposite Fort Lin-
coln on November 11, 1876, Hare and I, being at the head of
40
Some Memories of a Soldier.
the column, got across on the ferry with our troop and battery
among the first, with a few others, the crossing ending at dark.
The river froze over that night, and as the ice was too thick
for the ferry and too thin to carry cavalry, half the command
were prevented from crossing for a week, until the ice was
strong enough to bear them.
TROUBLES AT HOME
The winter of 1876-77 was a cold one in the northwest and
was made more so for us by mismanagement at St. Paul,
where the wood contract was not made in time to season the
wood as usual, and we had to burn green cottonwood all winter.
The cottonwood is full of sap, and it was only with the greatest
difficulty and with the help now and then of a dry stick that
we could keep the fire alight.
The weather was usually too cold and stormy to drill out
of doors. The men had not been sufficiently disciplined and
instructed on their arrival, having had to take the field too
early; and now, after an expedition, they considered them-
selves veterans and never did become thoroughly disciplined.
They were a rough lot who had enlisted in cities under stress
of the excitement caused by the Custer fight, and were called
the "Custer avengers." Many of them were criminals that were
got rid of by court martial from time to time during the winter
and discharged.
I succeeded to the command of I troop for the winter, dur-
ing Hare's absence on leave, for our captain was away for a
year abroad. Fifteen or twenty of the men would run away at
night, crossing the Missouri, the boundary of the reservation,
on the ice, to a small village maintained just off the reservation,
where they could not be reached, and where whisky and de-
praved women were to be found in plenty. Here they would get
drunk and fight, and now and then one would be murdered or

QUANAH PARKER, CHIEF OF THE COMANCHES
LA
Service on the Plains
41
infected with a disease, and there was no legal way to stop it.
Some fell down drunk on the road at night and froze to death.
I was officer of the day on Christmas and responsible for
order in the post. Just as I sat down to our Christmas dinner
some one whispered in my ear that the prisoners had procured
whisky in the guard-house and were battering down the door
with the cord-wood sticks given them to burn. I rushed down
to the guard-house at once and heard pandemonium going on
inside. The guard-house was divided into two parts by a drive-
way through the center, with the prison-room on one side and
the guard-room on the other, both raised a foot from the
ground. There were fifty prisoners altogether, some of them in
for murder and robbery, all in one large room, lighted by a few
candles. They were still pounding on the door with cord-wood
sticks, and the noise inside was so great that they could not
hear my orders to desist. The door by that time was hanging
only by the outside hasp and the upper hinge. I formed the
guard with loaded rifles in front of the door and, freeing the
hasp suddenly, saw two drunken men standing on the floor
a foot above me, engaged in breaking down the door. Before
they got over their surprise at the sudden opening of the door,
I jumped up on the floor between them and threw them down,
one after the other, on the floor outside, where the guard
jumped on top of them, handcuffed them, and put them away
in a cell to sober up. One of the sergeants then went around
inside with me to cull out the worst cases, to be locked in cells.
It has always been a surprise to me that some of them did
not blow out the few dim candles and stab us there in the
dark where no one could tell who did it; but things happened
too quickly, I suppose, for them to think of it. They were none
too good, however, for they formed a conspiracy the same week
to knock the sergeant of the guard on the head when he opened
the door, and all were to rush out and escape; but the sergeant
was too careful for them, and had the door unlocked by a
42
Some Memories of a Soldier
member of the guard, standing himself below the entrance with
a cocked revolver in his hand. When the door opened he saw
a man poised above him with a club, about to crush in his
skull, and he killed him with the revolver before he could
strike the blow. That ended the conspiracy for the time being.
The dead man had been a member of my troop, and it was
at this juncture that I made my début as a chaplain. There
was no regular chaplain at the post to bury the man, and I had
to do it myself, reading the Episcopal service for the dead, as
I have had to do a number of times since.
Shortly after a pay-day in the middle of winter, I rode alone
to Bismarck to buy a chair and a student-lamp, and found
the town full of intoxicated soldiers. The mayor had tele-
graphed to the commanding officer to send over and "get the
Seventh Cavalry," some three hundred of whom were shooting
up the town. Lieutenant Williams Biddle, a very fine young
officer from Philadelphia, whom I had known at Princeton Col-
lege, was sent over with fifty men to bring back those who
were there absent without leave and making a disturbance.
When I ran across Biddle he was in great distress. He had dis-
mounted his troops in the middle of the street and had gone
into a saloon to bring out the men he was after, putting them
under charge of his guard while he went after some more, and
when he came back again guard and prisoners were all gone.
I volunteered to help him, one to catch and the other to hold.
He soon went off with the "Seventh Cavalry," and I went back
to make my purchases.
Returning to the post alone, I found a soldier dead drunk,
lying in the snow, with his arm through the bridle of his horse,
which was standing over him, by far the more intelligent of the
two. He was more than a mile from any house. I tried to lift
him up on his horse, but he was totally without intelligence.
I could lift him up against the side, but he would slip down
like a sack of wheat when I tried to change my hold to lift him
Service on the Plains
43
higher. I worked at it in a sort of desperation, for there was
no help in sight for miles, and he was certain to freeze to death
if I left him to summon an ambulance from the post. Finally
I had to give up trying to get him on his horse, and, working
myself down underneath him, pulled his arms forward over
my shoulders and stood up, with him on my back, his legs
hanging down as limp as strings. I then put my arm through
both bridles and staggered along, carrying him on my back for
more than a mile, and leading both horses until I reached a log
house occupied by a depraved woman, on whose floor I threw
him and left him for her to take care of, too angry to care
much what became of him, so long as he did not die.
I was much occupied during the winter, with Blacksmith
Korn of I Troop, in taking care of the horse Comanche, a
survivor of the Custer disaster left on the battle-field. He was
brought down on the steamboat with the rest of the wounded,
with nine shots through him. He had been ridden into the fight
by Colonel Keogh, then captain of I Troop, who was killed.
Comanche was one of the original mounts of the Seventh Cav-
alry, purchased in 1867 in St. Louis, and was a very fine
cavalry horse.
We nursed him all winter and finally got him well and strong.
Our colonel issued a regimental order that he should never be
ridden again and should be paraded in all his regalia with the
headquarters of the regiment at all ceremonies, led by a mem-
ber of I Troop. Longfellow heard of this and wrote a poem
about him. The noble animal marched with the regiment to
the Black Hills in 1879, south to Fort Riley, Kansas, in 1888,
to the place where he began service in 1867. He was a great
favorite in the regiment, and he died years afterward at Fort
Riley. Professor Dyce of the University of Kansas, at Law-
rence, "set him up," and he may be seen now at Lawrence, just
as he used to look during his valiant life.
Toward spring my colonel sent for me and said he wanted
44
Some Memories of a Soldier
to send a batch of prisoners to the military prison at Fort
Leavenworth, that no batch had ever left Fort Lincoln from
which some of the prisoners had not escaped, and that he had
selected me to take this batch, in the belief that I would get
them all through.
There were ten in the batch with long sentences. One man in
particular, named Williamson, seemed to have a mania for cut-
ting people, having tried to cut Lieutenant McIntosh on the
Yellowstone, and having succeeded in cutting a wagon-master
on Powder River. After that episode he had deserted with
several others, but eventually they had all been picked up near
Fort Lincoln in a starving condition. They made the boast now
that they would all escape before getting to Leavenworth.
When it came time to leave I had them shackled in pairs, left
leg to left leg, so that should they start to run in a crowded
station, where they could not be fired on for fear of hitting
innocent people, the chain, joining the shackles, would trip
them up.
I warned them that this was the only talk I was going to
make to them, and that at the first attempt to escape they
would get a bullet without warning. The Northern Pacific Rail-
way did not run at night and the prisoners had to be put in
jails at Bismarck, Fargo, and St. Paul. At Brainerd, Minnesota,
the lock-up was too old and rotten to be trusted, and I hired
a large room in the hotel in which to spend the night. Passing
through a dark hall at dusk, Williamson and his shackle partner
started to run into a side door, but, hearing the click of the
revolver being cocked, they threw up their hands and begged
for their lives just in time.
The members of my guard were all strange to me but one,
who got drunk, and I was afraid to trust any of them. I told
them to go to bed and I would watch all night. The prisoners
slept on the floor at one end, and I sat up with my revolver
handy at the other, as far away from them as I could get, lest
Service on the Plains
45
they make an attempt to rush me. I took a knife away from
Williamson at Bismarck, at Fargo, and at Omaha; he always
begged for them. The others would steal hair-pins on the train
with which to unlock their handcuffs. I took them away at
every stop. I handcuffed them, four together, in addition to
shackling them, two and two, when going through crowded
stations. It took a week, but we finally all got to the military
prison, and I got my receipt for them.
Later Williamson cut a companion with a shoe-knife in the
shoe shop and was then put in the Federal Prison at Leaven-
worth, where he committed suicide, and he never carried out
his threat to come "up the creek" (Missouri River) to take
care of me when his time was up.
I did well in not trusting my guard, for the sergeant returned
to Fort Lincoln, where he was sergeant of the guard in charge
of a very important prisoner. He was bribed to allow him to
escape, and they both deserted together. They were recaptured
up near the British line, brought back, and tried by court-
martial, and the sergeant, among other things, was sentenced
to be drummed out of the service.
Drumming out of the service was a custom inherited from
the British Army. The whole command was paraded, and the
prisoner under guard brought to the front and center, where
all his buttons and insignia were cut off and the order read.
Then the prisoner was brought to the right of the line with a
placard tied around his neck marked "Deserter," "Thief”—
depending upon his crime-and started down the line from
right to left, preceded by the drums and fifes which played
the tune for this refrain:
Poor old soldier; poor old soldier,
Tarred and feathered and sent to hell
Because he would not soldier well!
At the left of the line he was turned loose and told to get
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Some Memories of a Soldier
off the post. The sergeant of my guard was drummed out of
the service at Fort Lincoln in the summer of 1877, and this
was the last case of the kind in the American Army.
THE ANNUAL EXPEDITION
Shortly after my return from Fort Leavenworth, prepara-
tions were begun for the annual expedition. We crossed the
Missouri on May 3 and went up to Fort Buford at the mouth
of the Yellowstone-eleven troops of the Seventh Cavalry and
no battery. The grass had not started yet, and the nights were
cold. After the first rain the burned prairies were covered with
grass-plover running about everywhere in pairs, and the big
sickle-billed curlew were innumerable. Their shrill whistle
would be heard at all hours of the day, and they would fre-
quently hover overhead, stationary enough to be killed with a
rifle. The little green and purple anemone was the first flower
to make its appearance, but soon the flowers were everywhere
in great banks of every hue.
We crossed the Missouri at old Fort Union, then went up the
Yellowstone to Sunday Creek near the cantonment of logs with
dirt roofs where General Miles had wintered with the Fifth
Infantry. I went from here with my captain, H. J. Nowlan, and
his Troop I, up the Yellowstone, crossing above the mouth of
the Big Horn; then up the Big Horn to the mouth of the Little
Big Horn, where the Fifteenth Infantry had come to begin
construction of Fort Custer. Here we met Colonel Mike Sheri-
dan, military secretary to his brother, the general. He was to
go with us to get the bones of Custer and all his officers whose
bodies were recognized, except Crittenden, whose father wished
him to be buried where he fell-he lies there yet. Custer is
buried at West Point, Keogh at Auburn, New York, and the
others at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where tablets to their
memory were placed by the Seventh Cavalry in the post chapel.
We borrowed a skiff here and swam the horses and mules
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Service on the Plains
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across the Big Horn, then at the June rise and ice cold from
the melting of the snow in the mountains, and very swift.
Captain Nowlan was a close friend of Captain Keogh, both
Irishmen, and he loved the government horse Paddy, ridden by
Keogh up to the fight, when he changed to Comanche.
The horses were towed by their lariats, six at a time, across
the Big Horn behind the skiff. The lariats were thrown loose
near the opposite shore to facilitate catching the horses on
landing. Nowlan's orderly failed to take off the iron picket-
pins of Paddy and his own horse, and the current wound the
ropes around the legs of both horses in an inextricable snarl,
drawing the head of the orderly's horse under the water and
drowning him. The current here, twenty feet deep, carried both
horses up against a cut-bank, where it swerved in near the
mouth of the Little Big Horn, right against the bank. I ran
down and caught Paddy's head-stall, wrapping my legs around
a stump, and was nearly pulled apart by the current, hauling
on the two horses, until some men came up and relieved me.
I was very angry at the orderly for his neglect and ordered him
to swim down and cut his dead horse loose. He began to cry,
saying he could not swim; nobody else wanted to volunteer,
and since it was impossible to order anybody into such a place
lest he be unable to swim well enough and be drowned, I had to
strip and go down myself.
The water was ice-cold and dark below with mud, so that
nothing could be seen. I first cut the dead horse loose and let
him go. Then I had to go down nine times alongside of Paddy
in the darkness to cut him free from the knotted and tangled
lariat, that tied his hind legs together and fastened in some way
his front legs. He was held up by his head-stall, with no foot-
ing below. Every now and then he would make spasmodic
efforts with all four feet to get a footing, and this was ex-
tremely dangerous in the darkness; but finally all the tangles
were cut away, and he was eased down to the mouth of the
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Some Memories of a Soldier
Little Big Horn and led out, none the worse for his experience.
The horse of one of the men went down with the current and
landed on a little island in the Big Horn. The man swam over
and got him and brought him back. Many years afterward he
wrote asking me to get him a medal of honor for his conduct
in getting that horse. He said he was exhausted before reaching
the island and had already commended his soul to God, fully
expecting to drown when he struck a bar and waded out. He
said, “What the lieutenant done was noble, but what I done
was heroic." But the hard-boiled medal board to which his
letter was referred would have none of him.
We picked up Colonel Sheridan and all the Crow scouts that
had gone with Custer the year before, and went out fifteen
miles to the battle-field and were there on June 25, exactly a
year after the fight. The valley was a different sight; whereas
the year before it had been thick with dust from drought and
the tramping of innumerable hoofs, now the grass grew luxuri-
antly, higher than the stirrups, and flowers were everywhere.
Nowlan had a chart he had made the year before, when he
was quartermaster for General Terry. The chart showed where
each officer was buried. A piece of a lodge-pole about five feet
long was driven at the head, and as both pole and chart were
marked with the same Roman figures, it was easy to find them
all. Nowlan and Sheridan worked all the morning while I kept
the camp, and I was to go out to work in the afternoon, but
the work was finished sooner than expected. I went out with a
detachment to bury all the others I could find. There was no
time to dig deep graves, and I was told to cover the bones
made up into little piles where they were lying. This I did, but
the soil was like sugar and I have no doubt the first rain
liquefied it and exposed the bones later. We had neither the
force nor the time to rebury the whole command in deep
graves, as we were obliged to join the main command.
We left about noon next day for the Big Horn River. I went
Service on the Plains
49
out to count the sites of the Sioux lodges and had counted
more than fifteen hundred when I had to stop and leave with
the troop. There were very many willow wickiups, in addi-
tion, occupied by Sioux, who were out there from the agencies
without their families; the lodges were crowded with some-
times four and five men in one. It was said there were nearer
seven thousand men than six thousand in the various villages.
Shortly after leaving the neighborhood of the battle-field,
the Crow scouts rushed in, saying that the Sioux were out there
thicker than the grass on the ground. Half Yellowface and
Curly had run off to the camp of the infantry at the site of
Fort Custer, afraid of another Custer disaster. We squared off
at each other, getting ready to fight, until it was discovered
through the glass that there was a cavalry officer among the
Sioux, and we soon got together and found that it was Captain
Rodgers of the Fifth Cavalry, with a large band of Sioux and
Arapaho scouts, who had taken some pack-trains to General
Miles at Tongue River and was on his way back to the Platte.
After a little talk we left them, continuing our march to the
Big Horn.
We recrossed the Big Horn in a skiff, swimming the stock
again, and next day marched to the Yellowstone. Two days
before, the Crows had killed one thousand head of buffalo in
the Big Horn Valley, above where Hardin now stands. There is
to-day a bridge across the Big Horn, and from this bridge last
year I pointed out to Mrs. Scott where I had had to cut the
ropes from Paddy. It was six hundred miles from the railway
when it occurred, and Mrs. Scott, then a young girl at Fort
Lincoln, never expected to see that country.
The Great Crow camp was at the mouth of the Big Horn,
composed of all the Mountain and River Crows, together with
fifteen thousand horses. They had been held there by General
Miles for a steamboat to take them over the Yellowstone and
give them rations and ammunition. The thousands of buffalo
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Some Memories of a Soldier
and horses had tramped the valley into dust, and the verdure
was all gone.
Our transportation was very short, and I had only a little
bit of a tent of white canvas which let the sun through and
burned my face. When left open it filled with flies; and when
shut the heat was unbearable, and every little puff of wind
would fill it with dust. I wandered into the huge buffalo-skin
lodge of Iron Bull, head chief of the Crows, passing at once into
a new world. The hide lodge cover was well smoked from the
fire and the sun could not penetrate. There was a dim religious
light inside that discouraged the flies. Beds of buffalo robes
were all around the wall, and the floor was swept clean as the
palm of one's hand. The old man, attired only in his breech-
clout, was lying on his back in bed, crooning his war-songs and
shaking his medicine rattle. He was the picture of comfort in
that cool, dark lodge, and I said to him, "Brother, I want to
come and stay in here with you until we leave"; and he and
Mrs. Iron Bull made me very welcome. Theirs was the largest
and finest lodge I have ever seen. The cover of twenty-five skins
was in two pieces. The poles were twenty-five feet long and five
inches in diameter, and it took six horses to drag them.
The Crows crossed the Yellowstone in a steamboat before
we could, and went down the river. We crossed some days
after, swimming the stock as before. One of our fine mules got
loose with all his harness on his back. We saw him carried
down by the current out of our sight around a bend of the
river, and bade him good-by, never expecting to see him again,
but three days afterward we found him peacefully grazing out
in the middle of a river bottom, far below, with all his harness
intact.
We had a very unpleasant hail-storm on Froze-to-Death
Creek, with hailstones one and a half inches in diameter, and
there was great to-do to prevent our horses from getting away.
When struck in the head by hailstones they think they are
Service on the Plains
51
being beaten and become frantic. The year before some of the
horses had got away in a hail-storm, with saddles, bridles, and
carbines, and were never seen again.
This storm was very general in the Northwest, the hail-
stones breaking more than a thousand panes of glass at Fort
Lincoln and destroying the gardens; but the greatest damage
was caused on Porcupine Creek, where the Crows were camped.
We passed through there next day and found that the Crows
had lost seven hundred horses, some of which had stampeded
over a high bluff into the Yellowstone, and their dead bodies
floated down the river, past Fort Keogh, for days. Many
horses and colts were killed, where they stood, by chunks of
ice larger than half a brick, caused by the freezing together of
several large hailstones in the upper air.
We went on down the river and joined the Seventh Cavalry
on Sunday Creek. The whole of the Northwest seemed very
peaceable, and the talk of the Seventh was that we should soon
go back to Fort Lincoln. Everybody built sunshades over their
tents and generally made themselves comfortable. I went over
to Fort Keogh several times, the old log cantonment, and took
dinner with my classmate Long of the Fifth Infantry, as well
as with Captain and Mrs. Baldwin and General and Mrs. Miles.
While here, Generals Sherman, Sheridan, and Terry came
out, and one day a telegram arrived, telling of the killing of
my classmate, Sevier Rains of the First Cavalry, with fifteen of
his men, by Nez Percé Indians, far on the other side of the
Rocky Mountains in Idaho. I had little dreamed that those
Indians hundreds of miles away would ever affect me.
General Miles sent for me soon after and said that there
were Sioux war-parties, from Sitting Bull's camp in Canada,
operating over on the Musselshell, and directed me to take ten
men and thirty-five Northern Cheyenne scouts and go over
and see what they were doing.
Among the Cheyennes were Two Moons, Little Chief, Hump,
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Some Memories of a Soldier
Black Wolf, Ice (or White Bull), Brave Wolf, and White
Bear-some of the cream of the Northern Cheyennes, who
had fought against Custer the year before and had surrendered
to General Miles from the hostile camps but recently. My
friends cheerfully advised me not to go with them, saying that
they had just surrendered, and that they had only to shoot
me and run over the Canadian border to Sitting Bull, where
they could not be punished; if I went with them the chances
were I would not come back. But I never felt that way toward
them. They were all keen, athletic young men, tall and lean
and brave, and I admired them as real specimens of manhood
more than any body of men I have ever seen before or since.
They were perfectly adapted to their environment, and knew
just what to do in every emergency and when to do it, without
any confusion or lost motion. Their poise and dignity were
superb; no royal person ever had more assured manners. I
watched their every movement and learned lessons from them
that later saved my life many times on the prairie.
We did not, however, see any Indians or a recent trail.
After our return, Captain Benteen was sent with his Troop H
over to the head of the Mini-pusa or Dry Fork of the Missouri
on the same errand, and a number of us were allowed to go
with him to run buffalo. We were sitting one day on top of a
high peak that overlooked the country in every direction for
twenty miles on all sides, and everywhere we looked the prairie
was full of buffalo. Benteen thought that we could see at least
three hundred thousand buffalo in one view. And if we could
see that many, there were many thousands more out of sight
in the ravines and hollows. I have ridden in after years
through a pasture of Indian Territory thirty miles square,
where one hundred thousand counted cattle had been turned
loose, and did not see more than five hundred, the others being
hidden away out of sight.
While sitting on the bank of the Yellowstone one day, wait-
乾
​Service on the Plains
53
ing for the ferry, I heard the jingle of sleigh-bells on the
trail coming down from the table-land above, and soon some
Northern Cheyenne came down and asked if they might cross
with me on the ferry. I noticed an extra horse with a bloody
scalp tied to his bit, and, asking whose horse it was, learned
that it belonged to White Bear, who had been separated from
the others on the table-land above, where he was attacked by
seven Sioux. He got into some brush and killed and scalped one
Sioux and took his horse; and the others, not daring to go into
the brush after him, got tired and went away, leaving him
alone.
White Bear had a great scar across his face that made him
look very savage. He was sitting at the opening of a skin lodge
in the Cheyenne village inside which some medicine ceremonies
were going on one day, when I came along with Tom Sherman,
whose father, General Sherman, had asked me to show his son
the Cheyenne camp. Tom started to go into the lodge, where he
was not wanted lest he "break" the medicine going on inside.
Not understanding the refusal, he persisted in trying to enter,
until White Bear flourished a knife about a yard long in his
face. The combination of the knife and White Bear's face was
more than enough for him.
AFTER THE NEZ PERCÉS
I had no sooner got rested on Sunday Creek than I was
ordered to take a wagon-train to Fort Custer. The empty
wagons were each hauled by a six-mule team, the driver riding
the off-wheel mule, managing the team with a jerk-line—a long
single rein. I put my saddle in the wagon and drove the lead
team for a hundred and ten miles, so as to learn to drive with
the jerk-line. This knowledge has since stood me in good stead
many times.
Coming back with one wagon and a few men below Porcu-
pine Creek on the Yellowstone, I cut across a high prairie and
54
Some Memories of a Soldier
saw some one riding alone at a distance. Such things had to be
inquired into in those days, and getting near I was astounded
to meet an officer of the Seventh Cavalry, out there all by him-
self. We sat down together on the prairie to exchange the latest
news, our horses being held at a little distance by my orderly.
I asked him what he was doing there alone and where he was
going. He said that Lieutenant Doane of the Second Cavalry,
with De Rudio of the Seventh, and E Troop, were out of sight
on the river bottom, going to the Judith Gap to fight Nez
Percés, and he was going to join them in a few minutes. He
said the Seventh Cavalry was still on Sunday Creek, and he
bemoaned his fate in having had to give up a poker game and
come away.
It flashed on me that since that poker game was so dear to
his heart, I might suggest a temporary transfer, which would
let me go to the Judith Gap and let him go back to his game.
The orderly was holding the horses about thirty feet away,
and I called, "McKenna, how would you like to go and fight
the Nez Percés?" He answered quickly, "I'm wid yez," and it
was soon arranged for me to go down to the regiment on
Sunday Creek and get the authority and catch up with them.
Their mess needed a bottle of walnut pickles and a tin bucket,
which I promised to bring if I could get away.
We took the trot and went twenty-five miles, camping oppo-
site the old cantonment on the bluffs above the Yellowstone.
McKenna went down to the regiment twelve miles to get per-
mission to exchange and bring back my extra horse, while I
went across to get the permission of General Miles, who then
commanded the district of the Yellowstone. McKenna returned
with the permission next morning. I got the walnut pickles
and tin bucket, and sent my clothing and bedding roll to the
regiment, intending to exchange it for the other fellow's roll,
as I had no other transportation than our saddle-horses, but I
Service on the Plains
55
never saw my property again-my overcoat, underclothing,
boots, extra clothing, and six silk buffalo-robes I had picked
out of four thousand robes that a trader had bartered from the
Crows at the mouth of the Big Horn for six cups of brown
sugar apiece, holding his big thumb all the time in the cup.
He charged ten dollars apiece for a blanket, and I traded my
blankets for robes and never saw any of them again.
We took the trail and trotted forty-five miles to the Big
Porcupine and reached camp as they were sitting down to
dinner. About the middle of dinner we saw a steamboat coming
down around the bend and fired a shot across her bows. She
turned into the bank, the officer led his horse aboard, and I
was not to see him for three months, during which I traveled
more than a thousand miles.
We went up to the mouth of Froze-to-Death Creek, where
eleven Crows had frozen sometime in the long past. We fed the
last of the oats here. Grain is very bad for the morals of a
horse or mule, though good for his body and strength. It will
seduce the morals of any mount, no matter how reliable he
may be otherwise. Next morning we marched forty-five miles
up Froze-to-Death Creek, one of the most exhausting marches
I ever made. The creek was dry above, and the heat was terrific.
The buffalo had eaten off all the grass. We passed antelope that
stood and let us go by not more than thirty yards away, when
the wind was right, for all animals are tame when running
among the buffalo, they were probably unable to distinguish
us from buffalo by sight but were exceedingly quick to get
away when the wind was toward them. We reached a small lake
up on the divide, about six inches deep, where we watered the
stock and took care of the animals, but we were all so ex-
hausted that we lay down on the ground and passed the night
without cooking dinner or making camp.
The next morning seven pack-mules were reported missing,
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Some Memories of a Soldier
and it was thought that some Indian had run them off, but I
said that I knew where they were; they had gone back to the
Yellowstone where we last fed grain. A sergeant was sent to
look for them, and sure enough there they were, howling for
grain, and the poor sergeant had to make that grueling march
with his detachment three times, all on account of the grain
fed on the Yellowstone.
We got breakfast and went over to the big Crow camp then
at the Big Bend of the Musselshell, where we remained for
some time, moving camp with them once a week to find grass
for their immense horse herd. They ran buffalo once a week
with savage ceremony. All Mountain and River bands of
Crows were in that village of more than three thousand per-
sons, and needed a great deal of meat. Those Crows were rich
in everything an Indian required to be happy. They wore
wonderful dresses of the primitive style, buckskin ornamented
with beads, porcupine quills, and ermine. A thousand dollars
would not pay for one of those costumes now.
The camp had meat drying everywhere. Everybody was
care-free and joyous in a way we do not comprehend in this
civilized day. All the life of a nation was going on there before
our eyes. Here the head chiefs were receiving ambassadors
from another tribe. Following the sound of drums, one would
come upon a great gathering for a war-dance, heralding an
expedition to fight the Sioux. Or one came to a lodge where a
medicine-man was doctoring a patient to the sound of a drum
and rattle. Elsewhere a large crowd surrounded a game of ring
and spear, on which members of the tribe were betting every-
thing they owned: the loser lost without dispute or quiver of
an eyelid. In another place a crowd was witnessing a horse-
race with twenty-five horses starting off at the first trial, and
no jockeying back and forth to wear out the opponent's nerve;
the stakes were two piles of goods, one the property of each
side, the victors to take both and divide the winnings. All day

Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology.
AHPIATOM, CHIEF OF THE KIOWAS
Service on the Plains
57
and far into the night there was something happening of
intense interest to me.
We were once sitting at dinner when we heard a great shoot-
ing of guns and thought it must be an attack by the Sioux, and
we all rushed out to see. It was the return of a war-party with
Sioux scalps taken along the Powder River. They dashed into
camp, firing off their guns, and their wives and sweethearts
ran out to receive them with the utmost joy, while a wail for
the dead went up from their relatives.
I was completely fascinated with the life in that great village
of skin lodges, the color, the jollity, the good-will and kindness
encountered everywhere. Getting into camp sometimes before
the train, I would pick out our camp, unsaddle, put my rifle-
belt of ammunition on it, with field-glasses, and go visiting all
around the village, without seeing my property for hours in
the midst of that camp of more than three thousand wild
Indians.
The Crows were very primitive in those days. All they had
of the white man's manufacture was a few blankets, beads, guns
and some saddles made by Main & Winchester, of California.
Many rode saddles of their own make, but there was not a
wagon nor a white man's suit of clothes among them. My rifle,
ammunition, and field-glasses would have been a fortune for a
Crow, but I never lost so much as a cartridge in that village,
although I left my belongings unguarded for hours. I wonder
how long one of their beaded fire-bags would last if left on the
pavement in one of our large cities.
The buffalo runs were under control of the soldiers, who
had the management of the whole village. Buffalo runs were
allowed only on certain days agreed upon among the chiefs.
The herds were carefully watched by the young soldiers to
note the direction they were moving, and none was allowed to
shoot a gun on an off day, or disturb the herds, under pain of
being "soldiered," i.e., punished by the soldiers. If men had
58
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Some Memories of a Soldier
been allowed to shoot any time they wished, the buffalo would
soon have been driven far away from the village, and the people
would have gone hungry. It was a severe punishment for the
aged, crippled, and wounded to have to move frequently to
keep up with the buffalo; and in order not to frighten the
animals and prevent them from going far away, the soldiers
would select a small bunch far from the main herd to avoid
alarming them. Everybody who wanted meat would go out
under the direction of the soldiers and drive them away so as
not to scare the others, and would kill every one if possible.
Sometimes a family would get out of meat, and the man
would get stubborn. The soldiers would see him tying up
several pack-ponies in front of his lodge; on an off day that
would mean that he was going after meat. A soldier would
quietly cut the ponies' ropes and drive them out of camp, while
the owner was inside his lodge. This would put him in a fury,
and he would then take his packs somewhere out of sight and
saddle, and get out of camp, thinking he was unseen. He would
kill an antelope or buffalo, and the soldiers would come up
out of a ravine, break his gun, and maybe slit his lodge-cover
into ribbons and beat him with a quirt. This was not the act
of an individual but the act of the tribe for the protection of
its food, a tribal punishment, and was called soldiering-to
soldier a man. To soldier-kill was not a murder but a tribal act.
I once knew of an officer sent out on the range with a large
band of Indians, who were out to make meat. He went with
them to prevent complications with white men. He was told
not to hunt on an off day, but he announced that he was the
commander there and would do as he pleased and would not
be told by Indians what he might or might not do. He started
out on an off day to kill an antelope and, seeing one, first
looked all around to make certain he was alone. He saw no one
but as soon as he fired at the antelope Indians began coming
up out of ravines, seemingly from under the ground. They gave
Service on the Plains
59
him a good beating over the back with their bows and told
him that a second offense would mean his death..
This action was far different from that of Lieutenant G. K.
Warren in 1855, who went on an exploring expedition west of
the Black Hills of Dakota. He was met by a band of Sioux
under their chief, Bear's Rib, who told him that they were
holding the buffalo between the Black Hills and the Big Horn
Mountains until their robes were in proper condition; that the
buffalo were their shelter, food, and clothing, and if he went up
there he would likely drive away and scatter their winter food.
Bear's Rib said he was a friend of the white men but did not
believe he could control his warriors if their food were inter-
fered with. Warren replied that those were their buffalo, and
he certainly would not interfere with them, but would turn
back, going through to the east side of the Black Hills, thence
north, and out of the way of the buffalo. If all white men had
been as considerate of the Indian as Lieutenant Warren, we
would never have had such bloody clashes.
Lieutenant Doane, although of the Second Cavalry, with only
five men of his own troop, was put in command by General
Miles of De Rudio's Troop E of the Seventh Cavalry. He had
been with the "lost tribes of the Second Cavalry," the squadron
stationed at Fort Ellis, Montana, ever since 1868, and he was
a thorough plainsman, able to do everything anybody else
could do on the prairie except interpret. I modeled myself on
him as a soldier, watched him carefully, and learned from him
how to set up an aparejo and to throw the diamond so that,
if the packing should be delayed, we two would pitch in to
help pack ourselves and get the command out of camp in a
hurry. There was no delay, for no one loitered where we were
in the train, and we could put our hands to anything and
show others how it was done. I was by that time an interpreter
in a small way, knowing enough to get about, but not yet able
to interpret in council.
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Some Memories of a Soldier
We left the Crows on the Musselshell and marched up the
Swimming Woman Creek toward the Snowy Mountains and
the Judith Gap. We spent two nights of clear moonlight on the
banks of the Swimming Woman. Nearing the Judith Gap next
day with Jack Baronett, the scout a blacksmith, and one
other whose name I forget, we were about two miles ahead
of the troop. Jack looked up and said, "There the Nez Percés
are now!" and we could see a party of twenty Indians in the
gap.
The blacksmith said, "Let's charge them!" I did not want
to charge them a little bit, but I was very green and thought
that if a blacksmith was willing to charge, it would not do for a
second lieutenant to demur, and so we galloped right at them,
revolvers drawn. They did not seem at all disturbed, and when
we got almost within shooting distance Jack called out,
"They're River Crows!" Had they been Nez Percés, as we
thought at first, they would have killed us as dead as Julius
Cæsar, which would have served us right for being such fools.
Two railways now run through the Judith Gap, and passing
through on the train lately I had the pleasure of pointing out
to Mrs. Scott the place I once nearly lost seven years' growth
from fright, while charging twenty men with four.
When we were camped in the gap, watching for Nez Percés
to come along, an Indian came in with a despatch giving us the
news of the battle of the Big Hole, far westward from us, be-
tween Joseph, the Nez Percé chief, and General Gibbon with
the Seventh Infantry.
Doane had told us where the Nez Percés were going to go a
month and a half before they actually went. He knew that
country and the habits of the Indians so well that he could
predict everything they did. He saw that our supplies were too
low to wait for Indians to travel all that distance from the
Big Hole, and so we went into Fort Ellis to reshoe and refit.
Colonel Allen and Doane had been trying to get up a Crow
Service on the Plains
61
war-party to go with us to strike the Nez Percés somewhere
west of Fort Ellis. The Crows refused to say anything except
that "the Nez Percé heart was Crow, and the Crow heart was
Nez Percé," showing their friendship for their own color; and
despairing of getting any Crow Scouts, we started off without,
them.
At our camp that night we heard many small parties coming
singing on the prairie. The next morning there were two hun-
dred Crows in camp, ready to go to war with us. It was their
custom to rendezvous at the first camp out at night, and to
come singing across the prairie so we would not mistake them
for enemies and fire on them in the darkness.
As soon as we could refit and draw rations at Fort Ellis,
we loaded a number of wagons and started for the Yellowstone
Park, where Doane said he was going to intercept the Indians.
We took our pack-train also, intending to send our wagons
back from Gardners River, for there were no roads beyond.
The Crows began to drop out before we had gone far, parties
leaving in the night, each morning seeing fewer and fewer,
until we had only twenty left, who stayed with us to the end.
Going through the second and third canyons that lead down
to Cinnabar Mountain with its red streak, called the Devil's
Slide, we could see a column of smoke far in the distance.
Soon the Crows came rushing in back behind the troops, saying
that the Nez Percés in front were as thick as the grass on the
ground. They threw off their saddles, painted their faces, put
on their war-bonnets, and came rushing to the front again,
riding bareback. Soon Jack Baronett and Colonel Allen came
back, reporting that the smoke we saw was at Henderson's
ranch on the Yellowstone, set afire by Nez Percés. Jack an-
nounced his intention of going back there, and I announced
mine of going with him, and asked Doane's permission. He
said I could go if I would take ten men and the troop would
come along as fast as it could behind. I told him I didn't want
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Some Memories of a Soldier
ten men; that that was just enough to get us all killed as
Rains was killed by these same Indians with fifteen men in
July; that they were not enough to make a fight with, and I
could not leave them, whereas Jack and I could at the first sign
separate in the brush, where Indians would not follow, and get
away. But Doane said, "You can't go without them." "Get
them out then," I said, “in a hurry," and changed my saddle
to my best horse, ready to go, and we were away in less than
ten minutes, leaving the troop to follow with the train.
It seemed that there were three men and a boy staying in
Henderson's ranch on the Yellowstone, near the mouth of
Gardiner's River. Two had gone down to the Yellowstone to
fish, three hundred yards from the house, leaving one man
lying on the bed and the boy working about the place. After a
while the man arose, walked to the door and looked up the
road. Seeing eight Nez Percés Indians charging down toward
the house, he called to the boy, and both seized all the rifles
and ammunition and ran to the other men fishing; all hid be-
hind the bank, watching. The Indians came up behind the
house, got the horses out of the corral, set fire to the house,
and went back to join ten others who had stopped, watching
from the hillside. Then the eighteen went back, driving the
horses up the river. The white men put us on the Indian trail
at once, and we pushed them hard enough to get back nineteen
horses. We rounded a point and at McCartney's cabin in
a side gulch found a white man lying dead at the door, not
yet cold. He had been standing in the doorway, looking out,
when one of the Indians we were chasing rounded the point and
shot him. He had plunged forward on his face, and been shot
again, the bullet going the length of his body.
The trail led past the base of an extinct geyser cone called
the Liberty Cap, near where the hotel is now, and I proposed
first to follow it, and bury the dead man afterward; but Jack,
who had spent his life in that country and knew it far better
Service on the Plains
63
than I, would not hear of it. He said we could be ambushed
from a near-by ridge at twilight and we must get right back
lest a larger force get us all, and it was too dark anyway to
follow the trail. I depended largely on Jack's superior experi-
ence and judgment, and we went back to find the troop camped
on an irrigating ditch, in which we could lie with access to
water and make a good fight, if attacked by a large force.
That night Doane told me to take twenty men next morning
to go to Baronett's Bridge and see if the Indians had crossed
there, and to set fire to the grass coming back to burn the
Indians out of the Yellowstone Valley. The Crows could not
be induced to go ahead, and I paid one named "Full up to his
Throat" to ride with me thinking he would be apt to hear or
see something in one of the copses I might miss along the trail,
and give us warning. He rode along by my side every day for
more than a month.
They wanted me to go on the trail down Blacktail Deer
Creek, but I refused to follow any trail, knowing that if the
Indians were there they would hide in the quaking aspen copses
along the trail and give us a blizzard of bullets as we came
along. We did not go over a ridge until we were assured all
was safe beyond. With great difficulty in getting the horses
down and up, we crossed the deep, narrow box cañon of
Blacktail Deer Creek where there was no trail. The edge of
the cañon was held by ten men to hold back any Indians who,
though unseen by us, were doubtless watching us all the time,
to keep them from coming up on the edge and killing us
all like rats. The other ten went down with me, and we climbed
out on the other side. Then we held the cañon edge for the
others. I felt very uneasy at putting the cañon between me
and the command, but had to carry out my orders.
After crossing the cañon, we went on to the bridge, which
was still intact. It had been built by Jack Baronett at the
mouth of the East Fork of the Yellowstone, and was the first
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Some Memories of a Soldier
bridge ever put over the Yellowstone River. We set fire to the
grass as ordered and started back to camp, having seen no
Indians. There were Indians there, however, even if we could
not see them, for we picked up two of General Samuel D.
Sturgis' scouts, Groff and Leonard, who had come across the
mountains and were going down the river, traveling on the
trail I would not use in order to avoid just what happened to
them. They were fired at from one of the quaking aspen
groves; their Warm Spring Indian boy was killed with all
the horses, and Groff shot through the neck. Groff and Leonard
had scattered into the brush. We took them into camp with us,
where the surgeon dressed Groff's wound. Later they were
both killed by the Nez Percés.
I found on my return to camp that night that a party of our
men had gone to McCartney's cabin, at Mammoth Hot Springs,
to bury the man killed there-named Dietrich, from Helena,
Montana-and had seen Indians following along behind the
crest of the divide, watching me all day.
That little chase the day before after the eighteen Nez
Percés had momentous consequences we little dreamed of and
surely never intended, since with us it was mostly a lark.
None of us had thought that with ten men we could beat the
Indian force that had nearly overcome the Seventh Infantry;
we had only wanted to drive in their advance-guard and maybe
get back the horses, if we were quick enough, and we actually
were quick enough to get back nineteen. It was months after-
ward that I learned what had really resulted.
Chief Joseph, on various occasions since, has repeatedly told
me that they had intended to go out to the buffalo country,
down the Yellowstone Valley, leaving the mountains where the
river turns northeast-now the site of the town of Livingston,
Montana. But they were diverted by seeing us in front. They
had been surprised by General Gibbon and the Seventh In-
fantry in their front at Big Hole, and had caused General

SERGEANT ISEEO, KIOWA INDIAN, FORT SILL
Service on the Plains
65
Gibbon to fortify, after he was shot in the leg. They would
have killed the entire command, corraled as it was away from
water, if General Howard, following their trail, had not raised
the siege. The Nez Percés had enough to think about with
General Howard on their trail, and they did not wish to
encounter any more troops on their front, with the risk of
being caught between two forces.
The eighteen we chased back were Joseph's scouts, feeling
far in his advance, who returned and reported meeting troops
down the river. No one could imagine that we would chase them
that way unless we had a strong support behind us. The
Yellowstone Valley here is hemmed in between high mountains
with little room to maneuver. If both ends of the valley were
closed by troops, the Indians could never hope to save their
women, children, and horses, and so, instead of trying to go
on down the river, as originally intended, they crossed the
Yellowstone at the Mud Geysers just below the outlet of the
Yellowstone Lake, and went up Pelican Creek, across the
mountains and down Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone, which
they recrossed at the mouth of Cañon Creek, just above
Billings. This change from crossing at Livingston put them
more than a day's march nearer General Miles at Tongue
River, thus losing them several days, without which it would
not have been possible for General Miles to overtake them, as
he brilliantly did within a day's march of the British line. White
Bird, one of their chiefs, escaped Miles, finding shelter with
Sitting Bull across the border.
I was first told of this by Joseph in 1877, and his informa-
tion was confirmed by a signed statement obtained by the Nez
Percé agent at Nespilem, Washington.
I will speak of Miles later in this narrative, for I was to
know him better some years afterward. But chronologically,
more than passing reference belongs to him at this juncture.
Then colonel of the Fifth Infantry, commanding the district
66
Some Memories of a Soldier
of the Yellowstone, his capture of the Nez Percés was one of
the most brilliant feats of arms ever accomplished by the
American Army, considering the immense distance he had to
travel through primeval country. He was a remarkably manly
and handsome officer. The first time I had seen him was the
summer before at Fort Keogh, sitting on a cracker-box on the
north side of the Yellowstone, whittling a stick, where he called
me "Scott," which caused me to swell visibly with pride. We
once rode together from Fort Buford to Fort Stevenson, where
he took an ambulance and a small escort from my troop and
drove the seventy-five miles into Bismarck in one day.
When we returned to camp that night, Doane put a cordon
of Cossack posts around the camp. De Rudio had the one on
the trail. We were awakened in the middle of the night by a
great commotion, and De Rudio came in, bringing a negro he
had caught coming down the trail, each taking the other for a
Nez Percé in the darkness, and a clash was only prevented
because both heard some English.
The negro told us that he and Dietrich were from Helena,
and had been with a party in the Yellowstone, ignorant of any
Indians in the vicinity. The Nez Percés had surprised their
camp in the Firehole basin, captured a man and his wife, with
her sister and brother from Helena, and were bringing them
along the trail, all mounted. Reaching the foot of a steep hill
not far from Mary's Lake on the divide, an Indian rode up and
shot the husband with a small pistol, striking him on the head
with a soft bullet that flattened and failed to penetrate the skull
and he fell off his horse. His wife took his head in her lap,
but was dragged away, and she believed her husband dead. He
lay for a long time in a faint, but, coming to, he rose on his
elbow, and a passing Indian shot him again, making a wound
in his hip, throwing him into another faint. When he came to,
the Indians had all gone by. He traveled on his hands and
knees for a while, and then was picked up by Howard's scouts.
Service on the Plains
67
He and I occupied opposite corners of a room on Boteler's
ranch, where I was sick with pleurisy for a while.
His wife was taken forward with her brother and sister until
Chief Joseph sent his young men back to take mules from
General Howard, and then Joseph generously used the oppor-
tunity to give the man and his two sisters horses and let them
go home. They reached Helena safely, the woman under the
impression that her husband was dead. She was overjoyed to
find that he was alive at Boteler's ranch on the Yellowstone,
and came after him in a carriage.
But Dietrich had escaped from the Nez Percés and came
with the negro to McCartney's cabin. The boy hid in the grass
and eventually reached Virginia City. Citizens came to Mc-
Cartney's to get the wounded man and wanted Dietrich to
return with them, but he refused, fearing to leave the hiding
boy alone. So they left him. The eighteen Nez Percés were later
seen approaching, and Dietrich and the negro climbed a tree
back of the house and saw the war-party of eighteen loot the
cabin and go down the river to Henderson's. Dietrich got tired
and climbed down out of the tree, leaving the negro still there.
When I chased the eighteen back, they came suddenly around
a point and killed Dietrich in the doorway. The negro re-
mained in the tree until night; then, starting for Helena afoot,
he ran into De Rudio in the middle of the night and finally
reached home in safety.
No Indians ever waged war as humanely as the Nez Percés.
We planned that night to go forward to meet the Nez Percés
the next day, not knowing that our presence in the Yellowstone
Valley had caused them to leave it at the foot of the lake.
Others of our scouts reported Indians up Gardiner's River.
A courier, however, brought a despatch from Colonel Gilbert,
Seventh Infantry, ordering us to await his arrival with L
Troop, Second Cavalry. General Sherman, who had lately
been in the Yellowstone, authorized Colonel Gilbert to take
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Some Memories of a Soldier
over General Howard's command, if he desired to give it up,
since he was now outside the limits of his department. Gilbert
arrived next day. Doane begged him with tears in his eyes to
go forward the following day, but he refused, saying that he
was only trying to reach Howard and did not want to be de-
layed by a fight and miss him.
If he had gone forward as Doane advised, he would have
met Howard that day at Baronett's Bridge, but instead he
turned back down the Yellowstone thirty miles to Tom Miner's
Creek, up which he went on an old Bannack trail over to and
up the West Gallatin, striking the Madison eight days after
Howard had passed. He had no idea of marching cavalry;
and fearing to separate his command, although away from
the zone of operations, he camped two troops and two pack-
trains without grain in a mountain pocket, where there was
grass for only half the number; the animals whimpered all
night for food, although there was another pocket half a mile
away. The animals of that command were starved until they
became too weak to carry a man. We piled up twenty-five
saddles on the West Gallatin and left them there, unable to
transport them, and we sent twenty-five horses down the Madi-
son by easy stages to Fort Ellis to recuperate. Gilbert took
Jack Baronett and our best horses, trying to catch up with
Howard, but never reached him, and we started back through
the park, traveling slowly down the Yellowstone so that our
animals might recuperate.
My horse and my orderly's got too weak to carry us, and
we made fifty miles over Mount Washburn in two days and a
half, walking and leading our horses. One would have to pull a
horse uphill and the other would push and then go back for the
other horse. I got caught in my shirt-sleeves in a sleet-storm
on a mountain-in August-and got a bad case of pleurisy.
I had a tent-fly for shelter, open at both ends, which allowed
the sleet and rain to enter. They waited for me one day, my
Service on the Plains
69
orderly giving me the most tender care. He put his extra socks
on my feet and put hot stones at them. We had no wheeled
vehicles and had to go on; so I was lifted on my horse and
bandaged in the saddle, with my knees almost under my chin.
Every step of the horse would stab my lungs like a knife, but
we had to travel until we reached Boteler's ranch and could
get some food for the men.
Nearing the divide at the head of Trail Creek on the road
to Ellis, I saw a mountain sheep drinking about two hundred
yards away. He ran up on a point and stopped to look at us.
I wriggled out of my bandages, and got my rifle from my
orderly, who had been carrying it during my illness. I wounded
him at the first shot, though he did not move; and I was so
excited, never having had a chance at a mountain sheep before,
that I then missed him twice. He ran about ten feet and fell
over dead from the first shot. I felt so elated that it cured
me, and I straightened up and rode the rest of the thirty miles
into Fort Ellis, throwing away my bandages.
BUFFALO RUNNING
Traveling up the Musselshell one day during this Nez Percé
expedition, I was a couple of miles ahead of the troop with
several men; and looking across the Musselshell, which ran
between perpendicular banks twenty feet high, I saw what I
thought was a' clay-bank pony, standing with his head down
among the rose-bushes. I called out, "There is a lost pony."
But it was a magnificent bull elk, which, hearing me call,
raised his head out of the rose-bushes, showing a beautiful
set of antlers, then, running toward me, jumped down into
the river-bed, here covered with gravel, and joined a band of
eight or ten elk, clattering up the stream. The river is very
crooked here, winding from side to side of its valley. I rode
out on the prairie to cut off a couple of its bends, then came
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Some Memories of a Soldier
in again ahead of the elk, dismounted, and waited for them
to break out of the brush. A great number came out quite
close to me, but they were cows and calves, or bulls with small
horns, and I let them go until I saw a large bunch break some
distance away from me, one splendid set of horns showing
above the group. I fired from the ground and turned out of the
herd a bull with poor horns. Then I mounted quickly to get
the finer bull. In the meantime elk were breaking out all
around me, and I found myself running in the middle of a large
herd of elk. I forced my way up to the great bull and killed him
with a revolver, and soon got five in all. Then I suddenly found
that my saddle had become loose and I was riding on the
horse's haunches uphill and on his neck going down, and I
stopped to tighten it. The horse was very much excited, and
by the time I got on him again the elk were a mile away.
Sending for some pack-mules, we soon had my kill butchered
and meat despatched to the troops.
It was very exciting to be running in the middle of a band
of six hundred elk.
We got a despatch on the Musselshell, saying that the whole
regiment was marching up the Yellowstone about parallel with
us, going up the Mussellshell probably forty miles away. The
regiment stampeded the buffalo, which came over our way
in countless numbers, running for dear life. When a big herd
came down, going to the river as into the small end of a funnel,
they jumped over the bank and down into the river. I dis-
mounted on the bank to kill a calf for supper, but the buffalo,
climbing up the bank, separated on both sides of me about
ten feet away, a long string of them going past my horse,
which was swinging me from side to side, trying to get away
in mortal fright. I could not use my gun because the troop
was in front of me and the pack-train behind, but they began
to shoot into the buffalo from both sides, not seeing that I
was among the herd. I howled at them as loud as I could,
Service on the Plains
71
but the din was so great no one could hear me. After the buffalo
had gone by I expected to see at least a dozen on the ground,
but there were none there.
During our visit at the Crow village, wishing to know what a
real buffalo horse was like, I got the Crow chiefs arguing as
to who had the best buffalo horse in the tribe. The argument
waxed hot, but finally it was agreed by the council that Iron
Bull had the best buffalo horse, and I borrowed it at the
next run. He did not have to be fought with like our horses.
All he needed was to be pointed at the animal selected; then
he would take one so close that one could put his hand on
the buffalo's back if one wished. He would lay alongside a
little abaft the beam, as the sailorman says.
The buffalo is very heavy forward and turns differently
from a horse, which has to be pulled up and pivots on his hind
feet, while the buffalo pivots on his fore feet like a shot with-
out pulling up. His hind quarters swing around in a flash when
his fore feet are planted, and if you are too far forward his
head is under your horse's belly, throwing horse and rider
twenty feet, with the horse's belly perhaps ripped open. In the
running season in July an old bull may stop running and gore
and tramp a man who is helpless with a broken leg or other
injury. The bull behaves very badly in July, far more so than
at any other time.
The Indian used to fight and run buffalo bareback, often
with nothing on his horse but a lariat around the lower jaw
trailing behind, which made it easier to catch the animal if the
rider was thrown. The horse is pointed at the intended victim,
and a good buffalo horse will then do everything himself but
the shooting and butchering. As said before, he lays a little
abaft the beam, and the rider drives a single arrow in behind
the last rib, ranging forward, which skewers many of the in-
terior organs on the arrow. These organs are suspended in the
interior by membranes attached to the ribs, which the next jump
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Some Memories of a Soldier
pulls different ways, and the pain is so great that the animal
stops where he is, and you can continue doing the same thing to
others, without fear your previous victims will escape. When
you fall behind you can go back and despatch the wounded
one at a time and at your leisure. They won't go away; they
will wait for you and will sometimes bleed to death through
the lungs. There have been many cases when the arrow, meet-
ing with no bone, has been put clear through the body of a
buffalo, to fall on the ground on the other side.
When the pony hears the discharge of bullet or arrow, he
sheers away from the animal, which is liable to plant his fore
feet and swing his head under the pony if too far forward.
The pony may sheer so quickly as to jump out from under
one, throwing one to the ground at the mercy of the bull,
who is not apt to stop and gore one, unless in July, though this
is possible at all times.
A sure-footed pony will usually take you in safety through a
prairie-dog village full of dog and badger holes. The thing to
do as you are running behind the herd is to steer him at the
fattest cow you see, judging by the width of her hump, a
barren cow if possible, and then trust all to the pony. I rode
many of the cream of that herd of fourteen thousand head
afterward, and although I had many falls, horse and all, was
never injured, although two Crows were killed among the
buffalo while we were with them.
A few guns were used but most men used a bow and arrow,
as better suited to the purpose. Ammunition was sold by the
traders for exorbitant sums six hundred miles from the rail-
road, and the Indian wanted his cartridges to fight his enemy
and never had enough, whereas, an arrow could be used many
times, or, if lost, could be replaced on the next creek where
there was timber. Although I had all the ammunition I wanted,
I frequently used the bow and arrow, with which I became
very skilful as a boy. Our cavalry horses were very much

FORT SILL, INDIAN TERRITORY
Service on the Plains
73
afraid of the buffalo, and most of them could not be urged
any closer than thirty yards, too far to shoot a bow. We
would often shoot a buffalo through with a gun six or eight
times without hitting a vital part, and have him get away,
dying next week at a distant spot. I have known a buffalo to
carry fifteen balls without being knocked down.
While we were a couple of miles ahead of the troop, with
Jack Baronett, who has a peak in the Yellowstone Park named
for him, a discharged blacksmith of the Second Cavalry, Col-
onel Allen, and some Crows, we dismounted on a high eleva-
tion to rest, and began to look all around, as was wise to do
in those days. Allen took a small pair of glasses out of his
waistcoat pocket and looked at the buffalo that covered the
country below and beyond us out of sight. Suddenly he ex-
claimed that he saw a white buffalo. All then took a look
through the glasses, and, sure enough, there was something
white moving among the buffalo far below us. This threw us
into great excitement, for the white buffalo is a rare animal;
possibly one may be found among a hundred thousand black
ones.
We adjusted our saddles for a great run, marking the place
and our course to it, so as to be out of sight and yet have the
wind. We lined up on the opposite side of a hill from the white
one, and when I gave the word we all came up over the ridge
abreast on a fast gallop. I was riding a horse that had won
many races in the Seventh Cavalry before I got him and went
far ahead of the others. We saw at once then that there were
five horses running with the buffalo, one of them white. Near-
ing a blue roan, I very foolishly put my rope down on him
and choked him to a standstill. Having the swiftest horse, I
ought to have left the slow one for those that came after and
gone for a better horse myself, but when I thought of this it
was too late. The blue roan had shoes that had not been
changed for six or eight months, and the hoofs had grown
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Some Memories of a Soldier
around them; his heels were so contracted that they were
badly split in the cleft.
Forty-nine years afterward, in 1926, Mrs. Scott and I were
at a convention of Montana pioneers at Fort Benton, and an
old fellow came up and asked if I knew him; he was greatly
disappointed when I did not. When he told me his name was
Allen, I asked if he still carried that opera-glass in his waist-
coat pocket to look for white buffalo, which showed that I
really knew him. We spent a very pleasant time together until
our train left. When I got back East I found that he had sent
me the opera-glass in memory of old times, and I have it still,
nearly fifty years after I had first looked through it on the
Musselshell at a white buffalo that was not there.
ON THE MARCH AGAIN
By the time we had finished reshoeing and refitting at Ellis,
orders came for us to go to Fort Benton, the head of naviga-
tion on the Missouri, to act as escort to General Terry, going
up to interview Sitting Bull in Canada.
We reached Helena, out of food, money, and clothing, and
I went to the paymaster, a brother of President Arthur, to get
some money, as I had not been paid for six months. He told me
he had no money; Congress had got into a snarl over the
use of the army as a posse comitatus in the South and had
failed to appropriate money for us. He took me around to the
bank and made arrangements to cash my pay voucher for
$125, giving me $100, charging me one fifth of my pay as
discount. We were all ragged, and the Helena paper, com-
menting on our appearance, riding through the town, said our
horses were so bony that a hat thrown at one would catch
anywhere.
The army would have suffered greatly for lack of money
had it not been for that patriotic citizen, Mr. J. P. Morgan
vende Service on the Plains
75
of New York, who said that if the government would not
pay its officers, he would not see them suffer, and he arranged
to have their pay vouchers cashed without profit, for just
what the transaction cost, 1 or 2 per cent., until the next
meeting of Congress, for which act we older officers have
always held Mr. Morgan in grateful remembrance.
Soon after reporting to General Terry at Fort Benton, a
courier came from General Miles, asking to have supplies sent
to him at once. Benton was a small town, but the quarter-
master scraped up fifty two-horse teams. Some of the animals
had never worn harness before, and many of the drivers were
clerks or town men without knowledge of driving. There were
six fine six-mule teams sent to take General Terry over the
Canadian border, but their drivers were infantrymen, picked
without experience, who knew nothing about handling a six-
mule team with a jerk-line. The train was handed over to me
to take out, and De Rudio, with E Troop, went as escort. We
started from Benton at two o'clock with most of the teams
balky and the drivers drunk, and I must have lost ten years'
growth that day getting the train along. The trail was new to
me, and we had twelve crossings of the Marias and Teton to
make, some of them after dark, so that I did not get into camp
and to dinner until one o'clock in the morning. The wagons
would stick in every mud-hole, and as I was the only man in
the command who could really drive a six-mule team with a
jerk-line, I had to stop at every crossing, take out a six-mule
team and, mounting the saddle-mule myself, jerk every wagon
across. We made a slow and painful progress around the Bear
Paw Mountains to Milk River, where we met a squadron of
the Second Cavalry, to whom I turned over the train; I was
never so glad to get rid of anything in my life.
We went down Milk River in search of the Seventh Cavalry.
I was allowed to go as far ahead as I wanted; and far in
advance of the command, somewhere above old Fort Belknap,
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Some Memories of a Soldier
a wooden stockade then used as an Indian agency and trading
post, near the present town of Chinook, where the main line of
the Great Northern Railway now runs, I ran across a naked
Indian lying dead among the sage-brush, without a scalp. I
searched about on the ground for a clue and soon found four
more scalped Indians. Thinking it the work of one of Sitting
Bull's war-parties from north of the line, I looked about to see
if there were any of them still around to treat me in the same
way, and concluded to leave the neighborhood.
I went on down to the camp of a large number of Upper
Assiniboines and asked them about it. They said that the five
men and two others were Nez Percé scouts who had come to
them, asking them to turn out and help them fight the whites.
"What did you do about it?" I asked. They said, “We held a
council and determined to tell them we had no cause to fight
the whites, by whom we were well treated, and advised them
to go over and see the Gros Ventres, who might want to fight.
We said to each other, 'Give them a good dinner-give them
the best you have got, for it is the last dinner they are ever
going to eat.'"
After their dinner, I was told, they started toward the Gros
Ventre village, and were allowed to get some miles away, when
the young Assiniboine braves saddled up and went out and
killed them all, and their scalps were there hanging on a pole
to dry in the wind.
Leaving the Assiniboine village, I soon encountered Lieu-
tenant Maus with ten men of the infantry, mounted, who said
he was hunting for Nez Percé fugitives from Miles's fight, and
thought there might be a lot of them in the village of the Red
River half-breeds living on Milk River. I told him that if
there was to be any shooting I would go with him. We went
over and persuaded forty-five Nez Percé Indians to surrender
without a fight. Hiring some Red River carts, we loaded them
with women and children and started for Miles's camp on the
Service on the Plains
77
Missouri near the mouth of the Musselshell, and I sent a mes-
sage to De Rudio, saying that I would meet him at the Three
Peoples Buttes, three prominent landmarks half-way between
the Bear Paw Mountains and the Little Rockies. We went
down through the battle-field, where I killed a fine young bull.
The weather had become quite cold by that time, especially
at night, and I had left camp only with my rifle and am-
munition. Maus had one moth-eaten robe, and we had besides
our two wet saddle-blankets to sleep on, and about a quart
of cracker-crumbs to eat. I would brush the frost out of my
hair on getting up in the morning, stiff with the cold. The
children would cry all night until we killed some buffalo and
wrapped them up in the green hides, and fed them and our
men with meat without salt, cooked without utensils. Neither
of us had intended to be away from our commands overnight
when we had started, but we were actually away more than
ten days, living on berries, buffalo (straight), mule and any-
thing we could find; watched, doubtless, by hostile Indians
every minute.
The following letter refers to the incident:
Captain H. L. Scott, 7th Cavalry,
Sir:
Washington, D. C.
Headquarters of the Army,
Washington, June 26, 1902.
(Through the Lieutenant General Commanding.)
After fight with Nez Percé Indians at Bear Paw, Montana, in
1877, which resulted in the capture or destruction of Chief Joseph
and band, on the homeward march information was received that
there was a portion of these Indians on the Milk River, about
twenty-five miles from the British line, they having escaped at the
beginning of the attack. General Miles asked for vlunteers to go
after them. It was considered an especially dangerous duty, as
Sitting Bull was near the British line, and threatened to come down
with a large force and assist the Nez Percé in wiping out our com-
mand, and had he done so the situation would have been extremely
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Some Memories of a Soldier
serious, considering our small force. Two enlisted men only vol-
unteered. The General then ordered a detachment of eleven men to
perform this duty, assigning me to its command. Near the Milk
River we met you with a detachment of six men, you being a day
or two in advance of your troop. When informed of the object of
my mission, you volunteered to go with me. The number of Indians
that had escaped was unknown, and there was every reason to
expect a fight. We surprised the camp, and captured as near as
I can remember forty-one or two Indians. You were sent to find
your troop, in order that it might take charge of the prisoners,
which you did cheerfully, although the country was infested with
Indians, frequently seen in the distance on high points, evidently
observing our movements. For three or four days after leaving the
Milk River, I do not believe there was a time when hostile Indians
could not be seen.
I desire to express my appreciation of your gallant and valuable
service, voluntarily offered, in the successful carrying out of orders.
No official acknowledgment has been made of this important service
up to this date.
I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully yours,
MARION P. MAUS,
Lieutenant-Colonel, and Aide de Camp.
Ist Indorsement. Headquarters of the Army, Washington, D. C.,
June 27, 1902. Respectfully forwarded to Captain H. L. Scott, 7th
Cavalry, through the Adjutant General of the Army.
The details of the gallant and important service performed as
stated herein are well remembered by the Lieutenant General. Cap-
tain Scott's action in volunteering to perform this duty is highly
commendable, and the Lieutenant General fully concurs in the esti-
mate of his service by Lieutenant Colonel Maus. Due official recog-
nition should be given him for the performance thereof.
THOMAS WARD,
Assistant Adjutant General.
2nd Indorsement. Adjutant General's Office, Washington, June
30, 1902. Respectfully forwarded to Captain H. L. Scott, 7th
Cavalry, 20 Jackson Place, Washington, D. C.
HENRY P. MCCAIN,
Assistant Adjutant General.
Service on the Plains
79
While riding along, a Nez Percé named Tippit attached him-
self to me, and we rode together every day. The horse he
rode was branded with a big rooster; nobody branded stock
in the Northwest in those days, and I concluded that it was
a Spanish brand and that the horse must have been stolen in
Mexico. Tippit started to teach me Chinook, the jargon used
intertribally on the Columbia and up the Pacific coast. He
would ride silent for a long time, trying to think up the English
equivalent; then he would give me questions and English inter-
pretation: "Cumtox Chinook wawa?" "You understan Chinook
talkin?" "Tenas cumtox." "Me little understan." "Nuyu cum-
tox." "Me heap understan." "Wake cumtox." "Me no under-
stan." "Cumtox Boston wawa." "You understan white man
talkin?" Then to my complete astonishment he began to sing,
"Where, oh, where are the Hebrew children in Chinook?" "Ika
-nika clatawa Siah"-which he had learned from some mis-
sion on the Columbia when a child. Tippit proved an amusing
companion and we encouraged him to talk as we marched along.
We reached the camp of the Seventh Cavalry on the north
side of the Missouri, opposite the mouth of the Musselshell,
where I rejoined my troop and returned the bedding roll I had
been using. General Miles had started for Fort Keogh across
country, with the Cheyenne scouts, Fifth Infantry, and the
Nez Percé prisoners. All the wounded had been sent to Fort
Lincoln by boat. Sitting Bull had sent word that he was com-
ing down out of Canada to wipe us all out, and General Miles
held us here to let him try, but he never came, though some
of his scouting parties were operating in the country. I asked
Nez Percé John if he would like to go up and help fight Sitting
Bull, and he broke out with fervor, "Oh, by God! that too
much-too much fight-eat squash now." He had been fighting
all summer, and was fed up on it and wanted to turn farmer.
A saying originated from this which was long current in the
Seventh Cavalry: when a stranger asked about some officer
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Some Memories of a Soldier
absent from a campaign, he would be told, "He's eating squash
now."
Another Seventh Cavalry saying was "to lead the pelican."
This came from the plains of Kansas. Custer had a light
spring-wagon which he kept right behind the troops while on
the march, to carry water, lunch, footsore dogs, or what not.
They carried a wounded pelican in it for some time, right
behind the last troop. The army regulations used to require
that an officer in arrest should march in the rear of the troops,
and it would be said of an officer in arrest that "he is leading
the pelican."
We were camped on a silted-up channel of the Missouri,
which made a beautiful sward, without brush or rose-bushes,
the edges dotted here and there with giant cottonwood, five or
six feet in diameter, reminding one of an English park. The
weather was quite cold, and at night we would all gather
around a huge fire and listen to stories from the scouts, mainly
from Liver Eating Johnson, who was said to have eaten a
piece of an Indian's liver in a fit of bravado. His language was
very quaint, and we would often listen to him until one o'clock
in the morning. He was a tall powerful man with a hairy torso
like that of a bull. He carried a sixteen-pound buffalo Sharp's
rifle, which, with its belt full of ammunition, was a load for an
ordinary man. He would leave camp on foot and soon kill and
dress an antelope, cutting off its head and tying all four feet
together. This he would swing over his shoulder like a sack,
the body under his left arm, and go on and kill another, to be
swung under the right arm.
Billy Jackson was a Blackfoot, who had been a scout for the
Seventh Cavalry the year before, and had been cut off in the
timber with De Rudio, Gerard, and Sergeant O'Neill, left
behind by Reno. Jackson had wintered at Lincoln, Rice, and
Standing Rock, and I had thought in those days that he was
a Sioux half-breed. He had come up the Missouri with us as
Service on the Plains
81
far as Fort Keogh, where I had missed him until meeting him
here. His brother, Bob Jackson, was with him, but was not
nearly so good a man. When Bob Jackson and Liver Eating
Johnson left our camp, it may have been a mere coincidence
that a bunch of our horses left the same night.
The antelope here were more numerous than the buffalo.
They went north into Canada in the spring to drop their
young, and came back in the autumn to winter in the sage-
brush, which rises above the snow south of the Missouri. One
of their main crossings was at the mouth of the Musselshell,
and their number was incredible. One could see a bunch of five
thousand in one place, and go on a few miles and see another
bunch just like it. Moving camp one day, five miles, to change
the grass, the men shot thirty-five out of the column while
marching along. No one knew how many they wounded, for
they carry lead like a grizzly bear or a Sulu Moro. I have
known an antelope, though unable to run, to walk off with
seven 45-caliber carbine bullets through his body, none of
which had struck a vital spot; and I have known one to run
a mile with the lower portion of his heart torn off by an
explosive bullet. It is always best to leave a wounded animal
alone, to allow him to lie down and bleed, when he will soon
stiffen and become unable to rise. Chasing seems to give him
a nervous strength that may carry him far away from you.
A dressed antelope would weigh anywhere from fifty to
seventy-five pounds. Everybody hunted that cared to during
the day, and all the antelope brought in would be thrown on
the pile in the center of camp, about eight feet high, and be
issued out as meat to the troops by the commissary; and
when we moved, every wagon would be festooned outside with
dead antelope carried along for food. People said that there
must have been millions of antelope in the region. The meat
is greatly improved by hanging for a week or ten days in that
climate. Of late years I have several times gone three hundred
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Some Memories of a Soldier
miles a day in an automobile in the same region without seeing
an antelope.
General Miles, losing faith in Sitting Bull's threats, started
us down the river for home in November. We passed through
Fort Peck, Wolfs Point, and Poplar Creek agencies of the
Assiniboine and Yanktonais Sioux; great villages of three hun-
dred lodges; newly made white skin lodges of buffalo hide,
where everything was full of joy and laughter, with plenty of
buffalo meat hanging up to dry everywhere, and dances, horse-
races, ring and spear games going on on every side. Here I met
old Red Stone, head chief of the Assiniboines, who came to our
camp, made me a great speech in the sign language before the
assembled officers at my tent, and threw down a beautiful
buffalo robe at my feet as a gift "on the prairie," or a free gift.
Nevertheless I felt that I had to make it up to him with hard
bread, sugar, and coffee.
At Fort Buford I was invited to dinner by Mrs. Robinson,
the wife of the post chaplain, who was from Princeton, a
niece of Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian, and a connection
by marriage, whom I had known from my childhood. She also
invited General Miles, who was going to the railroad with the
Nez Percé prisoners of war. Mrs. Robinson set me to freezing
the ice-cream, and when General Miles entered the front door,
he looked down the passageway and saw me grinding for dear
life at the handle of the freezer.
In 1923 I inspected the Nez Percé agency at Lapwai, Idaho,
where the agent said to me, "You must not leave here without
seeing Jesse Paul." I asked why I should see Jesse Paul par-
ticularly. He said it was because Jesse Paul had been a little
boy among those Nez Percé prisoners of war I conducted to
Bismarck in 1877 to the railway on the way to prison at Fort
Leavenworth-a ragged little Indian prisoner, with no future
whatever. When Jesse Paul came in he took me two hundred
miles in his own high-powered touring-car, and showed me his
Service on the Plains
83
house far from the agency, with electricity and hot and cold
water. He had raised a fine family of boys on his two-hundred-
acre farm. The agent said Jesse owned mortgages on the farms
of white people, and could go into any bank in the neighbor-
hood and borrow what money he wanted without security;
he was one of the most respected citizens of Idaho. Where is
that man that said, "There is no good Indian but a dead
Indian?”
We passed the site of old Fort Union at the mouth of the
Yellowstone, built by Kenneth McKenzie for the American
Fur Company in 1829-the emporium of the Northwest, now
destroyed-and we refitted at Fort Buford a few miles away.
Here Joseph and the Nez Percés prisoners of war joined us
from Fort Keogh, with some Sioux and Northern Cheyennes on
their way to Chicago to see General Sheridan. These Cheyennes
were the old friends of the preceding spring. My Troop I,
Seventh Cavalry, and a company of the First Infantry, were
started down the river, as escort for the Nez Percés, to travel
225 miles to Bismarck, the end of the railway, whence the
prisoners were to be shipped eastward by rail. I was made
quartermaster and put in charge of the train. I rode in the
wagon with Joseph a part of every day, together with the
Nez Percé interpreter, a man from Idaho named Chapman,
and I rode part of every day in the wagons with the Cheyennes
and Sioux, carrying on my study of Sioux and the sign lan-
guage, of which I never missed an opportunity to learn more.
The night we camped at old Fort Berthold, the agency of the
Arikaras, Mandans, and Gros Ventres of the village, many indi-
viduals of those tribes came out to see the Nez Percés, whom
they had heard of as fighting all summer, but had never seen
before. At a big council held at our camp, Joseph stood up in
the middle of a great circle, containing about fifteen hundred
Indians, whom he addressed in the sign language. There were
representatives there from eight languages including mine, Nez
84
Some Memories of a Soldier
Percé, Sioux, Cheyenne, Crow, Arikara, Mandan, Gros Ventre
of the Village, and English. Joseph related his trials and tribu-
lations entirely by gestures, without opening his mouth, and he
was completely understood by all that vast concourse. I have
twice addressed a similar concourse in the sign language, com-
prising members of thirteen different tribes, brought by the
Great Northern Railway in 1925 and 1926 to the mouth of the
Yellowstone to celebrate events at the site of old Fort Union,
but I never saw a more interesting exhibition of the sign lan-
guage than was given by Joseph that day.
Joseph was then a tall, stalwart, active, fine-looking young
man of great force and dignity. His life in Kansas and the
Indian Territory, where many of his people died, did much to
break his body and spirit; this was quite patent at the times
I saw him in Washington in after years. He and his people
were among the finest Indians America produced, but they
were treated most unjustly by the government, first as to their
lands, and secondly in their deportation to Oklahoma, where
they could not live. These Nez Percés received Lewis and
Clark, Bonneville and many other white men with great hos-
pitality and kindness, but their treatment by the white man is
a black page in our history.
A WINTER'S PROGRAM
Arriving at Fort Lincoln in the first part of December, we
began to get ourselves ready to settle down for the winter.
Several snow-storms occurred presaging a cold season.
Suddenly orders came for our squadron to go to the Black
Hills, 225 miles southwest. About three hundred lodges of
Sioux had run away from the Nebraska agencies. They passed
north along the east side of the Black Hills on their way to
join Sitting Bull in Canada, and were trying to slip through
the country unnoticed, but thirty of their young men chased
Service on the Plains
85
the treasure coach from Deadwood, riddling it with bullets.
The driver pulled off the road toward a high rocky hill; com-
ing near, the Indians succeeded in killing a wheeler, which
stopped the coach at the bottom of the hill and enabled the
driver and messenger to get away among the rocks. They
watched the proceedings from their hiding-place and saw the
Indians for half an hour unsuccessfully pound with an ax the
treasure-box, which contained thirty thousand dollars in gold
bullion from the mines. Then they all went away, leaving it
behind, but taking the mail-bags with them.
News of this was carried by wagon two hundred miles to
Bismarck, and our squadron was ordered out to the Black
Hills and had to march two hundred miles to get there. We
passed C Troop going in, which had been in garrison all sum-
mer, and we could not understand why it should be going
back. Some of us were much enraged over this, but I was
as happy out there as anywhere else. We went into camp on
Cherry Creek, but during the time news of the trouble was
coming in and we were marching, several snow-storms occurred
to cover the trail completely. The Indians had been gone a
month, and there was nothing we could do but hunt for the
place where the mail had been opened. Our captain had been
searching in different directions without result when one day
I went with him. I suggested that we follow a straight line,
from their point of departure, to a gap in the hills which they
must have gone through to get out of the valley. About half-
way to the gap a small piece of paper was seen blowing about
over the snow. We dug in the snow thereabout and found
many torn checks on a Deadwood bank. We pieced many of
these together and sent them to the bank.
The old people of the Sioux village deprecated the attack
of some of their young men on the treasure coach, especially
as they had wished to slip through that country without
molestation; and to mark their peaceful intentions they drew a
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Some Memories of a Soldier
picture on a piece of paper of a white man and an Indian
shaking hands and put it in a cleft stick standing up in the
middle of the road. The white man was drawn with a beard
and a plug hat, which differentiated him completely from the
Indian, who was drawn with long braids.
As there were no more Indians creating trouble, we were
drawn into Fort Lincoln the latter part of January and spent
the rest of the winter in the post. I had traveled with troops
more than forty-five hundred miles on horseback since spring
and had traveled as much again without troops, exploring and
hunting, yet had brought my two horses back in good con-
dition. Some I knew that did no hunting used up three horses.
My spare time for the rest of the winter was occupied in
driving Miss Mary Merrill, daughter of General Lewis Merrill,
major of the Seventh Cavalry, who has since become Mrs.
Scott, all over the country, and in visiting the Cheyenne prison
village that Benteen had brought down with his squadron from
Buford in January, to winter at the post. I visited their village
every day, subsidizing White Bear, principally with sugar,
coffee, and other rations, to teach me the sign language, and
we both worked hard at it.
I went down for my lesson one day when the snow had
melted off in the spring, and was surprised to have White Bear
tell me that they were all going to run off that night, leaving
their lodges standing, and go back to the buffalo country where
they could get something to eat. At the post they drew rations
for each member of the family for ten days, and he complained
that in three days these rations were all eaten up and so they
were always hungry. I could not believe he was telling the
truth until I looked about the lodge and saw all their peoperty
tied up ready for packing.
I took the news very casually, going around among the other
lodges as usual, and noticing that all movable property was
ready; then I hurried to the commanding officer to report.
Service on the Plains
87
He would not believe it possible at first; then he sent a guard
down to bring up the principal chiefs, using me as the only
interpreter at the post. These chiefs all said "yes, we are
going back to the buffalo country, where we will not starve to
death." They became very emphatic and so insulting to the
general that I was reluctant to tell him all they said, but I
gave him enough to make him very angry in his turn. One of
them, Ridge Bear, told him he was a liar when he said they
had enough food; that he, better than the colonel, knew when
he had enough to eat; that he had been accustomed to do as
he pleased when a little boy, and now a grown man he was
not going to let anybody tell him he could not go where he
pleased.
General Sturgis could not believe that I knew enough to
interpret correctly, and so he sent for the Arikara interpreter,
F. F. Girard, who had left the service and settled near the
present site of the town of Mandan, and also for a Cheyenne
man married to an Arikara woman. Then the colonel went
through the interview again. Starting with English, it went
through the Arikara woman to her Cheyenne husband and
back again through the same channels, all verifying what I
had already said.
The colonel then sent a squadron of cavalry to camp at their
village to prevent them from running away at night. Had they
succeeded in escaping they would have had a long start, for the
Heart River was up and there would have been plenty of time
to put the river between them and us before we learned of
their leaving; moreover it would have been a long hard chase
costing many lives, and the colonel would have been dealt
with severely for permitting the conditions of which they com-
plained, and for not preventing their departure. The general
complimented me on stopping their get-away, and directed me
to have the quartermaster present a voucher for a hundred
dollars as compensation for extra service as an interpreter,
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Some Memories of a Soldier
but I told him I could not do that. He might have done far
better for me if he had reported the service, putting it on my
record, but this he was afraid to do lest it bring an inspector
to investigate his management of the Indians.
It did not get on my records for many years afterwards,
when it was put on by the inspector-general, who was at that
time the adjutant of the Seventh Cavalry, in the following
letter now on file in the War Department:
To the
Sir:
War Department
Office of Inspector General, South Atlantic District,
Washington, D. C., June 19th, 1902.
Adjutant General,
U. S. Army.
I have the honor to state that in the spring of 1878 a large band
of Cheyenne Indians were held prisoners of war at Fort A. Lincoln,
Dakota, having been captured the year before by General N. A.
Miles, then Colonel, 5th Infantry, and commanding the District of
Yellowstone; Little Chief was, I think, head chief of the band.
The Indians had recently been hostile and the situation was deli-
cate. Captain H. L. Scott, 7th Cavalry, then a 2nd Lieutenant of
the 7th Cavalry, and at that time stationed at Fort A. Lincoln, was
very much interested in the Indians and was beginning the study
which has placed him at the head of the officers of the army in
knowledge of the Indian's character, his human nature, his method
and thought of action, and of the Indian Sign Language.
He spent nearly all his time, when not on duty, in the Indian
village, became well acquainted with the head men, won their con-
fidence and esteem. On the occasion of one of his visits to the camp,
White Bear told him that as soon as night came the entire village
would depart from the Yellowstone, leaving their lodgings standing.
Captain Scott with adroitness ascertained all he could about the
proposed movement; satisfied himself of its probability by finding
that everything which the Indians could likely take with them was
packed and ready. Captain Scott talked to Little Chief, corroborated
the statement of White Bear; after conversing with him on various
matters so as not to appear very much impressed by the report,

Courtesy General McCoy.
JACK WILSON AND GENERAL T. J. MCCOY
1
Service on the Plains
89
Captain Scott left the camp immediately, found the Commanding
Officer, General S. D. Sturgis, Colonel, 7th Cavalry, then command-
ing the regiment and Post of Fort A. Lincoln. Two troops of the 7th
Cavalry were sent to prevent any movement by the Indians.
General Sturgis summoned the chiefs and talked to them through
Captain Scott by means of the sign language. General Sturgis was
apprehensive that Captain Scott might have failed to catch the exact
meaning of the Indians. Mr. Girard, an old Indian interpreter of the
Ree language, was summoned from Mandan, and through a Ree
woman who was married to a Cheyenne warrior in the camp, Mr.
Girard ascertained that the report as made by Captain Scott was
correct in every essential particular, and that the Indians did con-
template running off at nightfall.
The adroitness of Captain Scott, and his prompt action in
this emergency enabled dispositions to be made which pre-
vented an outbreak, and possibly a long Indian war, for which
he deserves great credit, and if it is not already a matter of
record in the Department it should be made so.
I was Adjutant of the 7th Cavalry, and of the post of Fort A.
Lincoln at the time of the occurrence of the facts narrated above.
Very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
E. A. GARLINGTON,
Major, Inspector General.
The Northern Cheyennes, forced to go to the Indian Terri-
tory by the secretary of the interior, ran away the same spring
from Fort Reno, Indian Territory, a quarter of the army
following them. They killed all the white men they could,
coming across Kansas and Nebraska.
These Northern Cheyennes were on their way with their
women and children, horses and dogs, to the Indian Territory
under charge of the celebrated frontiersman and Cheyenne
interpreter, Ben Clark, who had been chief of scouts for Custer
at the battle of the Washita in 1868. This was a part of the
harsh policy of the secretary of the interior, to assemble all
Indians in the Indian Territory, no matter where their habitat,
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Some Memories of a Soldier
even if it killed them, as it did very many. These Cheyennes
were escorted to the Black Hills of Dakota and thence to
Sidney, Nebraska, by the Seventh Cavalry, from where they
were taken on to Fort Reno in the Indian Territory by Cap-
tain Mauck's troop of the Fourth Cavalry. A long stay was
made in our camp to recuperate their stock, and I used this
period to learn much from them and from Ben Clark, with
whom I contracted a friendship that lasted during the re-
mainder of his life.
Our camp was immediately under and north of Bear Butte,
a single peak some miles east of the Black Hills range, which
was regarded by the Cheyennes as their principal medicine
place. Many of them climbed to the summit, where they left
presents to the medicine that inhabited the mountain. Some
would go to the top, about twelve hundred feet above our
camp, and stay there three days and nights, without eating,
drinking, or sleeping, believing that the medicine would help
them get horses or perhaps to strike their enemy.
While the Cheyennes were still in that camp on eclipse of the
sun took place that was announced by the public press. I told
the Cheyennes to expect it several days beforehand, but they
did not believe me. They became very much excited when the
eclipse began, shooting off guns and making every sort of
noise they could to frighten away the evil medicine which they
thought was destroying the sun. Their treatment was highly
successful-the sun recovered.
A PACK-TRAIN FOR THE REGIMENT
After the Cheyennes went south, General Sheridan arrived
for the purpose of selecting a site for the new post of Fort
Meade. He took Jackson's Troop C and went over to Spearfish,
the best stream in the Black Hills, where we all thought he
would locate the post. Something over there displeased him,
B
Service on the Plains
91
however, and he would have none of it. When he came back to
our camp, he sent Hare and myself to where Fort Meade now
is at Sturgis City, to make a map of that region. We put our
two maps together upon return, and upon this he located the
post.
The Seventh Cavalry officers all made an official call on him
in a body in our colonel's tent. It was a large hospital tent, but
it was so full and my rank so low I could not get entirely
inside. General Sheridan expatiated upon the value such a post
would have, when Indians broke away from the Nebraska
agencies and went north toward the camp of Sitting Bull; a
telegram to Fort Meade, he said, would enable a cavalry force
to head them off here. I took my courage in hand and asked if
he thought that post would be any good here without a pack-
train. Instead of having me thrown out, it seemed to strike
him just right, for he turned to our colonel, saying: "Sam, do
you want a pack-train? I'll give you one."
The Seventh Cavalry had never had a real pack-train before,
because General Terry thought you could catch Indians with
a six-mule team, though he never did it himself. Whenever we
encountered cavalry from General Crook's Department of the
Platte, away from our wagons, the difference was painfully
evident, for General Crook was the father of the modern
aparejo train. The sound of the pack-train bell means food,
shelter, and ammunition to me; without these an officer, even
on the verge of victory, must let go and retire to save his men
from capture. I fear that the sound of that bell has little mean-
ing nowadays for the men of this age, who listen for the honk
of an automobile, which cannot climb mountains where there
is no road, as can our old long-eared comrade of the plains,
the mule.
Pack-trains are expensive to maintain, and the quarter-
master-general is always breaking them up to save money.
It takes time to make a pack-train and it is not everybody
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Some Memories of a Soldier
who can make one, even with the money. Custer's train was a
disgrace, improvised from the mules taken from the wagon-
train, and his packers were without experience. His train was
scattered for miles and could easily have been captured had
the Indians known about it.
Notwithstanding frugal quartermaster-generals, the Fort
Meade pack-train given us by General Sheridan in 1878 sur-
vived even the penurious General Batcheler, who stripped the
army of mules, and this train even survived the retrenchment
after the Spanish War. It was sent to the Mexican border in
1912, where the chief packer called on me at San Antonio, and
that train serves the cavalry on the border to this day. I used
to love every mule in it, long ago.
Several times during the summer of 1878 our Troop I would
be sent out eastward after Indians with A Troop, Captain
Moylan in command. Returning from one of these expeditions,
we wanted to camp at Washté Springs, but no one knew where
it was. Nearing the Belle Fourche River, we saw some men
riding off to one side of it to avoid meeting us. I started over
to ask them where Washté Springs was, when they began to
gallop away. I cut them off and asked them why they were
running away. They disclaimed running away, saying they
belonged to a bull-train and were trying to catch up with it.
I noticed that their horses were too good for bull-whackers,
but there was nothing to be done about it. I got the directions
for the springs and let them go. We made camp at the springs
and were sitting down to dinner some hours afterward, when
along came Seth Bullock, marshal of the hills, with a posse in
pursuit of the men I had stopped. They had had a battle with
the messengers on the Sidney treasure coach, had killed a tele-
graph operator on the box, and were going east with thirty
thousand dollars' worth of gold bricks from the mines; there
was five thousand dollars reward offered for each one of them.
I had had them in my hand with two troops of cavalry to help
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93
hold them, but they were ahead of the news, and we knew
nothing about it until Seth Bullock arrived.
Bullock followed them with his posse toward the Missouri
River, where they were seen camping at a water-hole. Seth
wanted to take them right away, but his posse refused, well
knowing they were desperate, having already killed one man.
They agreed to go on past as if they knew nothing about them
and return to surround them in the darkness and tackle them
at daylight. This they proceeded to do, but when daylight came
there was nobody there. One was captured trying to sell a gold
brick in Iowa and was being taken west of Omaha when he
jumped out of the car window. The train was stopped and a
great search made for the fugitive, until the conductor had to
go on, leaving the search party still hunting for the prisoner.
It was found later that he had never left the car, but had
climbed up and was lying flat on top and was carried swiftly
away from his pursuers. He was captured further west, how-
ever, and was sent to the penitentiary.
In 1920 I was inspecting the Sioux agency at Standing Rock
when the governor of North Dakota invited me to Bismarck
and a dinner was given to me and other old-timers. Alexander
McKenzie, who had been sheriff there in my youth, was one of
the guests. He had become very wealthy and was the political
power of that region. We got to talking about old times and
he asked me, "Do you know who those robbers were you
had in your hand?" I told him that I did not and that we
were continually on the march for months afterward without
sleeping in a house or seeing a paper. He said, “Those were
Frank and Jesse James who did that job, and you had them
both."
While moving along the trail of the Bismarck stage, we
noticed that the passing stages were overladen with pas-
sengers. We asked what the excitement was and were told that
"color" had been found in the Bear Paw Mountains of the
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Some Memories of a Soldier
Upper Missouri, and that there was a stampede for the Bear
Paw. Everybody was leaving from the Hills, and we even saw
men riding that 225 miles to Bismarck on the break-blocks be-
cause the stage was too full to hold them-all to no purpose,
it developed, for there was never pay dirt in the Bear Paw
Mountains.
We were sent east again to Pinau Springs, about seventy-five
miles out on the Sioux Reservation, because the Sioux were
reported as bothering the stages. On the return we passed
through a gap in the outer rampart of the Black Hills and saw
a battalion of infantry going south. Encountering their wagon-
train, we asked where they were going. It was then we heard
that Red Cloud, chief of the Ogalalas, had broken out on the
Missouri River, after killing his agent, and had gone back into
the hiterland, nobody knew where; the Northern Cheyennes,
taken down to the Indian Territory in 1876 by Captain Lawton,
Fourth Cavalry, had broken away from Fort Reno, and were
coming north, killing everybody in their path through Kansas
and Nebraska, to join the Ogalalas, with whom they were
intermarried. I made passing reference to this before but it was
in the foregoing manner that we learned of the danger.
The orders were for us to draw thirty days' rations and
catch up with the infantry battalion and other troops of the
Seventh Cavalry and prevent the Cheyennes from forming a
junction with Red Cloud. We stopped right there, fortunately
near some water, unloaded our wagons, throwing everything
on the ground, and Hare took the empty wagons to where they
were building Fort Meade, for the thirty days' rations. On his
return we took up the trail down into the bad lands of Bad and
White rivers, across the Cheyenne, making night and day
marches, camping at times without water, in a frantic effort
to overtake the others. After a toilsome night march, we
reached their camp on White River at the mouth of the
Wounded Knee (Chankpé opi wakpala) at seven o'clock in the
Service on the Plains
95
morning, just as they were leaving camp. We were told to get
breakfast there and join the infantry right away, although
our men and animals were nearly done for.
We caught them up near the Porcupine Tail Butte in the
forenoon. When we stopped for lunch, the officers all con-
gregated on a high place, from which we could overlook the
country, when some one exclaimed, "There are Red Cloud's
horses now!" I carried a small telescope, through which we all
took a look. We could see color and movement about six
miles away, and everybody was convinced that they were Red
Cloud's horses. It was all settled to everybody's satisfaction,
when I declared that they were not horses but Texas cattle.
That brought out a roar of derision; the buffalo were hardly
out of the country, and there were no cattle ranches yet estab-
lished; how did I, a four-eyed man, have the impertinence to
maintain my views against those of men who could really see?
Nevertheless I stuck to my opinion and, sure enough, when
we got near, we found that it was a beef herd under contract
for the agency, being driven up on the cattle trail from Texas.
Then they wanted to know how I had come to the conclusion
they were not horses, too far away to distinguish the shape.
I told them I had spent some time the previous summer with
the Crows, who had more than fourteen thousand head of
horses; each lodge would have from two to five hundred head,
many of them bred in that bunch. A little Indian boy could
round them up, drive them to water right through the other
bunches, and if one got separated from his own bunch he
would howl until he was answered and got back among his
own. After watering, they would be driven out to the hillside
and left where there was room to graze, in bunches, each be-
longing to a different lodge. The animals we saw on the
Wounded Knee were not bunched-we could see movement
and color-but they were scattered irregularly over the hill-
side; and I knew that they were cattle because they were not
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Some Memories of a Soldier
in lodge bunches, as cattle have no such affinity for each other
as horses. There were old captains there who had served on
the northern and southern plains and had been in every fight
the Seventh Cavalry ever had, who did not know that. Many
were first-rate garrison soldiers, who knew their drill, took
good care of their men, and who never made a mistake in their
muster-rolls, but who were blind on the prairie.
TROUBLE WITH RED CLOUD
Going up to Red Cloud's village on White Clay Creek, I
noticed ugly signs. Red Cloud was said to have five thousand
young men, many recently from the hostile village, and I
could see that they were in a very ugly mood. When passing
one on the trail he would draw off to one side, cover his face
with his blanket, and refuse to answer a question; and when
riding near they were seen to be carrying two belts of
ammunition, one around the waist, and the other over the
shoulder. I could feel trouble in the air.
There was no interpreter with the command, when one was
needed most, nor any Indian scouts. When the head of the
column stopped at Red Cloud's lodge, they sent back in the
column for me and I was told I was wanted as interpreter.
Red Cloud was in a most surly mood. There he stood in the
presence of eleven troops of cavalry and boldly asked: "What
do you come looking for here? My young men don't want you
here. If you come here looking for a fight my young men will
fight you. If you don't want to fight, you go home."
It was a good deal of responsibility to throw on a young man
only two years out of West Point; I not only had to act as
interpreter, and extricate the commanding officer from the
tense situation, but must still preserve his dignity. Fortunately
I succeeded.
It was found that Red Cloud had not killed his agent, as

MEMBERS OF TROOP L SEVENTH U. S. CAVALRY (INDIANS), FORT SILL
Service on the Plains
97
reported, but had left the Missouri, where the Ogalala, with
Red Cloud, and the Brûlé Sioux with Spotted Tail, had been
taken the year before, to save the two-hundred-mile haul of
their supplies; and Red Cloud had broken away, taking the
agency beef herd without permission. They were evidently very
cross, and I warned the commanding officer to look out for
trouble.
We went a day's march away to camp, and I was sent back
to live in Red Cloud's lodge for a few days to keep tab on
what he was doing. Indians are always hospitality itself, and
he made me welcome in his lodge. I stayed there three nights,
watching. I could not see that anything overt was under way
but felt that I had no friends there and that hostilities might be
brewing without my knowledge.
Red Cloud was an excellent sign talker, but he made his
gestures differently from any one I had ever seen before or
since. While each was perfectly distinct, they were all made
within the compass of a circle a foot in diameter, whereas they
are usually made in the compass of a circle two and a half
feet in diameter. We talked about everything under the sun,
but he would not give me any clue to what made him so ill-
humored, and to what was actuating his young men. I never
did learn until I made a visit to Pine Ridge in 1920, when the
half-breed Sioux interpreter Billy Garnett told me that Red
Cloud saw troops coming from Laramie and from every direc-
tion, to rendezvous near him. He would not believe that it was
on account of the Northern Cheyennes coming north from the
Indian Territory, but thought we were all brought there to
arrest him for making off with the agency beef herd without
permission, until one of the Cheyennes left Dull Knife and
Little Wolf somewhere south of the Niobrara, and came in
with one lodge to tell Red Cloud that it was true the Cheyennes
were at war; after which Red Cloud softened and matters
returned to their normal condition.
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Some Memories of a Soldier
When the Cheyennes neared the Red Cloud country, for
which they headed, they slowed down, intending to work their
way a few at a time unnoticed among the Sioux. Little Wolf
separated from Dull Knife (Mila Pésni) south of the Niobrara,
and went far east among the sand-hills of Nebraska. Dull
Knife worked his way slowly and cautiously north of the
Niobrara and, encountering a squadron of the Third Cavalry
suddenly in a fog, to the surprise of both parties, surrendered
without a fight, and the prisoners were brought into Fort
Robinson.
Their principal men, Dull Knife, Wild Hog, and Old Crow,
got permission to come down to my tent under guard. They
were the scare-heads in the Eastern dailies at that time, and we
all wanted to know why they had run away from Fort Reno.
The officers of the seven troops of the Seventh Cavalry present
gathered at my tent to learn, and they told us the whole story
in the sign language. I would interpret the technical signs, but
many others were made that were such natural imitations that
everybody there who did not understand signs comprehended
what was said with little assistance. They told also of a visit
to Washington in 1873, where they attended a circus and saw
a white man jump off a spring-board over five horses. They
made everybody understand that they had seen an elephant,
although the language contains no sign for an elephant. They
told us with great earnestness that they had run away from
Fort Reno on account of the many deaths from fever, de-
termined to die quickly in battle rather than at a slower rate
by fever, and they said they would die in the North rather
than be sent back. I reported to Colonel Carlton, commanding
the post, that they would never go back alive.
Moylan gave me an order to search the country within eighty
miles to the eastward with ten men, between the Niobrara and
White rivers, for Little Wolf, and to bring him in without a
fight. A large proportion of the army had been chasing Little
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99
Wolf for months, and how Moylan conceived the idea that I
could bring him with ten men I never learned. We had no
scouts, and I wanted one of the Cheyenne prisoners to go
with me. The matter was broached among the prisoners in the
barracks, where they were confined. After a discussion among
themselves, they announced that Old Crow would go with
me. I told them that was all very well so far as it went, but
would he come back with me? He promised that he would.
The commanding officer, however, refused to let me take him,
saying that he had him safe as a prisoner and I might lose him.
I sent Captain Moylan to try to induce him to let me have Old
Crow, giving many solid reasons, but he was adamant. Meet-
ing Old Bill Rowland, who had been with the Cheyennes for
forty years, I asked him whether he thought Old Crow would
really come back with me. He replied that "he certainly would,
if he said he would." I took Bill Rowland with me to Colonel
Carlton, who knew him, and at his request the colonel let me
take the Indian.
We got out about ten miles from Fort Robinson when Old
Crow wanted to leave the column to go up on a high butte
to look around. Coming back he said he had seen a troop of
cavalry from Fort Laramie going in to Fort Robinson with
eleven pack-mules and three Sioux scouts, which I verified
when I got back and found to be just as he said. I gave him
a rifle to go off and kill an antelope. He shot the antelope in
some peculiar way so that it could only walk, and instead of
killing it and carrying the meat, he herded it down to the
trail, on which I was about to pass. He made it furnish its own
transportation and killed it right in front of me.
About forty miles east of Camp Sheridan he announced that
he could see Little Wolf's band in the east. We traveled low
in the ravines, out of sight, and came up suddenly over a ridge,
to find the Indians to be Chase and Hunter of the Third
Cavalry with a fine pack-train. I could get no pack-train at
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Some Memories of a Soldier
Robinson and had to borrow three wagon mules from the
quartermaster, with sawbuck pack-saddles, and had to pack
the bedding, food, and ammunition myself, for there was no
one else to do it until I had taught one man to pack on one
side. Chase and Hunter, however, who were in General Crook's
department, had a pack-train with every comfort.
I returned to Fort Robinson, without Old Crow's seeing even
a track, convinced that Little Wolf had never been in that
region. This was confirmed afterward by Little Wolf himself
in Montana. If my orders had told me to find Little Wolf in-
stead of directing me to search a certain country, where he
never had been, I would have kept on until I found him. I
went back to Robinson without him and returned Old Crow to
the commanding officer with thanks.
We all started north for Fort Meade. Nearing the post,
Slocum went ahead and bought up all the canned oysters, in-
tending to give a party in a few days. He had a hole dug in
the floor of his tent in which to keep them. Suddenly the
trumpets sounded the signal to pack up, and we started for
Fort Lincoln, 225 miles to the Northeast, and Slocum came
away, forgetting the oysters, which may be in that hole yet.
He resents even to this day my asking him how his oyster-bed
is thriving.
I admired a horse of Benteen's troop that was being ridden
temporarily by the lieutenant-colonel. At every halt I would
go up to take in his points, and the orderly holding him would
say, "Look out, lieutenant; he don't like fur and will strike
you with his fore feet if you get too near." I noticed the lieu-
tenant-colonel was not wearing his fur coat, although it was
quite cold. I asked Benteen to let me buy the horse from the
government, and he said I might if his Lieutenant, Russell, did
not object. Russell said to take him, with his blessing, as he
wanted a driving horse; they had put a harness on this beast
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101
last winter at Fort Rice, and it had taken all H Troop to get
it off, and I was more than welcome to him.
IN STATION AT FORT TOTTEN
I bought the horse at Fort Lincoln. The troops received their
winter assignment here, and we were ordered to Fort Totten,
two hundred miles further east, to take station. My captain
ordered me to go to Jamestown by rail, taking a batch of re-
cruits just received, and my new horse was shipped also by
rail, the troop marching along the railroad.
The day after arrival I got an order to carry a despatch in
a hurry to Fort Totten, eighty-two miles north. The trails
were all covered with eight inches of snow, and a black cloud
in the north promised more storm. It was quite cold, and it
was necessary to wear a buffalo coat and other furs. The new
horse and I had a battle in the streets of Jamestown, but I
soon got on him, furs and all, and trotted him twenty-five
miles without dismounting. This was quite contrary to my
habit of riding horses, but I was afraid that if I got off him
alone, far out on the prairie, I might not be able to mount
again. There was a string of road stations twenty-five miles
apart all the way to Totten, but they were hard to find, since
the trail was completely covered. If I should miss Fort Totten
in that great white expanse I could go a thousand miles north
without ever seeing a human being. But I reached Fort Totten
safely and delivered my despatch within twenty-four hours, on
Thanksgiving Day, 1878. The horse was fresh enough to have
gone back next day, had it been necessary.
The troop arrived in about ten days, and the men settled
down for the winter. Fort Totten was one hundred miles east
of the Missouri River on Lake Miniwakan, the Medicine Lake
of the Sioux, foolishly called Devils Lake by the whites, fifty
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Some Memories of a Soldier
miles long and, opposite the post, nine miles wide. The water
was not too brackish for animals to drink, and it contained
many large pickerel or pike weighing from three to twenty
pounds. This was the agency mainly of the Eastern Sioux from
Minnesota, who had lived east of the sign-talking area, and
when I tried to use signs with them they thought I was crazy
to make those foolish gestures.
The ice on the lake would sometimes freeze five feet thick.
The Sioux would cut a hole through the ice, put some rushes
on the windward side, then put down the head of their robes
on the rushes, on which they sat, bringing the robe up over
their backs; then putting a hook and line down through the
hole, baited with a chunk of meat, and the other end of the
line tied to the middle of a stick, three feet long, for a pole,
they would jiggle the line up and down for an hour, and
would usually catch three or four big pike.
The wood for the post was hauled nine miles across the lake.
This hauling packed down the snow, and the road-bed was
raised higher and higher, often six feet above the ice. This
track was the only one easily traveled, as the snow was too
deep to go elsewhere. I usually rode across and back on horse-
back for exercise, then drove a sleigh over, the weather often
20° or 40° below zero. I wore a buffalo overcoat, leggings of
buffalo calfskin, over heavy clothes, a fur cap, gloves, and
mask. I wore Blackfoot winter moccasins of buffalo hide, with
hair inside, and with a felt insole an inch thick; silk or cotton
socks next to my feet and over these heavy Dutch socks. It
was necessary to wear hide clothing, for no woven material
would keep out that piercing wind.
My classmate, Slocum, and I occupied the same quarters,
and our main task was to keep the stoves well stoked, for
that was the coldest part of the United States, the coteau of
the Missouri, where blizzards come straight from the Arctic
Circle. The snow would bank up in front of the windows so
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103
that no one could see through them, and remain that way
until it melted in the spring. Often we would not get our mail
for one or two months; sometimes it would be brought in
by dogs.
The lake broke up on May 5. There was something uncanny
about the disappearance of the ice. It would melt and freeze
for days, melt all around the edge, thirty to fifty feet from the
shore, this space getting continually wider, until there could
be movement of vast ice-fields; then some night it would dis-
appear completely, leaving no trace. The Indians and Red
River half-breeds believed that it sank. I have seen an explana-
tion of the disappearance somewhere in print. The surface
does not melt, for what melts in the daytime refreezes at
night; it is the under surface that melts-because water is
warmer than ice-and the water eats its way up into the under
side of the ice, leaving long spiculæ in the space between.
Thus the ice gets very thin without showing on top, and one
night the force of the wind moves the ice-field, and it begins
to break up. The spiculæ are rubbed together, and, being rot-
ten, the ice ground up by the waves vanishes entirely.
When the ice would melt for thirty feet out from the shore,
we would walk along the edge with a carbine to shoot the big
pike coming out from under the ice to the open water to
spawn. They would thresh about, merely stunned by the shot,
and you would have to get hold of them quickly or they would
escape under the ice.
Lieutenant Robinson shot one and jumped into the water
up to his armpits and threw the fish up on the ice. We helped
him to climb out; then instead of taking the fish by putting
the points of his thumb and forefinger in the eyes to get a
leverage against the skull, he put his fingers in its mouth.
The teeth were long and sharp, and the fish closed down on
his fingers and would not let go until I pried his mouth open
with the muzzle of a carbine.
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Slocum and I could be seen a large part of every day chop-
ping pine boxes into kindling-wood and hauling it down to
the shore. We had a small flatboat, rigged with an open iron
basket held high above the bow, to burn this kindling-wood,
making a light by which we could see a big pike at a distance.
We would then pole up on him quietly and strike him with a
fish spear. We got seventy-five one night, more than four
hundred pounds, most of which went to feed the troops.
At the opening of spring the prairies were covered with
upland plover running about in pairs. Many sicklebill curlew
would hover over one, and the prairie-chickens would begin to
dance, as did the sand-hill cranes, and the shores of the lake
would harbor quantities of bay-birds, yellowlegs, willet or stone
curlew, just as is seen on Barnegat Bay in New Jersey. Then
the innumerable varieties of colored wild flowers began their
changing season, showing great splashes of color, varying as
the seasons came and went. The soil about Fort Totten was a
dark brown loam, immensely rich, and the land was rolling
and diversified, holding many small fresh-water lakes hidden
among the hills, usually with little oak groves somewhere on
their shores.
The buffalo had left this part of the country after a fire that
burned over the whole region in 1867, and they fled across the
Missouri, never returning. There were still a few elk and
deer. The last black bear was killed by a soldier in the winter
of 1878.
We had a small schooner and a sloop, built by the post
quartermaster and handled by a soldier brought up in Finland
with a knowledge of small boats. I put myself under his charge
to teach me what he knew, and my spare time was occupied in
this way after the warm weather began until the prairie-
chickens were large enough to shoot. I applied myself very
diligently and believe I could navigate a small schooner now
from New York to Cuba if I wanted to.
Service on the Plains
105
When the chicken season began I was in high spirits. The
pointer brought out from the East had too close a range, and
I bought two others, father and son, splendid dogs. The father
was self-taught and had no fine points in his education, but he
was the greatest chicken dog I have ever known. He seemed
to perform miracles when he wanted to, but he never wanted
to in the heat of the day. He was old, and I bought him to use
for one season and used him three. Everybody used him for
years, and he had probably seen the death of more than ten
thousand chickens. We had trouble getting his son from a
French half-breed who had sold him to us, and when Slocum
and I went to get him he refused to part with the dog, because
of his wife. Slocum asked him if he were not master in his
own house and could not do as he pleased with his own
property. He said, "Lieutenant, it is easy to see that you are
not married." But we got the dog finally, and for four years
I had wonderful chicken shooting. The bay-birds and curlew
were in countless numbers there, but about the time they raised
their young, the chickens which could be hunted with a dog
were ready to shoot, and I never bothered about the others.
All sorts of ducks nested in that country except the black
mallard, and the season began about August 28.
The officers told me they would show me how to get ducks
and would drive out to the mallard slough. If the birds were
flying there that evening we would have some sport; other-
wise they would announce that there were no birds flying and
we would have to go home empty-handed. I wondered about
this all season. There were millions of ducks seen in the air
and on the small lakes and ponds; why would they fly in the
mallard slough one day and not the next? When not shooting
I was driving about seeking an answer to the question. All
the birds and animals have laws of their nature that compel
each kind to do the same thing under the same circumstances.
These laws are very simple and, when once deduced, make the
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finished sportsman and deliver the game into his hand with
little effort.
I learned the laws of the rabbit when a boy at home. The
rabbit, followed by a slow hound, will return to where he is
started from, and one has only to wait until he comes back
to shoot him. I learned of the black bear from the Caddo
Indians by watching their movements when hunting; they can-
not give one their reasons for doing certain things; and the
only means of learning lies in close observation. I learned the
laws governing the mountain sheep from the Crow, the black-
tailed deer from the Sioux and Cheyenne. I never did master
any law for the white-tailed or Virginia deer, perhaps because
none prevailed.
The ducks at Fort Totten rafted in immense bodies far out
on the lake during the heat of the day, and would go inland
toward evening to feed and spend the night, flying over water,
if possible, and I soon discovered that the law governing this
flight was their desire to fly from the big lake against the wind.
If the wind were from the south they went out on the south
side, and vice versa. I soon had twenty-five duck passes, and,
applying the law, never again missed a flight. Why does a duck
want to fly against the wind? Because his feathers are then
smoothed down rather than ruffled, and when they are ruffled
the sharp points of the quills hurt him. Whenever you see a
robin perched on a tree or fence, his face will always be
toward the wind, if there is any, to keep his feathers smooth.
These observations are not to be found in books.
The quartermaster asked St. Paul for a steam-engine for
our schooner. When it came it was too large for the boat and
would have sunk her if used. Then we began the construction
of a good-sized tug, cutting and hauling the oak logs and
sawing them at the agency saw-mill. We built a fine dock of
crib-wood filled with boulders far out into the lake, giving
eight feet of water off the end of the pier, into which we could
Service on the Plains
107
dive; and many a large pike was caught off that pier, although
we were told by the former garrison that it was of no use
to fish in the lake, for the pike would never bite.
This time, not being very expert marine engineers, we made
the boat too large for the engine, though it was excellent in
every other way. The boat went very slowly, not more than
seven miles an hour. General Sherman came to the post for an
inspection, bringing his daughter and an aide, Captain Bacon.
I invited them, as post quartermaster, to go out on the lake in
our home-made steamboat. After we got out a short distance,
the General asked, "What makes this boat go so slowly?" I
told him of our trials and tribulations, and he turned to Bacon
and told him to see that we got a proper engine for our boat.
This time we got what we wanted, and our boat plowed those
seas for years, a credit to a real shipyard.
Those were the days before vegetables were issued to the
soldier, and we raised wonderful crops of potatoes, cabbages,
tomatoes, carrots, beets, and onions. My troop had one thou-
sand bushels of potatoes and splendid heavy heads of cab-
bages and root vegetables such as I had never seen before;
these we stored in a root-house and issued to the troop all
winter. The half-breeds would bring in a train of Red River
carts, loaded with frozen pike from springs that never froze
on the Mouse or James River, where the pike would congre-
gate in the warm spring water in winter, so thick they could
be thrown out with a pitchfork. The trader bought these,
threw them in a great pile on the floor of an empty store-
room where one could pick out the fish that pleased him,
thaw it out, and thus have fresh fish for dinner. During the
summer the Sioux women would bring in wild raspberries and
give us half an oilcanful for twenty-five cents. All this enabled
us to live better and cheaper than we have ever lived any-
where since. We felt abused when the price of beef went up
to seven cents a pound. We killed our own game and fish and
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raised our own vegetables, and when the frost threatened the
tomatoes we picked them green and ripened them in corn-
meal.
I went on a leave of absence for four months in January,
1879. My mother was then living in Princeton with her sister
at Morven, the old Stockton place. My grandfather had died,
and when I turned a corner and met my grandmother she put
her arms around my neck and cried as if her heart would
break. My aunt's children got scarlet fever soon after my
arrival, and fearing to be put in quarantine, I spent my time
going back and forth between New York and Philadelphia
until the fever was over.
Just before leaving Totten, news came that what I had
predicted about the Cheyenne prisoners at Fort Robinson had
happened. Ordered sent back to the Indian Territory by the
secretary of the interior, they had broken out in the dead of
winter at the fort Robinson and, without food or clothing had
been nearly all killed refusing to surrender to the troops which
tried to recapture them. Dull Knife himself escaped and
reached asylum among the Sioux. Wild Hog, who had been
the most earnest in his determination to die in the North rather
than go back to die of sickness in the Indian Territory, was
captured at the beginning and tried to stab himself with a
fork. This treatment of a fine, virile tribe, one of the most
moral on the Plains marks another black page in our history.
I had warned Colonel Carlton, commanding at Fort Robinson,
months before the affair took place, but he had been sent to
take station at Sidney, Nebraska, and there was a new com-
mander at the time.
Returning from leave, through Chicago, I stopped at the
Palmer House, then the army hostelry, where General Sheridan
and his brother Mike were living. General Sheridan saw me
sitting in an arm-chair against the wall in the lobby, came and
sat down by me, tipped his chair back against the wall, and
Service on the Plains
109
talked to me for an hour about conditions in the Northwest.
I had all the Indian gossip of the Plains-what Sitting Bull
was thinking about-which the General could get from no-
body else except Ben Clark. When he called me "Scott," plac-
ing me on a conversational level with himself, I swelled up
with pride so that Chicago could scarcely hold me. Both Sheri-
dan and his brother always asked me to dinner whenever I
passed through Chicago, and I never appealed to either of them
for help in vain. The General left me to go to the barber shop,
and a scion of a prominent Philadelphia family, whom I had
known when he was in college at Princeton, came up and asked
me who had been talking to me. I replied, "General Sheridan."
When he asked where he had gone, I said, "To the barber
shop," and about an hour afterward I met him again and he
told me he had bought the razor with which the General had
been shaved.
The winter of '79 and '80 was exceptionally cold and stormy.
I had seen Miss Merrill a number of times while she was at
school in Philadelphia, and now that she was back at Fort
Yates at Standing Rock, Dakota, I got a month's leave from
Fort Totten to go there.
I went back over that road in June to be married at Stand-
ing Rock. It was on a still, clear night, with the moon at its
fullest, that Mrs. Scott and I started out on our honeymoon
that has lasted until now. We drove back those eighty-two
miles from the railroad in an ambulance covered with wire
netting to shut out the flies and mosquitoes that were un-
endurable; the greensward was dotted with blue-bells and other
flowers, with now and then a tiger-lily sticking up through the
grass. We started our life together at Totten, and spent there
three happy years, sailing, fishing, and shooting. Our eldest
son, David Hunter, was born here.
I used frequently to swim my old horse a mile into the lake,
forcing him against his will, then allowing him to turn back.
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He would stretch every effort to go straight back in a hurry,
towing me by his tail. The art of controlling a horse in the
water and making him go where you want him to, whether it
is according to his will or not, was taught me by Hare when
camped on the Belle Fourche River in 1878. It was taught to
my two boys at Fort Sill when they were little, and I have
never seen any one else able to do it. Many horses will swim a
river willingly when they can see the other side, but to be able
to turn them up or down the river and back and forth at your
pleasure, or straight out into a lake where they cannot see
the other side, is a difficult art.
In the fall of 1882 Mrs. Scott took our son and went to
visit her father, General Merrill, who commanded all the troops
escorting the constructors of the Northern Pacific Railway
from Bismarck to the Rocky Mountains, with his headquarters
then at Billings, Montana. I was going to go after her, but was
put to building the telegraph line from Fort Totten, seventy-
eight miles east to Larimore, to meet the Great Northern Rail-
way that had stopped there for a while, and it was time for
Mrs. Scott to come back when the line was finished. Depart-
ment headquarters had notified us that there would be no
change of station that year, and we were settling for the winter
when an order came sending us on a four hundred mile march
to Fort Meade in the Black Hills. I gathered up my six dogs
and started with the troop. Mrs. Scott was picked up with our
boy at Bismarck, and we marched across the Sioux Reserva-
tion for the Black Hills, without any sort of comfort. We lost
one man, a recruit who had started out on foot in the snow
to kill a buffalo. I rode fifty miles next day in search of him,
and many parties looked for him far and wide, but no trace of
him was ever found.
We encountered plenty of buffalo, and Mrs. Scott shot her
buffalo on the Moreau or Owl River. After a long march in
great cold, wet, and discomfort, we arrived at Fort Meade.
1
Service on the Plains
111
We had left comfortable brick two-story barracks, the best
in the Northwest, to march four hundred miles through in-
clement weather to a post where there were no quarters for
us and we had to start building our own of logs, in winter.
There was apparently no emergency to cause this change of
station and it seemed nothing but a wanton disregard of the
comfort of troops.
Shortly after our arrival in January, 1883, Mrs. Scott took
our boy and went east with Mrs. Hare and her little girl on
the stage to visit her family in Philadelphia. The ground was
frozen hard, and the stage carried them right through to Fort
Pierre on schedule time. The stage line now ran from Dead-
wood 230 miles to Pierre, instead of to Bismarck as formerly.
They started back in the spring, and Mrs. Scott had one of the
hardest trips any one ever had; it was really a wonder she
lived through it. One night on a stage is enough to play out a
strong man, but they were seven days and nights on that stage
on account of the condition of the gumbo soil, which rolls up
on the wheels like glue when at all wet. I have known a stage
on that line to be eight days going twenty miles.
About half-way the boy was taken with convulsions because
of his teeth, and Mrs. Scott expected every minute to lose him,
she borrowed a pocket-knife, carried by a passenger for
cutting tobacco, and lanced her son's gums, relieving the pres-
sure on his brain. There was little chance of getting food for
any one, let alone for a sick child. The four big horses would
pull about five hundred yards and stop, out of breath, the
wheels glued up with gumbo. Then the messenger would call
for the gumbo paddle and pry great chunks of clay from the
wheels, matted with grass; those same chunks were lying on
that trail ten years after, baked hard as a brick. Mrs. Scott
expected me to meet her seventy-five miles from Fort Meade
with a light wagon and four horses to hurry her in with Mrs.
Hare, but instead of that they met a lawyer from Deadwood
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going out on horseback, and, upon asking if he knew me, were
told that he did and that he had lately seen me going out the
other way with a large command and a pack-train after
Indians. That was almost the last straw. They reached Fort
Meade finally, exhausted completely, and the boy barely alive.
A MISSION OF PACIFICATION
A telegram had come to Fort Meade, directing a large force
to be sent after some Indians reported to be depredating west
of the Black Hills. I told the adjutant that there was no use
for a large force; he could take a few men and packs and I
would go as his interpreter, and we two would take care of it.
This pleased him and the commanding officer until the telegram
was reread, which called for a "large force," and it was seen
that a squadron at least must be sent, and I was told that I
could go as interpreter, for there never was an interpreter or
any Indian scouts kept at Fort Meade. I demurred at this, and
the commanding officer said I would have to go anyhow, since
there was no other interpreter. I told him I was not employed
as an interpreter and declined to put my reputation in the
hands of the officer who was going in command, who would be
sure to saddle any disaster, which might come from his in-
efficiency, on me as an interpreter. The commanding officer
told me to get out, and I got out before he changed his mind
again.
He ordered out a squadron of the Seventh Cavalry with the
full train of fifty cargo animals, but the troops were slow in
getting ready, furbishing up their private wagons which, if
they had been taken, would have been stuck in the gumbo yet;
it was so bad that some of our pack-mules, newly shod, pulled
off their shoes, and two pulled their shoulders out of joint.
The commanding officer lost his patience with them, and I was
awakened at night by the adjutant, saying the order had been
OF

DISCHARGED INDIAN SOLDIER, TROOP L, SEVENTH CAVALRY, FARMING HIS OWN LAND
Service on the Plains
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changed. The commanding officer had directed that I take what
amounted to a squadron, composed of large details from every
troop, two other officers, and the pack-train. We got away next
morning, leaving everybody mad behind us, because though
the officers of the squadron had been grumbling about going,
they did not want to be superseded by a lieutenant. All the
lieutenants of higher rank were angry at being passed over for
such a command, which was equivalent to that of a major, and
all the troop commanders were disgruntled at having such a
large proportion of their troops taken from them.
Though the Indians were said to be depredating west of the
Black Hills, we got word at Spearfish that they were now north
on the Little Missouri. We crossed the Belle Fourche and
camped on Iron Creek just as a blizzard started. We had only
our shelter-tents, since it was April and the season for snow-
storms was over. The train carried some grain, and we shel-
tered men and animals on the lee side of a bluff on Iron Creek,
in an oak grove, giving us plenty of fire-wood. The snow was
blowing horizontally and fell two feet deep, keeping us here
three days, hardly able to see a yard. Then it began to rain;
this was the time Deadwood washed out and every river in the
Northwest was more than bank-full.
We heard at the Little Missouri that the Indians had moved
down sixty miles to the Short Pine Hills, and we started down
after them, through wind and snow, none of us dry for a week.
Every night I had to put my boots under the pillow to keep
them from freezing stiff. We met a buffalo hunter at the Short
Pine Hills who said the Indians had crossed there before the
river rose and were somewhere on the other side beyond the
river. The snow was standing in patches then and the Little
Missouri was bank-full, a hundred and fifty yards wide and
twenty feet deep, with a roaring current. The question was how
to get the command across the river without any facilities.
The matter was discussed with the other officers, and they
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Some Memories of a Soldier
said: "You can never get across here with this outfit. You
came out with fifteen days' rations, and nine of them are gone
already. You are more than a hundred miles from the post, and
you can't wait for the river to go down. You will have to start
back right away, for there are rivers up between us and the
post to be crossed." This looked very black, and I went off by
myself to reread my orders; they said "find those Indians" but
nothing about giving up the effort. So, "Find them we must,"
I argued, and ordered all the sling and lash ropes to be brought
from the train and joined together by bowlines, and all the
lariats without picket-pins. I could see a cabin on the other
side, made of ties left by tie-cutters for the Northern Pacific.
Out of these a good raft could be made by our carpenter, if
I could get him over there, for he could not swim.
I found an old extension top for a farm-wagon, rotting in
the grass, which some one had thrown away long before. I
wrapped this frame with canvas mantas from the pack-train
until it would float and carry a man, and called for a volunteer
to swim across with the rope and drag this canvas boat across,
carrying the carpenter. The buffalo hunter said he would do it
for a plug of tobacco. I promised him three plugs, and to have
a hot blanket thrown around him when he got back and a drink
of whisky to warm him up. He undressed to take the rope, but
one of those dancing sawyers came around the bend, made
when a cottonwood-tree is undermined. It comes down with
the current, root first, until it strikes a bank; then, top first,
the branches broken and sharp, it dances up and down with
the waves like a chevaux de frise, ready to rip up any one who
gets in front of it. The buffalo hunter, not liking the looks of
this, changed his mind and concluded that he did not want the
tobacco enough to earn it.
A call was then sent out through the squadron, and one of
the men volunteered, undressed, put his foot in the flow, and
drew it back, pronouncing the water too muddy and cold. The
Service on the Plains
115
call was then sent up to the pack-train, but no one there cared
to try it. Seeing that we were getting nowhere, I threw off my
clothes, tied the rope around my waist, and jumped out into
ice-water that made me gasp loud enough to be heard a mile.
I pulled the carpenter and one other man over, and put the
rope around a tree in an endless loop. They hauled me back in
the boat, then sent several men over, and in two hours we had
a raft ready on the opposite shore.
Hauling it across, the water boiled over it so as to wash away
the property, if any had been on it. The raft was taken off the
main rope and put on a short one, tied to the main line in such
a way as to give more buoyancy and lift the raft when the
strain came, rather than submerge it. The boat was put on a
crib built with ties on the raft, so that when the current sub-
merged the raft it boiled across under the boat, in which men
and property were loaded, and we crossed everything except
the horses before sundown, swimming the mules across in a
body after the bell.
We attempted to swim the horses across in the way laid
down in the drill regulations. I attached one of my horses to
the rope and had him pulled across as a guide for the others.
They waded in to their bellies but, disliking the cold, began
to mill around in the water and turn back. We were all around
them and attempted to drive them ahead after the guide, but
they broke through the cordon of men and started for home. I
caught my other horse as he went past, hung on and stopped
him, put a man named Barron of E Troop on him bareback,
and told him to head the bunch, lead them around in a circle,
and bring them back. We felt pretty sad out there afoot, more
than a hundred miles from home, and the pessimists gave up
getting the horses back at all, but I directed a number of fires
to be built to guide Barron to the camp, for it would soon be
dark. After it had grown really dark we could hear them
coming, and Barron rode in, followed by every one of the
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Some Memories of a Soldier
horses, a little blown by their run. The men went up quietly
and caught them and tied them up for the night, without losing
a horse. The next morning we tied their halter-shanks to the
endless rope, six at a time, and hauled them over, ate break-
fast, packed up, and were on the Indian trail by ten o'clock.
We camped that night on the Box Elder near the Hole in
the Rock (Inyan Okelokā). Here was a roaring stream to be
crossed, of a different kind, in a different way. The stream was
usually dry, and its bed fifty feet below the plain with per-
pendicular clay banks, with places for entrance and exit only
on the buffalo trails that crossed it at times. The water was
now thirty feet deep with a roaring current. A good-sized
cottonwood-tree was growing there, much bent, which we cut
down; and a detachment was sent ten miles up the river with
axes to cut and float down any other cottonwoods over six
inches in diameter that they could find, from which resulted
the trunks of three green cottonwoods.
We set about to build a floating bridge. All the ropes were
gathered again, and the trees were lashed in such a way as to
reach in a great convex curve. On the upper side this was
eased off by the ropes, the butt end of the cottonwood wedged
into the near bank, the other end pushed by the current into
the far bank. Then some long lodge-poles, left by the Indians,
were gathered up and pushed into the mud, to which ropes
were tied so as to make a hand-rail. A man holding to this
rail and feeling under the water with his foot for the cotton-
woods, and looking away from the current, could get across
and carry property. The horses and mules were both hauled
across six at a time by the endless rope, so as to prevent them
from being washed down-stream past the landing-place. By ten
o'clock all the property was across except one aparejo cinch
that fell off into the water and was carried away by the current.
The ropes were soon recoiled, and we were on the road again.
Coming into a valley, the trail scattered so as to make it im-
Service on the Plains
117
possible to follow, and I was asked, "What are you going to
do now that the trail has disappeared?" I said: "I am not
going to try to puzzle out this trail. We are going to go straight
for that gap at a trot, twenty miles ahead, where we will find
all these trails coming together again."
Nearing the gap we found a lost dog; then all the trails
swung into a large beaten trail that could be followed with the
eyes shut. We began to double up on the camps until we found
that the ashes were warm. Next we came to a camp with the
fires still burning, and I proposed to take an officer and a man
and go ahead into their camp before they saw the troops
coming and stampeded away from us. At first no one wanted
to leave the command, but a little gentle ridicule changed this,
and I started out with my classmate, Lieutenant Sickel, and
one man. We had not gone far on the trail when the man said
he could hear a mountain lion. We looked all around but could
not see a lion, but looking farther we could see two women
riding at a distance against the background of a high pine-
covered bluff, which made them difficult to see. They were
traveling slowly on horseback, as if they had not discovered us.
It was necessary to cut them off before they could stampede
the camp, and desirous of not frightening them we kept on our
course until they had crossed out of sight over the ridge, then
gave a little time for them to look back to see what we were
doing, whereupon we started straight for them at a sharp gallop
to catch up with them. Instead of keeping on slowly, they had
begun to gallop just as soon as they had got out of our sight,
but away from the direction of the village, probably with the
intention of drawing us away from it. We let them go, how-
ever, and, turning back to the lodge-pole trail, we soon went
over a ridge close to the village and got into it before we were
noticed.
The first lodge was entered and the head chief sent for, but
he was not in camp. The next chief came, and he was told of
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Some Memories of a Soldier
the approach of troops and that he was to prevent his people
from stampeding as the troops were not going to hurt anybody
if they behaved themselves. A crier was sent out to make the
announcement, and by the time a good defensive camp site was
selected, at a little distance, that would command the village,
the troops came along and went into camp where I told them.
We kept our horses tied up tight under a strong guard.
Everything passed quietly during the night, and finding the
Indians reassured, I told them that they would have to come
with me. We conducted them to their reservation and let them
go. It was not long after, however, that I read that the head
chief was in jail at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, near St. Paul.
There we were, seventy-five miles south of Fort Keogh, the
nearest place we could get a supply of food; two and a half
good marches and only one day's rations left. We issued half-
rations and made the seventy-five miles into Keogh in two
days; several deep, cold rivers were crossed; and our mission
ended.
While superintending the reshoeing of the animals at Fort
Keogh, I received a telegraph order from St. Paul to find
another band of hostile Indians and put them on their reserva-
tion. No one knew where they were to be found; all sections of
the country were eliminated by telegraphic inquiries, except the
Powder River Valley, which could not be reached by telegraph.
We struck the Powder about twenty miles above its mouth,
and I was lying on top of the highest peak available at dawn
the next morning, searching the valley with a glass, hoping to
see a number of parallel columns of smoke rising in the still
air from the different lodge fires kindled at that time to cook
breakfast and to warm the lodges, but none was seen. Fearing
to stampede the village if we were seen approaching it, we left
the valley and marched up the river thirty miles and came
back to the valley. At dawn the next morning we searched for
smoke without result. We were rewarded on the fourth day by
Service on the Plains
119
finding what we were looking for; and hiding the troop on the
bluffs, I got into the village before being seen and calmed the
chiefs, who reassured the people, so that no attempt was made
to run away. We put them on their reservation and started
back to Fort Meade. We had to devise means to cross all the
rivers except the Powder, which we crossed on a deep ford
above the boots of the aparejos, wetting the cargoes but slightly.
When I became superintendent of West Point I determined
that no cadet should graduate in my time without a knowledge
of the various means of crossing rivers with few facilities, and
I had the professor of military engineering set up a course in
addition to that of building pontoon-bridges. I had him make
a canvas imitation of a bull's hide to simulate the bull-boats
made by the Indians of the Upper Missouri, round in shape
like a coracle, with a framework of willows, by which I have
seen an old Arikara woman transport two men with their horse
equipment, leading their horses swimming behind, across the
Missouri at its worst. I allowed such facilities as are always
carried in a pack-train; an ax, rope, canvas mantas, and even
some soft wire from a bale of hay. We crossed thirty-five
cadets over the Hudson River and back in an hour and a half.
I do not know whether this is still kept up or not; if it is not,
the graduates are losing something they can ill afford to miss.
The following letter bears on the 1883 experience:
Columbia Barracks, Cuba,
March 20, 1900.
The Adjutant General,
U. S. Army,
Washington, D. C.
Sir:
I have the honor to request that this paper be filed at the War
Department with papers pertaining to the Military History of Lieut.
Colonel H. L. Scott, Adjutant General, U. S. Volunteers.
During the month of April, 1883, Lieut. Colonel Scott, then 1st
Lieutenant 7th Cavalry, stationed at Fort Meade, Dakota, was de-
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tailed to command a scouting party consisting of two officers, Ist
Lieutenant H. G. Sickel and 2nd Lieutenant James H. G. Wilcox,
and about 90 enlisted men, all the 7th Cavalry, selected from the
troops serving at that post, for the purpose of locating and conduct-
ing to their reservation a band of Crow Indians, reported to have
been committing depredations in south-eastern Montana, near the
Little Missouri and Powder Rivers. The detachment was furnished
with about fifty pack mules as transportation for ration, forage, etc.,
and was to be absent from the post for an indefinite period.
The day following the departure of the detachment, a heavy fall
of snow occurred, and by the time the Little Missouri was reached,
in the vicinity of the Short Pine Hills, the weather had moderated
to such a degree that the greater part of the snow had disappeared,
and the rivers and creeks were running bank full, the Little Missouri
being about 150 yards wide and 20 feet deep, carrying logs and
other driftwood. It was learned from the buffalo hunters that the
Indians had shortly before moved west, and it became necessary
to make a crossing of the Little Missouri River without delay. A
problem presented itself to Lieutenant Scott to get his detachment
across without endangering the lives of men and animals, and a call
was made for volunteers from the enlisted men to carry a line made
of the lash and sling-ropes on the pack-train, across the river. Two
or three men responded and prepared to make the attempt; but
after stripping and testing the ice-cold water, and realizing the
danger of the undertaking, reconsidered and resumed their clothing.
Lieutenant Scott, without further effort to secure volunteers, stripped,
and tying the line about his waist, plunged into the water and, after
tremendous effort, succeeded in reaching the opposite bank. By
means of this line, and an old wagon bed, converted into a kind
of pontoon, the entire party, with rations, forage, horse equipment,
aparejos, etc., was safely crossed in a few hours.
Resuming the march westward, the detachment was stopped the
following day by Box Elder Creek, usually an insignificant stream,
but swollen by the melting snow until it presented a fair sized
river. On this occasion Lieutenant Scott constructed a floating bridge,
using driftwood, lash ropes from the pack outfits, lariats, etc., for
the purpose. This bridge served to cross the men, supplies, aparejos,
and horse equipments, while the animals swam the stream, being
attached to an endless rope suspended over the water and worked
from both ends.
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121
Lieutenant Scott never seemed to be wanting in resources to meet
every emergency during this scout, the detachment being absent
from the post about one month and having traveled over 500 miles
and having crossed several other streams at a high stage of water.
(During the absence of the command from the post a large part of
the city of Deadwood was washed out, and all the streams in that
section were running bank full.)
The band of Indians was finally overtaken at Mizpah Creek and
here Lieutenant Scott's knowledge of the Indian sign language served
a good purpose. He was selected for this duty mainly on account of
his knowledge, as there was no other interpreter at the post.
The detachment returned to Fort Meade, Dakota, about May 25,
having accomplished the purpose for which it was ordered into the
field, and the enlisted men much benefited by the experience.
Very respectfully,
H. G. SICKEL,
Captain and Adjutant, 7th Cavalry.
Upon my return I found that I was still very unpopular. All
sorts of dire predictions had been made that I would be hung
up on some river and would not be back for months. About my
only friend was Hare, who said he would give me five days to
return, successful in my mission, which faith I justified by
getting back in two. I felt very bad that my old friends should
abandon me for nothing, and looked about for some employ-
ment with the idea of leaving the service, and picked out a
most valuable place to start a horse ranch at the head of the
Little Missouri, but, losing my resentment, decided to remain
in the service-most fortunately for me, for they were
canning horses in that country within seven years, and I
would have gone broke. The horse industry revived during the
Boer War, and the Earl of Portsmouth was said to have made
a good deal of money at his ranch in the foot-hills of the Big
Horn, furnishing horses in South Africa to the British Army,
but that market did not last long. One can get a good saddle-
horse out there now for five dollars.
We found that a large part of Deadwood had been washed
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out during our absence, and large logs, three feet in diameter,
deposited by the high water at the stable doors, were still
stranded there.
We went East to see our people on four months' leave of
absence early in 1884. The Cheyenne River was very high and
floating large cakes of ice when we arrived there in the stage.
The mail and passengers were transferred to stages on the other
side in a cranky skiff. I tied our trunk-handles to the thwarts to
have the boat as a buoy for the trunk if it tipped over, as it
seemed likely to do. I took our boy on my lap, to swim out with
him, trusting to Mrs. Scott to save herself, with a little help,
as she was a good swimmer. The risk was great from the large
ice-cakes and character of the boat, but we crossed without
mishap. When we reached the Missouri the ice was pronounced
too rotten for the stage to cross and liable to break up at any
minute, and what to do no one knew. There was no place to
stay there, and we did not want to go back on the stage, so I
hired a boy's sled and a man to haul it by a long rope. Mrs.
Scott sat on her trunk with the boy; she carried a long dry
pole to support her if the sled should break through the ice.
We others carried similar poles, marched at some distance
from her sled, and all got across in safety. An officer's wife
was drowned there the following spring. That season no more
stages crossed on the ice, which broke up with a loud crash
that night.
While visiting my brother at Pittsburgh, our daughter Anna
was born, after which we went on to Philadelphia and Prince-
ton. My brother, who is professor of geology and paleontology
at Princeton, was getting up an expedition of college students
to hunt for fossils in the Big Horn Basin. I concluded that I
wanted to go with him and went to Washington to see General
Sheridan, who had just moved from Chicago to command the
army. I asked him for permission to go as my brother's escort,
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123
and to take a small pack-train and a dozen men of the Seventh
Cavalry. Those were the days before electricity, and the Gen-
eral smashed down his hand on his desk bell to call his brother
Mike, who was his military secretary. He said, "Mike, fix this
fellow up," and I soon got an order giving me what I wanted.
After assembling my party at Fort Meade, there were three
hundred miles to go across country to Fort Custer on the Big
Horn to meet my brother. There was no trail, but I guided our
party across, and was chief packer, interpreter, commanding
officer, guide, and hunter for the party all summer for fifteen
hundred miles, through the Big Horn Basin, Yellowstone Park,
and back to Fort Custer down the Yellowstone River. Many
were the vicissitudes by flood and field. Our camp was washed
out by a cloud-burst on the Gray Bull.
I killed my last wild buffalo near-by, the last I ever saw, in
August, 1884. Another was killed among the horses by the
horse guard on the Gray Bull also-just scabby old bulls, for
the spring of 1883 saw the last of the buffalo. I was on the
range for a month at the Short Pine Hills, killing meat for
my troop, which was accumulating a fund to buy vegetables by
selling its salt meat in the mines above Deadwood; I replaced
this with buffalo meat, and I had no trouble in January, 1883,
to keep a six-mule team going into the post all the time. There
were about three thousand men on the range killing buffalo for
their hides when the railroad got near. Whenever a dollar can
be made on the hide of an animal, that animal is doomed. The
hunters would sometimes get a stand on a herd of buffalo and
kill one hundred or more. The weather was intensely cold, 40
degrees below zero for days and never above 20 degrees below
at noon for weeks at a time, and after taking the tongue and
skinning one animal the hides would freeze on the others and
would be left untouched by the knife. The waste was terrific.
Major James McLaughlin, the Sioux agent at Standing Rock,
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took a large contingent of Sioux out on the range to make meat
and hides. They killed five thousand head and dried the meat
to take back; that was the end of the buffalo.
I traveled with Hare five hundred miles in search of buffalo
in September, 1883. They had been plentiful the year before
but now we did not see even a recent track. We met an old
Sioux Indian who had been searching all summer and had
killed one old scabby bull. Many thought they had gone north
into Canada. The Indians thought they had gone underground
to rest and would come again, as they were told in their ancient
legends had happened before.
But the buffalo never returned, and many Indians starved to
death in consequence; starved to death under the American
flag, wards of our government, because our government was too
weak and too careless to protect their food from wanton
destruction by white men.
The army regulations in those days encouraged an officer to
take hunting leaves, provided he would turn in a map of the
country traversed. I turned in maps of the country for two
hundred miles about Fort Meade in every direction. I got the
urge every now and then, and if it were not the hunting season
I would just travel with some congenial friend exploring the
Black Hills and beyond, far and wide, with a couple of packers,
a couple of orderlies and a cook.
One day we were on top of the Slim Buttes (Paha Zipzipela),
where Anson Mills had his fight with American Horse. It was
raining hard, and all the dry washes were full of running
water. I came along behind in a heavy overcoat, riding bare-
back, and my horse attempted a greasy clay bank and slipped
backward, sitting down in a dry wash two feet deep. I fell back-
ward off his wet slippery back, and he sat on my chest, clawing
the bank with his front feet, his hind feet far in front of him
where he was unable to get them on the ground under him.
The swift current was carrying gravel down the neck of my
Service on the Plains
125
overcoat. I could look up and see light through the muddy
water and reflected that it would be a curious fate for a man
who had swum the Hudson River to be drowned in a dry
wash two feet deep. The horse was making violent struggles
to regain his feet, and I feared he would put his hind hoofs
in my face. He stood up just before I would have had to give
up holding my breath, and got off my chest, allowing me to
get my head out of water in the nick of time. He ran on to
catch up with the others, giving them their first knowledge of
a mishap, and they hurried back to find what had happened
and found me sitting in the wash, too weak to stand up, the
water up to my armpits. I soon recovered, however, and went
on again. The clay washed into the fabric of that coat was
still in it when I gave it to an Indian years afterward in the
Indian Territory. I really believe that I came nearer to drown-
ing in that two feet of water than I ever did in my life before
or since. The others decided that any man who could make an
escape as narrow as that must be reserved for a hanging,
though I hope they were mistaken.
RECRUITING SERVICE
In August of '86 I was given the two years' cavalry recruit-
ing detail for the Seventh Cavalry, with station in Philadelphia.
- My horses, cow, and other property were put up for sale at
auction at Fort Meade, preparatory to moving East. When my
old buffalo horse was bid up higher than his cost, he seemed
to look at me with reproach and say, "After all our times
together among the buffalo, are you really going to sell me?"
and I withdrew him hastily from sale, although I needed the
money.
His first trip with the Seventh Cavalry had been with
Custer to the Black Hills in 1874, and he had been shot
in the foot on the Little Horn with Reno. He died at Fort Sill
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Some Memories of a Soldier
at about thirty years of age, after having drunk in every
important stream from the British line far down into Texas.
He was very nervous and quick to act. Once when I put my
hand on him at Fort Totten, while his head was down in the
manger, he kicked me in the ribs with both feet, clear across
the stable passageway, from which my ribs did not recover for
twenty years, but it was done in fright and not in malice.
When I proposed to break him to drive, Slocum said it would
have to be done with one of those iron-bound treasure coaches
from the Black Hills, for no wagon could stand it; nevertheless
he was driven for years. At first no one but Mrs. Scott would
drive with me, and I was often remonstrated with for trying
to kill her, but she is still alive, I am thankful to say, while the
prophets of evil are not. Whatever distrust Mrs. Scott may
have about me in other ways, she has always accorded me her
full confidence with a horse or dog, in the water, or in an Indian
tanglement, and her confidence has never been misplaced in
those particulars.
Leaving Fort Meade, we drove twenty-five miles to Rapid
City, which the railroad had just reached. We soon established
ourselves in Philadelphia, where our daughter Blanchard was
born. We both had many relatives in Philadelphia and Prince-
ton, forty miles away. We were able to have my mother stay
with us from time to time, and we saw much of Mrs. Scott's
relatives also. I examined, enlisted, and shipped recruits every
day but Sunday, and besides became acquainted with large
libraries. I felt that my two years in the city were wasted,
away from troops and away from the peculiar service for
which I had trained myself in the Indian country, but I did
not have enough money to take myself and family at any one
time back to the Plains, until, at the expiration of my tour of
duty, I was ordered to Fort Sill, Indian Territory, the station
of my Troop M, Seventh Cavalry. I rather pitied myself for
going to a post where the Indians were too tame, but I need not
Service on the Plains
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have done so, for I found the Kiowa, Comanche, and Kiowa
Apache Indians still as wild as the Sioux and Cheyennes I had
left in the North. They were all blanket Indians still and were
capable of kicking up a serious bobbery if not carefully
handled. They were quite primitive in every way.
I went out on the train from Philadelphia with a handsome,
serious-minded gentleman, dressed in the traditional costume
of the Southern statesman, with frock-coat and black slouch
hat. We happened to be on the same train leaving St. Louis and
became acquainted. He told me he had just been elected to
Congress. He got off somewhere near Sherman or Dallas,
Texas, and he became Senator Joe Bailey from Texas in after
years.
INTO THE SOUTHWEST
I got off at Henrietta, Texas, the railroad point for Fort Sill
at that time, and drove sixty-seven miles north in the mail-
wagon in a piercing wind that kept me chilled to the bone. I
was received at Fort Sill by my old friend, Lieutenant Baldwin
of the Seventh Cavalry, and by Thomas Clancy, my new
orderly, who stuck to me for many years clear to Cuba and
Porto Rico. He fell out of a window in Manila and was killed,
much to the sorrow of my whole family, for we all loved him
for his fidelity. The only fault Mrs. Scott ever found with him
was that he would purloin her kitchen utensils for our camp
cooking when we were going into the field. He loved the horses,
the dogs, and the children, who looked on him as their pro-
tector and friend. He stayed with us for nine years at Fort Sill.
I had only to tell him that I would have so many in my party,
wanted so many horses and dogs, would be away so many
days, and wanted to find him camped, say, at the spring "where
the Osage cut the heads off the Kiowas" in 1834, and that was
enough. We would wait for the mail next day, then, trotting
forty-five miles to the hill looking down on the spring, would
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find Clancy there with the tents up, the dinner cooked, and
the beds made.
A party of Kiowa and Comanche scouts, the principal In-
dians of that region, were sometimes camped near-by waiting
for a conference. After hearing the news and the troubles of
the region I would ask who knew where there were any
"foolish" turkeys in that country. In their parlance a "foolish"
turkey was a tame one that would allow himself to be killed;
a "wise" turkey was a wild one that would get away quickly
and escape. The Indian of the buffalo country never ate birds
or fish in those days. The quail and turkeys might be every-
where under his feet without notice; he had nothing to do
with them. They are glad enough to get them now, but then,
so long as they had beef or buffalo meat, they did not really
need anything else, though they liked bread and sugar and
coffee well enough, but did not feel deprived if they went
without.
I was presented with two dogs the day of my arrival, one of
which became a most excellent quail dog and the best turkey
dog in the Southwest. Wild turkeys were plentiful then as were
quail. The whole country was soon mine, from Kansas to
Texas, and a wonderful primeval country it was. The streams
were bordered with elm, cottonwood, oak, hackberry, pecan,
and walnut. Fort Sill could not afford to haul coal sixty-seven
miles from the railway, and contracted for many cords of
hardwood as fuel every year. When I became quartermaster
of the post I induced the higher-ups to erase pecan and walnut
from the list of hardwoods in the wood contracts, and when
receiving the wood under the contracts would throw out pecan
and walnut, refusing to take them. This soon stopped the burn-
ing of those valuable woods, and there are many alive down
there now that otherwise would have been burned many years
I also stopped the Indian women's custom of cutting down
ago.
GENERAL SCOTT AND COLONEL W. F. CODY, WASHINGTON, 1916. THE PHOTOGRAPH, THE LAST OF
COLONEL CODY, WAS TAKEN IN THE OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF STAFF

OF
Service on the Plains
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trees to secure the nuts, a wasteful habit which had arisen
from their migratory lives with the buffalo; here to-day and
gone to-morrow, possibly never to see that part of the country
again, the women knew no reason for conservation, which
comes later in the history of peoples. We are only coming to
it now ourselves.
Wherever I live near mountains, they call until I go to them.
The Wichita Mountains were within plain sight and twelve
miles from Fort Sill, and they began to call to me the first day.
It was not long before I started with a visiting cousin, accom-
panied by I-see-o and five of the Kiowa and Comanche scouts,
a cook, a packer, and two pack-mules, to answer their sum-
mons and to learn about the country. We rode all around the
Wichita group and through the middle before we got back, the
Indians pointing out the sites of historical occurrences and
relating their legends in the sign language. Having learned the
sign language on the Northern Plains, the Indians of the
Southern Plains were surprised to see me, a new man from
the east, come there with a good knowledge of it, something
never seen before, and the Comanche called me at once "Molay
tay-quop," "he talks with his hands" or "sign-talker," and it
enabled me to get into the good graces of all the Indians of
that district almost at once, giving me their confidence and
good-will within a radius of two hundred miles from Fort Sill.
My first journey away from the post on duty was to go
after fifty thousand dollars of "grass money" back at Henri-
etta, Texas. A large part of the reservation of the Kiowa and
Comanche Indians was leased to cattlemen in large pastures,
and the rent was called "grass money" to indicate to the
Indians that they were leasing only the grass on the land and
not the land itself. The grass money in those days was paid
directly to the Indian per capita, the payment supervised by
the agent and witnessed by some officer of the army. Nowadays
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Some Memories of a Soldier
it is paid directly to the Treasury and an act of Congress is
required to get it out; the Indian cannot get it when he
wants it.
I took with me a sergeant and three mounted men as guard
for the money, for it had been noised abroad that the money
was coming, and it was freely predicted that I was going to
be held up and have it taken away from me. I started back,
carrying it loose in the ambulance, without a safe, and sat on
the box with the driver with a six-loading shot-gun filled with
buck-shot across my lap, ready to shoot as soon as anybody
made an attempt. The mounted men went ahead and searched
every ravine before I would go near it.
We camped at Elm Springs the second day, one of those hot
days they call a "weather breeder" in that country, a fore-
runner of a "norther." A number of cattlemen came up and
camped with me, without any tentage or cooking facilities, and
I had to take them in with me. We were all in a perspiration
putting up the tents, when, bang! the wind changed like a
flash, and a norther was on, nearly freezing the perspiration
on our faces, our teeth chattering with cold, inside of five
minutes. I have known Mrs. Scott to be playing tennis in
light summer garments, wet with perspiration, and hardly be
able to get into the house when struck by a norther. These
northers go down as far as Vera Cruz, and how much farther
I never learned.
The cattlemen had with them an old man from Chicago,
to whom I had to give my bed or he would have died that
night with the cold. I had a sick dog to take care of and fifty
thousand dollars, and did not sleep much. With the cattlemen
there were two deputy U. S. marshals whom I did not trust a
great deal, for no one trusted a marshal in those days. They
would start out as marshals and many would graduate as bank
and train robbers, and fifty thousand dollars was a good deal
of money. They had no bedding, and as a great kindness to
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131
them I rolled them both together in the canvas cover of my
bedding roll and strapped them in tight so that they could not
wander around at night, and their subsequent history showed
that I had made no mistake. Those cattlemen have since all
come to great fame in Texas, some of them having become
multimillionaires from their oil wells, especially Burke Burnett,
after whom the great Texas oil field was named, but they are
all dead now, with the possible exception of Waggoner. They
were an interesting lot, prone to shoot quickly and often. They
were the product of their time, growing up in the Southwest in
the period after the Civil War, when there were no school
facilities and no restraint, and I am glad to have known and to
have been on friendly terms with them. We do not see people
out there like them any more. They were real cattle barons,
each running from thirty-five to a hundred thousand head of
cattle in a pasture, leased from the Indians, besides other
ranches they owned in Texas.
The word "pasture" is sometimes deceiving. Lieutenant Bald-
win, Seventh Cavalry, was taking a wagon-train from Fort
Sill to San Antonio. When he arrived at Elm Springs to camp,
after dark, he was advised to turn his mules into the pasture
for safe-keeping. He did so and found to his dismay next morn-
ing that the pasture was thirty miles square, and he did not
get his mules rounded up for a week.
I turned the money into the agency at Anadarko next day,
glad to get rid of it, and got a receipt for it. I found Colonel
Carlton there with a squadron of the Seventh Cavalry to over-
awe the Kiowa into giving up their sun dance. They gave it up
very reluctantly, believing that the well-being and health of
their tribe depended on it, and they held much resentment for
a long time. They were doing no harm to anybody and should
have been led away, not forced away, from it. Soon they all
gathered into Anadarko for the payment, surrounded by white
gamblers, fast women, and bootleggers, with every device to
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Some Memories of a Soldier
cheat the Indian out of his money. Those payments, military
as well as Indian, attracted the vultures of society and were a
crime against humanity. We could never get a law that would
permit us to take proper care of our men and protect them
from such vultures until Secretary Baker got us one for the
World War. Congress would not extend it further, and the
officer is without the necessary power now. Congress is willing
to protect the volunteer but cares nothing for the health of the
Regular Army.
The two troops of the Fifth Cavalry were ordered over to
the Canadian River to take part in the opening of the original
Oklahoma, April 22, 1889. I asked to go with them but was
refused permission. It was only a few days, however, before
our squadron got their orders, and we all started East to take
our position on the line, under Colonel Wade, Fifth Cavalry,
who assigned us our places and directed us to synchronize our
watches. Our station was at Purcell on the Main Canadian.
We marched through the site where Oklahoma City now is,
without seeing a vestige of life, although there were doubtless
"sooners" hidden in the timber, ready to pop out at twelve
o'clock noon and beat some honest man to a claim, but we did
not see them. By sundown the next day ten thousand people
were camped on that site.
We lined up about five thousand people on the line at Pur-
cell, as motley a land-hungry crew as ever gathered in America.
When the signal was given at noon they surged forward on foot
and on horseback, with every sort of vehicle, some drawn by
horses, a mule, a cow, or a woman. For years afterward I
would be accosted by some one I did not know, who expected
me to know him because he had ridden past me on April 22,
and thought I ought to be able to swear to the fact of his iden-
tity and presence on the claim he had chosen.
That method of opening the land gave rise to innumerable
lawsuits over title, and many honest men were cheated out of
Service on the Plains
133
farms by bullies and crooks of high degree. Law seemed con-
spicuous by its absence. I have been told that there were a
few United States marshals about, but I did not see them and
would not have known they were marshals if I had, and of
course there could have been no municipal officers until mat-
ters had settled down long enough to elect them. In the mean-
time the crook and the bully had free swing. Two or three
armed crooks would see some inoffensive claimant located on
a farm they fancied, probably for speculation, would flash a
gun on the man and tell him to leave, and he would have to go
and, being without witnesses, could never establish his superior
claim in the courts, and while often first on the ground, the
only thing he would get out of it would be a lost lawsuit. Many
piteous cases were laid before us, but having no civil jurisdic-
tion, we were equally helpless.
I did, however, drive out a band of thugs from the week-old
town of Norman, where the University of Oklahoma now is,
without breaking the law. A man came into our camp soon
after the opening announcing that he was mayor of Norman
and stating that the town was terrorized by an armed band of
thugs engaged in jumping the best lots in town, driving out
their holders, and he wanted protection from the gang. I was
told to take ten men and go up and drive them out, an order
for which there was no legal basis, and if I had been foolish
enough to do anything overt I could have been proceeded
against in the courts, but I was then old enough in the service
to know better. I asked the mayor if he had a policeman in the
town. He said, "No." "Then you hurry on ahead and appoint
one and have him ready by the time I get there," I advised
him.
Reaching Norman, it was found that the news of my ap-
proach had acted to give some touch of legal formality to
proceedings. Ruffians had before boldly taken a lot, warning
off the owner, and had built a board shanty on it. Now they
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Some Memories of a Soldier
hired a woman of the town with a hired baby to occupy it,
thinking that no one would dare to disturb a woman with a
baby for fear of public opinion. I told the mayor and police-
man to conduct me to the lot and dismounted my men all
round it, telling the policeman to get a team and haul that
shanty out into the middle of the public street without disturb-
ing the woman and the baby.
The gang was afraid to interfere, not knowing my legal
limitations, and the house was hauled off the lot by municipal
authority. My wagon came up by that time, and they saw us
go into camp as if we were going to stay there indefinitely.
I told the mayor to issue a municipal ordinance to get that
house out of the public street, and the gang, seeing no prospect
of making a haul and desirous of not losing the value in the
house, returned their hired baby, tore down the house, disposed
of the lumber, and left town for greener pastures, without my
having violated any law, and without my speaking a word to
any one in Norman but the mayor and the policeman. Although
we remained at Purcell for some months, I never heard of a
recurrence of the trouble anywhere in that neighborhood.
When I first went on the Plains there was no semblance of
law or justice. Wherever the railroad ended or any settlement
was made, criminals of every kind were present. The criminal
was master until things became so intolerable that a vigilant
society would be formed to put down lawlessness by lawlessness
and force. These conditions could all have been avoided by
giving the higher commanders of troops civil jurisdiction in the
Indian country, just as the Northwest Mounted Police of
Canada had civil jurisdiction. When the latter arrived in Al-
berta in 1873 the crooks and criminals disappeared at once;
the mere presence of the police acted to drive the undesirables
over to our side of the line, where they could operate with
impunity.
There were numerous military posts all over the Plains, the
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135
commanding officers of which represented the power of the
United States, and they comprised the only force capable of
maintaining law and order. If they had been given legal power,
they would have cleared the Plains of the criminals and avoided
the orgies of crime that disgraced our frontiers for more than
a hundred years; they would have enforced our treaties, keep-
ing faith with the Indian, and so avoided our shameful Indian
wars. They would have been able to enforce the law and protect
life and property over all the Plains; but our Congress read
accounts of the most horrible crimes year after year on the
Plains, and never made an effort to use the remedy that lay
at hand.
Shortly after the opening of Oklahoma, while we were still
kept at Purcell, a deputy U. S. marshal named Carr came into
camp and asked for a posse comitatus of troops to assist him
in arresting the McDonald brothers, a gang of seven men, who
were camped about five miles away. There had been many
gangs of outlaw brothers in those days; the Dalton brothers,
who tried to rob a bank at Coffeeville, Kansas, and came to
grief; the Cook brothers; the Marlow brothers; the James and
Younger brothers; and now the McDonald brothers.
The commander explained that he could not furnish the
posse under the law, which forbade him to do so under penalty
of losing his commission. This made the marshal sorrowful at
the loss of a gang he thought he had held in the hollow of his
hand. I thought there might be some adventure in this and
asked for a seven-day leave to go with the marshal in a civil
capacity, which was granted me, although a moment's con-
sideration would show that I could not divest myself of my
military status in that way. When I sent for my horse it
became known where I was going, and one of our sergeants
asked for a furlough to go also, and we three started off to-
gether on horseback, three civilians.
Arriving at a place where we could reconnoiter the camp
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with a glass, the seven men were seen to be engaged around
the fire, busy cooking dinner, all their rifles standing against
a black-jack oak-tree in a bunch. The camp was on a black-
jack knoll, with a ravine coming down on each side of it, and
a wood to the left of one ravine. I laid out the plan, which was
for me to ride up the left ravine, putting myself between the
men and the woods, in the event they should attempt to break
that way. I would appear suddenly as if coming up out of the
ground, drawing their attention, while the sergeant and mar-
shal would ride up the other ravine behind their backs and
dismount; the marshal would gather up their rifles and put
them out of reach. The sergeant was to hold them under his
gun when they found out what was going on behind them.
It turned out exactly as planned. They were greatly sur-
prised to see me sitting quietly on my horse, between them and
the woods, and while they were engrossed in me, the marshal
carried their rifles out of reach before they knew he was there.
When they saw the sergeant standing with carbine in hand,
their rifles gone, and me between them and the woods, they
allowed the marshal to come up and handcuff every one of
them without a word. I sat on my horse without saying any-
thing and could not be breaking any law by just sitting there.
The marshal put them in a wagon and took them off to Fort
Smith, Arkansas, for trial by the celebrated Judge Parker,
who was a terror to evil-doers, after having eleven men hung
in one batch.
Running out of clothes in this camp, I got permission to go
to Fort Sill, and started off with Clancy. The first day out we
jumped a spotted fawn, which I ran down and caught. Clancy
took a gunny-sack from under his saddle and cut four holes
in it; through these we put the legs of the fawn, which was
tied in the sack, and we carried it into Fort Sill where it grew
up in our yard, the last deer I will ever raise or have about.
From Purcell we were all sent up to Chilocco to take part in

GERONIMO AND FAMILY, APACHE PRISONERS OF WAR, FORT SILL, FARMERS
Service on the Plains
137
the first real maneuvers the army ever had conducted, under
General Wesley Merritt on the Kansas border near Arkansas
City. These maneuvers were long known as "the bloody war
of 1889," and they had the salutary effect of awakening a
good many of us to the fact that the day of Indian wars was
over and that we must fit ourselves for war with civilized
peoples. After these were over we all returned to our posts.
All the way home to Fort Sill we had wonderful quail shooting.
The influenza that was prevailing all over the United States
reached Fort Sill, and I had a case that kept me in bed for
two weeks, after which I began to make arrangements to
receive Mrs. Scott and the children from Philadelphia. I met
them at Henrietta with a four-mule ambulance, and took them
off the railway. The weather was gentle and warm, and every-
body complained of the four buffalo robes in the ambulance,
but when we were struck by a norther the complaints changed
to commendation.
The children were all young then, and one of their strongest
recollections of that time is of a prairie-fire that came down on
us swiftly from the north on both sides of the road. One might
try to force a pair of mules through it, but not four, for the
leaders would certainly whirl around, jack-knifing the team,
and upset the ambulance, probably breaking the pole and
setting the ambulance on fire. We set fire to the grass and fol-
lowed it into the smoking prairie and let the fire go on without
harm to ourselves.
Those were the days of the presidency of Grover Cleveland,
whom we had met at Philadelphia with his bride, where she
had charmed all hearts. The president was desirous of opening
the Cherokee Strip along the south border of Kansas to settle-
ment. Each time he made preparation, the western senators
would represent the hardships this opening would work on the
men whose cattle were running on the strip, and who were
continually putting in new cattle to prevent the opening, until
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Some Memories of a Soldier
the president got tired, and ordered everybody out of the strip,
forbidding the introduction of more cattle; I was sent with F
Troop, Seventh Cavalry, to take the cattle that came up from
Texas on the cattle trail and escort them to the Washita River,
where Captain Jake Augur, Fifth Cavalry, would convoy them
through the strip into Kansas. They were not allowed to run
loose anywhere along the way. The job was turned over to
the army, because the president knew it would be faithfully
performed.
I had Lieutenant A. G. C. Quay, Fifth Cavalry, son of the
senior senator from Pennsylvania, and one of Mrs. Scott's
cousins with me, as well as some Kiowa and Comanche scouts.
The cattle began to strike the trail in bands of two to five
thousand head, all intending to turn loose on the Indian reser-
vations and drift later into the Cherokee Strip, in violation of
the president's proclamation. The trail came up through Ver-
non, Texas, and crossed the North Fork of Red River, which
was then the boundary line between Texas and the Indian
Territory. The foremen were up to every device to cross above
or below me and turn loose, without my knowledge, in the
Kiowa and Comanche country, which I had been directed to
prevent.
A Kiowa or Comanche scout was stationed on the flanks of
the mountain in the rear of the camp with a field-glass, and he
signaled down whenever he saw the dust of a herd trying to
cross twelve or fifteen miles above or below, and another scout
would be sent with a polite note to the foreman of the herd,
asking him to come to see me. He would usually arrive in a
great rage, declaring that he got his orders only from his boss
and was not going to be told by any soldier what to do. It
would then be politely explained that he would be acting
against the proclamation of the president if he crossed into the
Indian reservation, rather than on the cattle trail, and as I
was aware that no legal penalty was attached to the violation
Service on the Plains
139
of the president's proclamation, I would not oppose his cross-
ing, but would allow him to proceed five miles into the reserva-
tion if he wanted to, against my advice. He would then how-
ever, be a trespasser, and I had one hundred mounted men
here who would be used to chase his cattle back into Texas,
and, driving off their fat and causing many, doubtless, to get
their legs broken and others to be mired down in quicksands
of the North Fork, this would cost real money, which his boss
might be rich enough to afford, but which would get him
nowhere, for the same would be repeated at every subsequent
attempt.
Soon thirty thousand head of cattle, their owners unwilling
to have them go on through into Kansas, banked up at our
crossing on the North Fork, and the owners began to appear,
saying that they were losing big money and asking if I could
not help them in some way. Some produced a permit from the
agent of the Kiowa and Comanche to turn loose on that reser-
vation, but were told that I did not take my orders from the
agent but from the commanding officer at Fort Sill, who had
sent me here. Their cries for help were piteous. I told them
that the only way I might be able to help them would be to
send an Indian seventy-five miles to Fort Sill, asking the com-
manding officer whether I should honor the agent's permit. This
was done, and the commanding officer called on the agent to
explain, and the agent became frightened and repudiated his
own signature; the cattlemen had been paying him to give
them permits illegally. The commanding officer sent me word
that there would be no change in my orders. This and the
daily loss convinced the owners it was no use to wait there
longer. A few elected to drive on to Dakota and Montana;
others turned back into Texas and disappeared, but none
turned loose on the reservations or on the Cherokee Strip,
which was soon prepared for the opening.
A Kiowa Indian came in and told us of the location of the
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nest of a war (golden) eagle, high up on a cliff on a mountain-
side, five miles from camp. My cousin and I went over to see
it with Arose, a Comanche scout. We could see it plainly up
against the face of a cliff, and concluded that the best way
was to go above it and climb down. Looking around for Arose
we found that he had disappeared. We climbed down and
made our way with some difficulty along the edge of the cliff
and found there was only one young bird in the nest, sur-
rounded by the remains of a jack-rabbit and several prairie-
dogs. We put our captive into a gunny-sack and climbed down
with him to the horses, where we found Arose, who had been
watching our progress with great fear.
We staked the young bird out in camp, and the old ones
came hovering over next day, answered by the shrill pipe of
the fledgling. The Indians told us that we ought not to have
taken the only bird in the nest lest misfortune come to us. This
bird grew large and strong, and when leaving Fort Sill I
shipped him to Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, where he is
probably alive yet, as they are said to live a hundred years.
An account of his capture may be seen in Richard Harding
Davis's "West from a Car Window."
The golden eagle has twelve feathers in the tail, from which
the Plains war-bonnets are made. We plucked this bird's tail
five times to make a Kiowa war-bonnet of sixty feathers; it
was beautifully made by I-see-o, Elk Tongue, and Chaka.
One war-eagle tail used to be equal in value to a good horse
before the days of automobiles, when horses cost money.
I fell sick in this camp with malarial fever and had to be
carried seventy-five miles to Fort Sill in an ambulance. The
morning after I left, one of the men drowned while swimming
in the North Fork, and the Indians attributed all these mis-
fortunes to our taking that single eagle out of the nest. "No
one can go against the wisdom of the elders without suffering
for it," they said.
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141
PROBLEMS OF FORT SILL
After recovering from the fever I was appointed adjutant
quartermaster and commissary of Fort Sill, and it was not long
before the post was put on the list for abandonment. The rea-
sons were several. One was that Fort Reno, only seventy-five
miles away, had been the station of General Merritt, who con-
sidered that two posts were not needed in that country so close
together, and he preferred Fort Reno. I told them that they
would never be able to get any good drinking-water at Reno
because the red gypsum beds sloped right under the region,
and they would always get bad water. They had hauled their
drinking-water five miles from the Caddo Springs for thirty
years, and now sank a well twelve hundred feet deep, costing
fifteen thousand dollars, only to get water that would curl
your teeth; whereas Fort Sill had good, clear limestone water
and plenty of it.
General Merritt objected to Sill also because the stone
gables were falling outward, and nothing could be done to keep
the plaster on the rooms from crumbling. Captain Pond, then
at the height of his fame building Fort Riley, was sent down
to inspect the post. He reported that nothing could be done
for it; for one thing, the stone was too soft, and the post ought
to be torn down completely and a new post of brick con-
structed, at an estimated cost of three hundred thousand
dollars.
I felt that the post ought to be saved for many reasons. It
was in a far more agreeable country than Fort Reno, with
clear streams and a view of the mountains within twelve miles.
It had a history not to be lightly tossed away, and, more than
all, troops were needed there, and if they could not live in the
post they would have to live in tents; so I set out to save
Fort Sill in spite of everybody. I made a close examination and
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found the stone quite hard, bearing the quarry marks as sharp
as the day it was quarried. I soon found also that the gable-
ends were falling outward because, originally, the grass had
been merely scraped to lay the foundations; in fact, there were
no foundations, and this was the cause of all the trouble. I
saved three hundred dollars in the erection of a water-tank
and proposed to the chief quartermaster to expend this money
on the worst set of quarters-which had the gable-ends propped
up by large logs-mainly for the purpose of buying lifting-
jacks. This he promptly refused, saying that the gable ends
would fall in on me just as soon as we began to excavate under
them.
We fenced with each other at long range over this for six
months, when he finally allowed the saving to be used. When
the lifting-jacks arrived, an excavation was made under the
wall, four feet wide and four feet deep, the wall being held up
in the meantime by jacks. The work was done by a stone-
mason brought down from Kansas City; the limestone quarry
a mile away furnished stone for the foundations, and we burned
our own lime right there. Great slabs of stone were put in the
excavations and a real foundation built; but how to get the
weight off the jacks, without allowing the wall to sag a little,
and perhaps fall out, no one knew. I was passing down the
front of the quarters soon afterward, looking at the ladies'
flower-beds, many of which were contained inside a circle
composed of old tires taken from six-mule wagons. I gathered
up all the old wagon tires to be found everywhere, had the
blacksmith cut them into wedges, eight inches long and half
an inch thick, wedged the walls so as to lift them off, freeing
the jacks, and my work was accomplished. The ends of those
wedges may be seen yet in the old post. The chief quarter-
master came down to see what had been done with his three
hundred dollars on the worst set of quarters, pronounced him-
Service on the Plains
143
self satisfied, gave me eight thousand dollars and promised
twenty-five thousand the next year.
No money had been spent on the post for a long time, in
anticipation of its abandonment. The original floors were
rotting so that I could stand on the ground in the middle of
the drawing-room, my feet through holes in the floor, while
every time it rained Mrs. Scott would place milk-pans all over
the floor to save her carpets, and the cook would have to hold
an umbrella over the range. I roofed the post with the eight
thousand dollars, put in new floors where needed, and new
foundations, ran two chimneys up in each house instead of
one which smoked so that the open fireplaces could not be used,
and built an extra room on many of the houses. Colonel Peter
Vroom inspected the post and said, "Well, you have been
fighting to save this post for three years, and now you can stop;
the post is saved, and Reno is to go." The twenty-five thou-
sand never materialized, because the chief quartermaster was
retired, and the headquarters were transferred from St. Louis
to Chicago, where they had other uses for the money.
Fort Sill then was in the Indian Territory, neither in Texas
nor Kansas, and it had no congressional delegation to fight for
it in Washington; in fact, it had nobody but me, a first lieu-
tenant of cavalry, who did not count for much in the halls of
Congress, where it was not known that I was even alive.
Our ice-machine had been put in an old building, 1020 feet
from the pump. Our boiler was a little upright contrivance that
would not allow the flues to be cleaned. These flues, covered
with scale from the limestone water, were eternally leaking,
putting the fire out, and in need of repairs. It was plain when
I first became quartermaster that the boiler would soon be
useless, and an auxiliary boiler was asked for and refused.
One Sunday night the engineer came in and reported that
the flues could be repaired no longer; they had leaked so that
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Some Memories of a Soldier
the fire was put out and could not be lighted. I hurried down
and tried to heat the flues with a fire outside the fire-box, but
this failed. From the post trader I got an old hand fire-engine
that had been condemned and sold years before, gave each
family a water-barrel, filled by an abandoned water-wagon,
which in turn was filled by pumping water through the fire-
hose out of the spring; and they had drinking-water but no ice.
We dug up the two-inch pipe carrying water to the stables and
watered the horses in the creek. The two-inch pipe was coupled
up and laid between the ice-machine and the pump to carry
steam, but it lacked two hundred feet of reaching the pump.
This hiatus had to be filled with inch pipe, and when we tried
the pump it gave a couple of chugs and stopped, and the steam
cooled down so as not to do the work. Going past the corral, I
saw one of the old iron telegraph poles, two inches in diameter,
that used to be on the line running into Kansas, and the aban-
doned poles were used for closing corrals. We soon gathered all
we could find, cut threads on them, coupled them up, put them
in the line, built fires under them to dry off the steam, and
began to make ice for the hospital first, and later for the post,
until we got our new forty-horse-power horizontal boiler from
Chicago and hauled it down the sixty-seven miles from Minco,
which had now become our railroad point.
A Plains quartermaster used to live by his wits in those days,
for almost nothing was given him. If he ever saw a real twelve-
inch pine board, he would have put it in his safe, if there had
been room, for often he would have to make his coffins out of
packing-boxes. It was a fine school for a young man, however.
The modern quartermaster must have everything to his hand
called for by the books or he cannot turn a wheel.
That ice-machine makes me think of an incident which oc-
curred a long time after. I was dining at Yale with Dr. Hadley
and a party of gentlemen, and asked my neighbor what was
the most remarkable thing he had ever seen. He could not
Service on the Plains
145
answer, and soon the discussion became general. Finally they
said to me, "You started this; you tell us the most remarkable
thing you have ever seen!" I told them that I had seen Pharaoh
-the one who "would not let my people go." I had had my
face within two feet of his and could see his own teeth, his own
face, and knew what he looked like, in the museum at Boulak,
just on the outskirts of Cairo, and it had given me a thrill I
had never felt before. Then I told of my putting the same
question to a crowd of Comanches, who went out to agree upon
the answer. Coming back, they announced that the most re-
markable thing they had ever seen was the ice-machine at
Fort Sill, where a white man made ice every day out of hot
water in the summer-time.
Formerly most all my studies had gone toward warfare with
the Indian, which I used to think, at one time, would last
during my lifetime, but conditions on the Plains were rapidly
changing. Instead of protecting the white man from the In-
dian, it was now for the soldier to protect the Indian from the
white man, and my military ideas had been changed by the
maneuvers at Chilocco in 1889. I began to study civilized war-
fare intensively, perceiving that the day of the Indian on the
Plains was over. While I was always too busy with something
important to go to the school at Fort Leavenworth, I studied its
textbooks and began to fit myself for war with a foreign coun-
try, although no sign of such a war could yet be seen.
The same question was soon taken up in our post schools
and continually discussed in our clubs. My classmate, Arthur
Wagner, put out his work on "Strategy and Information," and
a new era dawned for our army-a new epoch ushered in-
that was to progress until it found us, at the outbreak of the
World War, with our officers the best instructed of any army
in the world.
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A MESSIAH ON THE PLAINS
In the summer of 1890, those who were in communication
with the Indians began to hear rumors of the coming of a
Messiah. Vague stories were heard at first that there was a
white man out on the Staked Plains of Texas, with long fair
hair and beard, who might show you your dead relatives, and
who bore on his hands the scars of the crucifixion. Small atten-
tion was paid to these stories for some time, but they became
more and more insistent, attracted more and more attention,
until by the beginning of winter they were causing the whole
of the Plains, north and south, to rock with what Mulvaney
called "invidjus apprehension."
The story was now that Jesus had come back to this earth,
which was worn out, since the buffalo and wild horses were all
gone, the white man had cut off all the wood, and the rivers
were dry. Jesus was on top of a new earth somewhere in the
Northwest, coming with a slow movement like that of a glacier,
covering the old earth. On it were the spirits of the buffalo, the
wild horses, and all our dead relatives. Jesus had come once to
the white man, who had killed him, and now he was coming to
the Indian, bringing with him all the conditions of the golden
age before the white man; and this slowly moving new earth
was going to push the white man off into the sea, forcing him
to go back whence he came or to drown. All that was neces-
sary for the Indian to do was to believe, and to cultivate the
dance; otherwise he would be pushed off with the white man
into the sea.
Colonel Caleb Carlton, Seventh Cavalry, commanding at
Fort Sill, placed this matter, pertaining to eight tribes, in my
hands, and I spent the winter wherever the excitement was
greatest, going about with an orderly, cook, driver, and light
wagon, a saddle-mule, and a pair of quail and turkey dogs,
Service on the Plains
147
often accompanied by my cousin and my son, Hunter, then a
young lad, besides some Kiowa scouts, notably Sergeants
I-see-o and Clancy, and Chambers, driver and packer. It was
recognized that something dangerous might be hatched up
underneath the surface, of which I might be kept in ignorance
until it broke, and so I-see-o was told that a very serious
situation was developing, which bade fair to bring about a
clash with troops that would probably wipe out those eight
tribes if they persisted in acting under this delusion; but that
if he would do as I told him, whether his tribe disapproved or
not, we would save them all, and he would be thereafter like
a man standing on a high peak, looked up to by everybody.
I-see-o was a very simple honest Indian, brought up in the
old times with the buffalo, having spent a large part of his life
on the war-path on the Arkansas, in Texas, and in Mexico. He
had little or no influence in his tribe and was too simple to
initiate any policy or to put one over alone, but was faithful
to the last degree and would do exactly as I told him. After
considering the matter for a week he agreed to my request,
and we went about together everywhere; he kept me informed
of everything going on underneath the surface and nothing
could start without my knowledge.
The excitement became as great among the white communi-
ties as among the Indians, the former expecting an uprising, a
feeling that was greatly intensified by news of the battle of
Wounded Knee in South Dakota with the Sioux, when Sitting
Bull was killed near the Missouri River. The press called for
the disarming of the Indians all over the Plains. Some of the
agents, notably the agent in charge of the Kiowas and
Comanches at Anadarko, were insistent upon the use of troops
to bring about disarmament and the stopping of the dance, a
policy I resisted with all my force. Meanwhile the Indians still
looked for the coming of the Messiah, who was fully expected
to arrive in the spring.
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I was awakened one night far up on the Canadian, eighty
miles from Fort Sill, by a Kiowa Indian scout who brought out
a telegram from General Merritt, commanding the Department
of the Missouri, directing me to get ready to disarm the In-
dians. The rest of the night was spent with a candle, the stub
of a pencil, and a piece of manila paper, giving reasons why
this should not be attempted. I took the view that I had control
of the situation, and ample warning would be given of anything
overt; that the Indians were going to dance anyhow, and if
not allowed to dance openly where I could keep my fingers on
their pulse, they would dance somewhere in the mountains
secretly where they could hatch up anything they pleased with-
out our knowledge. Moreover it would not be possible to disarm
them, for they could ride one horse and lead another into any
of those little towns in Texas or Oklahoma, and exchange a
horse for a rifle and ammunition, which would then be hidden
somewhere in the brush away from their villages, until needed
for use. Many were already without rifles who would go and
get them in case of such a movement, and a spirit of animosity
would be wakened that would not be ended for ten years, which
was altogether unnecessary. The doctrine taught did not call
for any action by the Indian; Jesus was going to do it, and if
Jesus were to come in the spring and shove us all into the sea,
he could not be prevented by mortal means. If he did not come
the whole fabric would fall of its own weight, and the best
way to treat the situation was to stand by quietly and let it
fall without interference. In the meanwhile I would see that
nothing untoward was being hatched up secretly.
General Merritt approved of this policy, and the eight tribes
were carried through the excitement without the firing of a
shot or the shedding of a drop of blood, although the news of
the battle of Wounded Knee in the North, where many were
killed on both sides, caused the excitement in the South to be
greatly intensified.
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149
General Merritt was rather put out by the sending of troops
from his department to General Miles in the Sioux country,
where a large part of the army was congregated, as he had
the same trouble in his own department and did not want his
troops taken away. The last time I saw him in the Metropolitan
Club in Washington, he said, "I will never forget you; you
kept me out of trouble when I didn't know enough to keep
myself out."
When news of the Messiah first began to circulate in Okla-
homa, a Kiowa Indian by the name of Ahpiatom, or Wooden
Lance, was deeply affected. He pondered some time over it
and concluded to go north and see that Jesus with his own eyes.
He went north to the Sioux Agency at Pine Ridge and was told
that he could go back and tell his people that the story was
true; Jesus was not actually there he was over in the Sho-
shone and Arapahó country, and all Ahpiatom need do was to
go home and "push hard on that dance." He said, “No, I am
going to see that Jesus with my own eyes." He went back
south to the Union Pacific Railroad and made his way to the
Shoshone and Arapahó agency, a hundred miles north of the
railway. Here they told him the same thing: "Jesus is not
actually here; he is over at Fort Hall, Idaho. It is all right;
you go back and tell your people it is true." He said, “No, I
am not going back until I see that Jesus with my own eyes."
Then he made his way back to the railway a hundred miles,
footsore and hungry, having to stop to work at times to get
something to eat, and thence in the same manner to Fort Hall,
to hear the same story. This time Jesus was over on Pyramid
Lake in Nevada, which he reached after a long journey. He
was told that Jesus was there, in a lodge not far away. He
put on his best clothes and approached the lodge with the most
reverential feeling. It appeared to him that if that was the
real Jesus, the latter would recognize him at once, and would
speak to him in his own language, saying: "You are Ahpiatom,
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Some Memories of a Soldier
that Kiowa man who has been worshiping me for three years,"
and he would show Ahpiatom his son who was dead, and his
other dead relatives, and show him likewise the scars of the
crucifixion on his hands.
Ahpiatom was taken on arrival into a lodge where there was
a Piute Indian by the name of Jack Wilson lying in a bed on
the ground with a blanket over his face, singing. After a
long time Wilson took the blanket off his face and asked him
who he was in the Piute language. "Why," he said, “I am
Ahpiatom; don't you know me? I am that Kiowa man who
has been worshiping you for three years." Wilson said, "What
did you come looking for here?" Ahpiatom said, "I have been
traveling for a long time, going from tribe to tribe looking for
Jesus." "Well," Wilson said, "you don't have to travel any
more for I am the only Jesus there is. What do you want?"
"I want to see my son who is dead." Wilson said, "I haven't
got any dead people here," and began to excuse himself for
the killing of the Sioux at Wounded Knee; it wasn't his fault
that the Sioux people should go wrong and have so many killed
in one day.
During the conversation Ahpiatom was watching him care-
fully, and seeing that the scars of the crucifixion were not there,
he came to the conclusion that he was being spoofed. He re-
turned to his people at Anadarko, to whom he announced that
was a false Jesus and his religion false too. This was a tre-
mendous disappointment to his people, who were expecting
the coming of the Messiah, and it made Ahpiatom very un-
popular. They said that Wilson might be a false Jesus, but
Ahpiatom had not gone to the right place. Ahpiatom had seen
an Arapaho who had gone only as far as Pine Ridge and had
accepted the dictum of the Sioux that the doctrine was true,
and he was enriched on his return by gifts from his people. I
have seen Sitting Bull, the Arapaho John the Baptist, drive off
forty horses and a dozen beeves at one time, presented to him
Service on the Plains
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by the different tribes, together with rifles, saddles, blankets,
buckskin, and other Indian property; and Ahpiatom was told
that his people would make him rich if he would take the same
message, but he said, "No, that is not for the good of my
people."
I represented this to the President, who presented him with
a silver medal, and Indian Commissioner Morgan promised to
build him a house-a promise that was never fulfilled.
Commissioner Morgan promised to give a house also to
Quanah Parker, chief of the Comanche, but withdrew his
promise when he heard that Quanah (Odor or Smell) had
seven wives. He had no sort of knowledge of the people over
whose lives and fortunes he had control and thought he could
change the manners and customs overnight as so many good
narrow-minded people have thought before him as well as
since. He ordered Quanah to get rid of all but one of his wives
at once. Quanah remarked on hearing this that a man with
seven wives needed a house much more than a man with
only one.
It was not for any commissioner to enact ex post facto laws,
to break up and scatter families of young children and throw
them out on the world; it was for him to go at the matter
gradually, and forbid any new plural marriages. Time would
soon attend to the old ones without disturbance, and the status
quo should not be altered violently.
Quanah went to Washington to interview the commissioner
on this wholesale divorcement and said to him:
"A long time ago I lived free among the buffalo on the
Staked Plains and had as many wives as I wanted, according
to the laws of my people. I used to go to war in Texas and
Mexico. You wanted me to stop fighting and sent messages all
the time: 'You stop, Quanah. You come here. You sit down,
Quanah.' You did not say anything then, 'How many wives
you got, Quanah.' Now I come and sit down as you want.
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You talk about wives; which one I throw away? You pick
him? You little girl, you go 'way; you got no papa-you pick
him? You little fellow, you go 'way; you got no papa-you
pick him?"
But the commissioner could not "pick him," and Quanah
died long after, still holding his seven wives.
The next time that Sitting Bull (Arapahó) came down to
Andarko, Ahpiatom challenged him to a public debate, and
denounced him before a great crowd for deceiving the people
for the sake of gain. Sitting Bull said that he had never asked
for any gifts; that they had been presented to him without
request, and he stood ready to return them if it was so desired.
Ahpiatom replied: "No, that is not the Kiowa road"-custom.
"Whatever has been given you should be kept. But you are
deceiving my people. I want you to cease."
Notwithstanding Ahpiatom's efforts, the Kiowa did not give
up their belief in the coming of the Messiah for some time, and
the excitement among the Caddo, Wichita, Delaware, Southern
Cheyenne, and Arapahó continued unabated. The Comanche,
being a skeptical people, never did have the craze as badly as
the others. The Caddo danced continuously day and night for
twenty days; when some dropped out to eat or rest, others
would take their places, although it snowed at one time eight
inches deep.
While this was going on I would be sitting by the fire dis-
cussing such important matters with the old people as they
propounded from time to time. Old Caddo Jake would begin
to flatter me, and I would know at once that he was going to
try to lead me into a trap to get the laugh on me before the
others; but, being warned, I was usually able to turn the
tables on him, though I would never have suspected him if it
had not been for the flattery, which an Indian always uses to
lay a trap. All these Indians received me into their camps with
freedom, confident that I had no ulterior purpose and was not

GERONIMO
mys
GERONIMO AND NAICHE, CHIEFS OF CHIRICAHUA APACHE
Service on the Plains
153
seeking evidence against them or going to try to stop their
dance.
I traveled far up into the Cheyenne and Arapaho country
where the Washita could be stepped across, and killed wild
turkeys in the tributary gulches. We spent three days hunting
for stone on the site of Custer's battle of the Washita with
Black Kettle's band of Southern Cheyennes. Clancy had been a
stone-mason at one time and engraved "7th Cavalry, Nov. 27,
1868" on a large flat stone, which he placed on a pile of rock
with some of the bones of horses Custer had killed to keep
the Cheyennes from recapturing them. He killed seven hun-
dred in all; many of the bones had been carried away and sold.
When the Cheyenne country was about to open for settle-
ment I sent a photograph of this monument to the Minco
Minstrel with an appeal to the new settlers not to disturb this
monument or Black Kettle's tree, under which he was killed.
The tree was a cottonwood that had been blazed by the
Cheyennes shortly after the fight. The last I heard, the monu-
ment had been torn down, but the slab and the tree were still
there.
I had great curiosity to see Sitting Bull, who had taught the
Messiah dance up and down the Plains, and I would always
arrive when he had just left, until I heard that he was expected
on Sugar Creek in the country of the Caddo, Wichita, and
Delaware Indians. I put four fine mules on a light buckboard,
drove fifty miles in a day, and found him.
He was remarkable in that he had light eyes; he was an
excellent and graceful sign talker, most affable and obliging,
and I greatly enjoyed talking to him. I put my camp near his
lodge and spent a great deal of time with him, watching him
and his proceedings. I saw there all the scenes depicted in the
Bible about Jesus. The Wichita and Caddo women would sur-
round him weeping and touch him "to get some of the virtue
out of him." Presents of every kind were heaped on him and
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Some Memories of a Soldier
it was said that he had six thousand dollars deposited with a
trader at Fort Reno.
Some time previously I had wished to photograph the dance
on the Canadian River and could easily have done it without
their permission, for none of them knew at first what the
camera was. I told them I wanted to show a picture of the
dance to General Merritt at St. Louis, so that he could see the
men, women, and children dancing together without guns or
war costumes and would not believe the lies told him about
their going on the war-path; but they were terribly disturbed
lest I should "break the medicine," and I gave it up. Some
talked afterward about breaking the camera, and I-see-o told
me that there had been talk of killing me rather than have the
medicine broken. I could even then have taken the photograph
without their knowledge, but I never treated them that way,
never played tricks on them.
At this visit I asked Sitting Bull, who had control of every-
thing, about it. He gave his permission with alacrity and even
stopped the dance when I raised my hand. This photograph
was on my last film and was the only genuine photograph ever
taken of a Messiah dance, either on the Northern or Southern
Plains, for no one else was allowed near them with a camera.
The Sioux ran away into the bad lands to dance, in spite of
the agent's prohibition, and they killed Lieutenant Casey for
intruding.
In this picture will be seen a number of people lying on the
ground in a hypnotic trance, where they would be surrounded
by their women to prevent their being touched. Their spirits
were thought to have left their bodies and to have gone above
in conference with Jesus. If a dog should even touch them
with the point of the nose, their spirit would be jerked rudely
away from the presence of Jesus.
While constantly watching them I could see a new religion
growing up around me, which, if they were not dominated by
Service on the Plains
155
the white man, and the times were suitable, might have grown
into something like the religion of Mohammed; but the times
were unfavorable, and it soon died. The Indian was then most
susceptible to conversion to Christianity; the name of Jesus
was on every tongue, and had I been a missionary I could have
led every Indian on the Plains into the church, but the mis-
sionaries were not awake to their opportunity.
Many preposterous and impossible statements were made by
Sitting Bull, which he evidently expected to have believed, but
which no white man would consider for a moment. The Indian,
however, could and did believe them and was willing to stake
his life on their truth, without a particle of proof. I am con-
vinced that, impossible as they were from the standpoint of our
superior knowledge, Sitting Bull himself believed the whole
thing implicitly.
The mind of the Indian was prepared to believe the impos-
sible, as our forefathers of the Middle Ages believed in dreams,
apparitions, and miracles. Something seen by them in a dream
was "confirmation strong as proofs of holy writ." We others
must not judge the Indian as we judge the actions of the people
of our time, for the older ones are still living in a more back-
ward age, the age of barbarism, when we too had much the
same beliefs and had not acquired the mass of knowledge that
we now enjoy. The attitude of mind of the Indian, brought up
on primitive legends without the correction due to modern
thought and information, was altogether different from ours,
and he was prepared to believe anything presented to him
from a source in which he had confidence.
I saw Sitting Bull last at the cantonment on the North Fork
of Red River in 1920, and asked him, "How about that Mes-
siah dance?" He said: "My father's brother, I hope you won't
talk about those things now. I have put them all away behind
me, and I pray now only to the Spirit above and go to the white
man's church."
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LO! THE POOR INDIAN
The credulity with which the Indian accepts what he is told,
with no backing of proof, seems amazing in our eyes. It is this
credulity that makes him so dangerous. Some ignorant or de-
signing person may take advantage of it to arouse him against
the law or against the troops. It required but one shot at
Wounded Knee to produce a bloody clash, unforeseen and
undesired by both sides, at a moment when the troops and
Indians were in close proximity, with no time for consideration
or reflection.
Besides apprehension of this credulity, there is an inborn
racial fear of the Indian in our minds, due to our ignorance of
his thought, enhanced by the tales of scalping and bloodshed
we were fed on in our youth. We cannot get over this, since it
has become instinctive in many who cannot perceive that the
times have changed and that the Indians have changed with
them, and many have still a fantastic and untruthful view of
the character of the Indian. I have taken, through my Indian
camp at Fort Sill, visitors who have exclaimed in surprise at
seeing an Indian woman kiss her child, as if the Indians had
not the same human nature that they had themselves. This
ignorance on both sides brings about a mutual racial mistrust,
which I have never felt toward the Indian; but I could recog-
nize its existence in myself at Canton, China, among the
teeming millions of foreigners of different race and language,
from whose minds and intentions I was completely shut out.
Some one who understands both parties is always needed
in times of stress to prevent a clash, with disastrous conse-
quences, and to keep them far enough apart so that the
nervousness of one man may not bring it on, perhaps by a
single gesture; for placing such unstable forces as armed In-
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dians and troops together is like putting an open powder-keg
in front of an open fire, needing but one spark to explode it all.
The troops should be kept from the immediate presence of the
Indians, in a strong defensive position, yet near enough to an-
swer a summons promptly. If the Indians are then treated with
sympathy, kindness, patience, and tact, no body of red men
that ever lived can stand out against you, no matter how ugly
their mood, or how outraged their feelings, provided always you
can reach them so as to talk without being fired on. I have in-
variably found the Indian to be reasonable if you do not hurry
him too much, and willing to do the right thing if you can
show him what it is and give him time.
Some time afterward while talking to the Kiowas in the
camp of the families of my Indians at Fort Sill, I stated
that the Kiowa chief, Lone Wolf, had sold out his people to
the Cherokee Commission. The next day about four hundred
Kiowas came up to the post with Lone Wolf. Their spokes-
man said it was a matter of hearsay that I had made certain
statements about Lone Wolf. They did not know whether I
had actually made them or not; they only heard that I had;
but if I would make them again before that crowd they would
know exactly what had been said. They were told to bring a
chair and to put it down in front of the one I was sitting in,
and for Lone Wolf to sit in it, right in front of me; and in
the sign language, understood by all of them, I replied that
last night I had said that Lone Wolf had sold out his people.
"Lone Wolf, did you sell out your people?" I then asked.
His only reply was to hang his head in silence. The attention
of the crowd was then invited to him. "Look at that," I said,
"a man that calls himself chief of the Kiowa people; just
look at him-afraid to look at me! Lone Wolf, you look me in
the eye. You are walking to-day down your chief's road; you
are going to hear something coming after you like a hound
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Some Memories of a Soldier
after a deer. I am going after you, and I am going to overtake
you. I am going to break your chief's road and throw you
away. That is all. You can go."
Whenever, for months after that, I would meet parties of
Kiowas on the prairie, at the agency, or elsewhere, this
dialogue would take place:
Q. How do you like to have a chief that sells you out?
A. We don't like it.
Q. What kind of a chief do you like? A. We like an honest
man.
Q. Who is the most honest Kiowa you know? A. Ahpiatom.
Q. Why don't you get him for a chief? A. I think we will.
Later the feeling coalesced and resulted in the first regular
election the tribe ever had for a chief, and they chose
Ahpiatom. That was about 1894, and he is still their chief
to-day. The hound had overtaken the deer.
About ten days after the battle of Wounded Knee, between
Big Foot's band of Sioux and the Seventh Cavalry, in South
Dakota, Colonel Carlton, who commanded Fort Sill, asked my
advice regarding a telegram he had just received from the
Indian agency at Anadarko, thirty-three miles away, in which
it was stated that a little Kiowa Indian boy had been whipped
in the Kiowa school, after which he had run away secretly
and taken two other boys with him, and all three had been
caught in a blizzard on their way to their village and found
frozen to death; the Indians were very much excited over
this, and the agent desired a squadron of cavalry sent there
immediately to save the agency.
I reminded the colonel that this was no kind of weather in
which to send troops out in the field. There had been a heavy
fall of rain, filling up the streams, after which two feet of
snow had fallen, and now it was raining and sleeting again,
and if troops were compelled to march all night in such
weather they would arrive in Anadarko in a very ugly frame of
Service on the Plains
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mind; the Indians were coming there, armed, from every direc-
tion, much excited over the loss of the children, and a very
serious clash was probable and would cause a great deal of
bloodshed. If he would let me go up there I would settle it
without any troops.
The colonel replied: "You are asking me something very
difficult. Suppose you go up there and are not able to handle
the situation and the agency is destroyed; what kind of a
defense could I put up before a court-martial when asked by
the judge advocate, 'Did you get that call for a squadron of
cavalry from the agent?' I would have to say, 'Yes.' The next
question would be, 'What did you do?' and I could only an-
swer, 'I sent one man.' What sort of a defense would that be, do
you think?"
I had to reply that, no doubt, that was possible, but that
he was commanding officer, and that it was his duty to take
such responsibilities and of two evils to choose the lesser.
If he believed that I would not be able to handle the situation,
he had better send troops, but the probability of bloodshed was
very great, and he would have to take his choice.
Our old interpreter, Horace P. Jones, was there. The colonel
asked if I wanted to take him with me. I had no need for him,
but the last thing I wanted to do was to hurt his feelings, so
I said, "Yes." The colonel asked him when he would be ready.
He said next morning at nine o'clock. The colonel asked when
I would be ready. I said: "I am ready now. The weather is
too bad to take Mr. Jones on horseback, so we will have to
have a covered wagon. If you will order one I will be ready
by the time it gets up." We started out, with I-see-o going
ahead on horseback, carrying a lantern to enable our driver
to keep the road, and arrived at Anadarko about four o'clock
in the morning.
The agent was so frightened that nothing could be got out
of him. I-see-o was sent out to round up the Kiowa chiefs
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Some Memories of a Soldier
after breakfast, and we settled the whole matter satisfactorily
that morning. The teacher who had whipped the boy had been
hidden the day before over the rafters in one of the stores until
after dark, when he was taken out of the country and has
never gone back. The Indians were feeling greatly outraged
over the loss of their children and really acted in a very com-
mendable manner.
We were invited that evening to dinner at the house of one
of the traders, and strolled over to the store after dinner.
One could feel vibrations of great excitement the moment
we entered the store. Inquiry developed the fact that the uncle
of one of the boys had just come in and heard of their death,
and coming around the corner suddenly on the principal of the
school had hit him over the head with a quirt.
The Kiowa village was camped right behind the school about
three quarters of a mile away. Taking I-see-o and my cousin,
who had come with us from Fort Sill, we ran down to the
school as fast as we could and found the women teachers in
great distress. They abused me roundly for not bringing troops
in and for "allowing innocent women and children to be butch-
ered in their beds." I offered to go down into the Kiowa camp
and see if there was anything wrong down there, but they
seized me by both arms and said I would not be allowed to
leave the house; I was the only thing that stood between
them and death and would have to stay there all night. So
I-see-o was sent down into camp and directed to go around all
parts of it and listen to the conversations, bring back word
to me if anything overt was contemplated, and summon the
chiefs to the agent's office the next morning at nine o'clock to
meet me there.
Nothing happened during the night, and at the meeting in
the agent's office the agent and the principal were present,
with the Indians sitting on the floor around the wall, wrapped
in their blankets, some of them crying about the children. The

CAPTAIN SCOTT ENTERTAINS GENERAL MILES AT HIS HUNTING CAMP
Service on the Plains
161
principal insisted upon the arrest of the uncle of the dead boy.
I represented that the excitement was very intense over the
Messiah question, and the news of the recent battle of the
Sioux had greatly intensified this, and if that man were
arrested at this time it would probably be all that was needed
to push the Kiowas into war. The principal, however, insisted
upon it; he and the agent had no more respect for the feelings
of those Indians, sorrowing for their children, than they had
for the feelings of the chairs. Finally, however, they agreed
to forgive the Indian, whom I scolded for using his quirt.
I then told the Indians to go out of town and stay out until
the excitement was over.
A short time after this I was told by a friend that, not-
withstanding the forgiveness by the agent and the principal,
the principal had gone to the deputy marshal and requested
him to make the arrest, and he was going to make it. In re-
sponse to a protest, the marshal replied that it was his duty
to arrest the Indian, and his duty was always paramount.
After some pleasant argument, which failed to move him, he
was told that my duty was always paramount also, and I
could see it very plainly. He said, "What is your duty, lieu-
tenant?" "I see very plainly that it is my duty to go down
to the telegraph office and get your commission as a deputy
marshal revoked by telegraph, as unfit to hold it." He said,
"If you feel that way, lieutenant, I won't do it." I said, "That
is just the way I feel," and he dropped the matter.
A telegram was sent down to the commanding officer at
Fort Sill saying that no troops were needed, as the trouble was
all over. It can be seen from the attitude of the agent in this
matter, as well as the insistence on disarming and the stopping
of the dance, how many of our Indian outbreaks have been
brought about, without real intention on either side, and for
the lack of some person with authority who understands both
sides.
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The following summer a Kiowa Indian was killed by a cow-
boy sixty-seven miles west from Fort Sill at the mouth of the
Elk Creek, a tributary of the North Fork of the Red River,
which then formed a boundary between Texas and the Indian
Territory. The killing happened at the headquarters of a cattle
company on the Texas side. News of the occurrence was
brought in to Fort Sill, and the colonel asked me what I
would need to go out and settle it. I told him I needed an
orderly, a cook, a packer, and a couple of pack-animals. He
said: "No, I am going to send out some troops and let those
people out there see that they cannot kill an Indian with im-
punity. You take a troop of cavalry and start."
I took my own troop as escort, commanded by its second
lieutenant, as I was detailed away from the troop as adjutant,
quartermaster, and commissary of the post, and did not take
command. The road was very heavy, the wagons heavily
loaded; and it was extremely hot. We got a late start, went
into camp after making seventeen miles, and were eating din-
ner when an Indian came in and said there was a large band
of armed white men on one side of the North Fork and the
Kiowas on the opposite, scouting for each other, the Kiowas
outraged by the killing of one of their kind. A battle was
imminent, if it had not already taken place after he left. He
was asked to have some dinner. He said he couldn't wait; he
had to go back. Feed his pony? He said, no, he hadn't time.
That was the first Indian that I had ever seen who hadn't time
to eat, and I realized that things must be in a very dangerous
condition indeed. The troops were established in camp for the
night, and it would be impossible to take the wagons across
country in the darkness without a road. Six Kiowa scouts
were made ready, and we started to make the fifty miles that
night, leaving the troops to come on next day. Being very
thirsty along in the middle of the night, I asked for water,
Service on the Plains
163
but was told, "You can't have any water here; these are the
No Water Mountains we are going through."
Shortly before dawn the Indians said, "Dismount; keep
quiet," and we listened for about five minutes, when we heard
a dog bark. They said, "All right; come along." They had
been afraid that their camp had been attacked and perhaps
taken after the Kiowa had left, but there was something
peaceful in that dog's bark that reassured them.
Since these Kiowas considered that they were at war with
the white men, the kind of reception I would get in that camp
was somewhat doubtful, but I felt that if I could get into the
lodge of old Big Bow, the head soldier of the Kiowas, he
would protect me, certainly as long as I was in his lodge;
and if necessary I would stay there until the troops arrived.
I got into his lodge before dawn, without being discovered.
After sunrise the head men were all invited in, so that their
views might be ascertained. It seemed that there were about a
hundred white men on the other side of the river, all gathered
with their arms at the cow ranch, and the two parties had
been scouting for each other till dark the night before. The
white men had sent their women and children out of the coun-
try far down in Texas, away from harm. It was represented
to the Kiowa that if a delegation would come down with me
into Texas, I would cause the arrest of the man who had shot
the Kiowa, and leave the matter to the civil authorities; I
would see what reparation I could get, and would disperse the
white men. They agreed to this, and Big Bow took me in his
wagon. I caused the arrest of the cowboy by the civil author-
ities. The Indians said they wanted him to be hanged right
there, where they could all see him. The white men were
advised to go home and bring back their women and children;
the war was all over.
The ranch owner was asked if he intended to live there
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Some Memories of a Soldier
and expected to do business, after that Indian was killed on
his ranch. He said he would like to. I then told him that he
would not do it unless he made a settlement according to In-
dian ways; otherwise he would be going about some day on
horseback, and a bullet would come out of the brush and kill
him; but all the soreness could be wiped out by a present. He
asked what sort of a present would be acceptable, and was told
that if he would give them half a dozen beeves I had no doubt
the matter could be settled amicably. He gave the Indians the
beeves, the matter was settled, and has remained settled to this
day.
The cowboy contended that the killing had been done in
self-defense, which was probably true, for the Indian was a
mean one, as the Kiowa themselves acknowledged. The cowboy
was at once released by the civil authorities, after getting away
from our proximity.
We went back to the Indian camp, and on the way recovered
a lost government mule from a man who did not want to give
it up. I went to bed for a rest in Big Bow's lodge, having been
on the go for several days and nights. The troop came in next
day, but everything had been arranged, and there was nothing
to do but go home, which we did, going south of the Wichita
Mountains, where there was no trail and where no one had
ever attempted to take wagons in all the history of Fort Sill,
because of the roughness of the country. I would not care to go
that way again.
While driving into Texas with Big Bow I noticed his fine
buckskin costume. His leggings each had twenty parallel rec-
tangular marks three-eights of an inch wide and three inches
long, down the outside. Putting my finger on one, I asked what
it meant. Big Bow counted it several times very carefully from
the top to make sure of its identity, and then he announced that
it represented an Osage he had killed. Each of the forty marks
represented a member of some tribe he had killed-Pawnee,
Service on the Plains
165
Cheyenne, Utah, and many others and if he had told the
whole truth I have no doubt that some of those marks repre-
sented white people he had killed when at war.
I asked if he wanted to sell those leggings; all our conversa-
tion was carried on in the sign language. He replied "My
uncle" a term of great respect "I don't want to pick up
money for these leggings. I am getting old, and soon my die day
will arrive. Then my women will plait my hair, paint my face
red, and put these clothes on me, and my spirit will go out of
my mouth up to the Wolf's Road"-Milky Way. "When I get
there they will look me all over and will say, 'Big Bow, you
are well dressed.'" "I don't want to pick up money for these
clothes." As I did not wish to interfere with such laudible pro-
ceedings I told him we would drop further consideration of
purchase.
He had one of the two oldest and most historic buffalo
shields among the Kiowa, and I asked if he wanted to sell
that. He said that shield had protected him all his life by its
medicine or magic power. "My life is in that shield, and I don't
want to part with my life," he said, so we talked no more
about it. Six months afterward his son brought the shield in
to me as a present from Big Bow. It seemed that although the
medicine in it had always protected him heretofore, it had now
allowed him to lose control of his face-facial paralysis-
and since it no longer protected him he wanted me to have it.
Dr. J. D. Glennan, my next-door neighbor, was making a
collection of Indian curios and was eager to get a good shield;
and good ones were extremely scarce. I already had the best
shield in the Southwest, which used to belong to the celebrated
Kiowa chief, Satanta, more than a hundred years old. Satanta
had it on when he was roped by a Mexican just outside of the
town of Durango, Mexico, before the Civil War. He was
dragged some distance behind a horse until Frizzlehead and
some others rescued him, after both sides had been skinned
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Some Memories of a Soldier
being very jolly, others more reserved and stately, but all
good-tempered. The Kiowas were more difficult than the
Comanches, who were remarkably open and friendly, although
our literature makes them appear otherwise.
The first expedition of the First Dragoons in 1834, which
my Uncle David Hunter accompanied as captain of Company
D, First Dragoons, passed near the site of Fort Sill, which
was not built until 1870. George Catlin, the artist, was with it
also, and told about it in his "North American Indian," which
made a deep impression on the country. They met the Kiowa
and Comanche, and we have heard the expressions ever since,
"he rides like a Comanche," "he yells like a Comanche"; and
they then acquired an undeserved reputation for fierceness,
but to tell the truth they yelled and rode no differently than
other tribes of the Plains.
At the close of the Sioux War in South Dakota in the spring
of 1891, the secretary of war desired to fill some of the skeleton
troops of cavalry with Indian soldiers. The Sioux flocked to
be enlisted, because they had no food, no horses, no blankets,
nor clothing, and were willing to do anything that would bring
them food and shelter. The Kiowas and Comanches, however,
were well off, some of them having as many as two hundred
horses, and since the tribes were negotiating with the Cherokee
commission concerning their lands, the chiefs held their young
men back so as to keep them under their influence, and they
refused to enlist.
The secretary of war sent Captain Jesse Lee, Ninth Infantry,
who was most successful in enlisting the Sioux, down to Fort
Sill to find out why I did not enlist the Kiowas and Comanches.
A council of the Indians was called to meet him, at which he
stated his case. Old Tabananaca, a Comanche chief, got up and
replied, thanking him for coming so far to talk to them and
bringing the word of Washington. He said that Lieutenant
Scott had already told them those things, and the kindest thing
Service on the Plains
167
I were dining out and could not be found for some time, but
finally the Indian was lodged in the guard-house. I went off
the next morning to Anadarko (thirty-three miles away) and
forgot about the prisoner until nearly there, when I tele-
graphed to the commanding officer, asking him to release the
Indian and give him back his rifle. The Indian loaded his gun,
hiding it under his blanket, and walked up and down in front
of my quarters for an hour, waiting for me to come out. Some
Indian told I-see-o about it, who jumped on his horse bare-
back, galloped up to the Comanche, and stripped off his blan-
ket with one jerk, disclosing his rifle, loaded and at full cock.
I-see-o took it away from him, kicked him and knocked him
about, and told him to get out of there at once, and if he ever
tried anything of that sort again he would kill him.
I came back in about a week and heard about this. Going
into the trader's store ten days after, I saw the Comanche
leaning on the counter with his back to the door, his head
resting on his hands, with elbows on the counter. I walked
around behind the counter and leaned on it in the same way,
our noses about a foot apart, and asked what was the matter
with him. He asked, "Why?" in some surprise. I said, “A little
bird told me that you were walking up and down in front of
my house with a loaded gun the other day; what was that
for?" "Oh!" he said, "that was a long time ago-away back
there," making the sign for a time tradition tells of. "I have
forgotten all about that; that is all over long ago." I told him
he had better keep on forgetting it if he wanted to walk around
on the ground like other live people. "Oh!" he said again, "that
was all over long ago," and it was. If he had been a timber
Indian he would have been apt to kill me a year afterward,
if the right opportunity occurred. I was warned in the Choctaw
country that if I ever had a quarrel with a Choctaw or Semi-
nole to kill him right away or he would kill me, if it were years
afterward; but the Plains Indians are entirely different, some
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Some Memories of a Soldier
being very jolly, others more reserved and stately, but all
good-tempered. The Kiowas were more difficult than the
Comanches, who were remarkably open and friendly, although
our literature makes them appear otherwise.
The first expedition of the First Dragoons in 1834, which
my Uncle David Hunter accompanied as captain of Company
D, First Dragoons, passed near the site of Fort Sill, which
was not built until 1870. George Catlin, the artist, was with it
also, and told about it in his "North American Indian,” which
made a deep impression on the country. They met the Kiowa
and Comanche, and we have heard the expressions ever since,
"he rides like a Comanche," "he yells like a Comanche”; and
they then acquired an undeserved reputation for fierceness,
but to tell the truth they yelled and rode no differently than
other tribes of the Plains.
At the close of the Sioux War in South Dakota in the spring
of 1891, the secretary of war desired to fill some of the skeleton
troops of cavalry with Indian soldiers. The Sioux flocked to
be enlisted, because they had no food, no horses, no blankets,
nor clothing, and were willing to do anything that would bring
them food and shelter. The Kiowas and Comanches, however,
were well off, some of them having as many as two hundred
horses, and since the tribes were negotiating with the Cherokee
commission concerning their lands, the chiefs held their young
men back so as to keep them under their influence, and they
refused to enlist.
The secretary of war sent Captain Jesse Lee, Ninth Infantry,
who was most successful in enlisting the Sioux, down to Fort
Sill to find out why I did not enlist the Kiowas and Comanches.
A council of the Indians was called to meet him, at which he
stated his case. Old Tabananaca, a Comanche chief, got up and
replied, thanking him for coming so far to talk to them and
bringing the word of Washington. He said that Lieutenant
Scott had already told them those things, and the kindest thing

AT ENLISTMENT AND AFTER SIX MONTHS' TRAINING IN U. S. ARMY

Service on the Plains
169
he could do was to go back to Washington and tell them that
the Kiowas and Comanches did not want to be soldiers.
Whereupon he wrapped his blanket around him and stalked
out, followed by his lifelong friend, White Wolf, who had
grown up with him from boyhood, side by side. Captain Lee
went back to Washington and reported that the Kiowas and
Comanches could not be enlisted. Although I have seen hun-
dreds of councils, this was one of only two occasions when
I had seen a rudeness perpetrated.
A month after that, Poor Buffalo, a Kiowa chief, invited
me to his lodge. Talking in the sign language, he said: "Here-
tofore we have held our young men, in a corral, from enlisting,
and to-day I am going to tell you something good. We are
going to open that corral and drive our young men right at you
like a herd of horses." In a short time a troop was enlisted,
the only one of the Indian organizations to serve out its
appointed time. None of the Indians could read or write, and
so Ernest Stecker of my Troop M was appointed first sergeant
to take care of the paper work, Thomas Clancy quartermaster
sergeant to look after the property, and I-see-o as first ser-
geant, who was, however, a figurehead, unable to deal with
white men, never having learned any English. The other non-
commissioned officers were all Indians. The troop was above
the middle of all the organizations of the army with the rifle,
fourth among eighteen troops of cavalry in the Department
of the Missouri with the revolver, and was considered by the
War Department as a success in every way but one; they said
it was a success as long as I stayed with it, but its officers
could not be changed around as in white troops; and since all
the other troops were a disappointment, the experiment of en-
listing Indians was regarded as a failure.
It seems a remarkable thing that British officers could make
efficient soldiers of Egyptians, who have been slaves for three
thousand years, but American officers could not make soldiers
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Some Memories of a Soldier
out of Indians, who had fought us successfully for a long
period, and who when suitably armed and mounted were the
best light horsemen the world has ever seen. The truth was
that the army was angry at General Schofield for mustering
out the white men of the two troops in each regiment, and
did not want the experiment to succeed. Innumerable obstacles
were thrown in my way by unthinking officers, and support in
Washington was withheld by a change of the secretary of war.
The men of that troop nevertheless are men of power and
influence now in the Kiowa reservation and dictate its policies,
and I have been told by a number of agents that the marked
difference between this agency and those surrounding it was
caused by the discipline, instruction, and general improvement
brought about by service in that troop, and that it would be of
advantage to the government to have a similar troop at every
agency. The men were made to save their money, and by the
time that they were discharged they received help from troop
funds, so that every one of them had a house on his lot, to
which he retired.
At first the men held off a little from enlistment by the fear
of being made to cut their hair. They were told they might
cut their hair or let it drag on the ground so far as I was
concerned, and they all enlisted. After some months an order
came down from the War Department to have every one of
them cut his hair. This placed me in a very awkward position,
and I felt much dismayed over it. All during the winter I
would make a little fun of them, saying that they called them-
selves soldiers going around with hair like that, and telling
them to put their braid down under their coat collars so
that I wouldn't see it. At the end of the cold weather eleven
of them came up and asked to borrow a quarter each. I asked
what they wanted it for. They said they wanted to have their
hair cut, and then gradually they all followed suit but one
man, an Arapahó by the name of Yellow Bull, who declared
Service on the Plains
171
he would not cut his hair for anybody. He was reported absent
from retreat one evening. Inquiry developed that he was inside
the barracks, and the reason he did not come out to retreat was
that he was ashamed; he had been sleeping on his bunk when
some young Kiowa rascals had cut off his hair on one side,
and he was ashamed to come out. Afterward he had the other
side cut to match, and the orders of the War Department were
complied with, and I was not made out a liar after all.
MEMORIES OF BUFFALO BILL AND OTHER FAMOUS PLAINSMEN
In the summer of 1893 General Miles ordered me to the
World's Fair in Chicago to deliver an article on the sign
language of the Plains before a World's Congress of Ethnolo-
gists. I knew of this six months beforehand, and sent east for
books on philology, in order to find out the fundamental laws
of language, lest, studying alone on the plains, I should have
acquired a one-sided or distorted view of my subject. This
study of philology is still one of the great pleasures of my life.
Before my lecture, at which General Miles and my mother
were present, I asked Buffalo Bill for an Indian to use in
demonstration on the stage. He replied in his hearty way,
"Take the whole show," but I compromised on six Ogalala
Sioux. The audience asked that my time be extended, and
I was told afterward by the management that this was the only
time such a request had been made during the life of the
Congress.
General Miles detailed me with one of the police detach-
ments at the Fair, which duty would give me a room on the
grounds with extra pay and access to everything, but it was
my misfortune to fall ill again with malarial fever. When I
asked him to send me back to Fort Sill he was much surprised
and asked my reasons. I told him I had a strong fever every
other day, and the warm water of the lake got on my nerves,
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Some Memories of a Soldier
and that I wanted to allay the fever in the cold spring water
at Fort Sill to get some goose-flesh on myself once more. So I
went back without seeing very much of the Fair.
BUFFALO BILL
The days I felt well enough, however, I would sit with
Buffalo Bill in a little sentry-box with two chairs, at the heel
of the arena of his Wild West Show, where we could look out
at the performers coming in and going out. I asked him who of
all his people were the best performers. He told me that the
American cowboys were the best, for besides doing their own
stunts remarkably well, they could do those of all the others
too. Just then a Circassian prince came in at a gallop standing
on his head, and Cody said, "The cowboys can do what that
Circassian prince can do as well as he can, but there would
be no money in allowing them to do it in the show."
There was one performer, however, who was not an adept.
While I was walking around with Cody between the acts, he
sent for an Australian he had imported to throw a boomerang,
as a stunt in the show. It was soon found that the various cur-
rents of air about the amphitheater prevented control of the
boomerang, which frequently went into the seats of the amphi-
theater. After trying him for a while and convincing himself
that it was dangerous, Cody said, "That act is no good; take
him away and put him to digging post-holes." Imagine import-
ing a man from Australia to dig post-holes in Chicago! but
the show could stand that after clearing seven hundred thou-
sand dollars during the season.
Buffalo Bill and I both got in the Deadwood coach one
day, and I sat on the box by the driver, driving six fine strong
mules when the team was made to run away, chased by
Indians firing blank cartridges at us. I thought at first that I
was being powder burned by the Indians, but soon discovered
Service on the Plains
173
that what had stung my face was not powder but the gravel
thrown up by the flying feet of the galloping mules.
That was the most realistic show I have ever seen. Those
old Deadwood coaches used to pass our house at Fort Meade
twice a day. Mrs. Scott and I had often ridden in them. I knew
the Indians were genuine because I had known some of them
on the Plains. When I first saw the show in 1884, in Phila-
delphia, I could hardly believe my eyes when I recognized
Shunkamanito Ota, alias Yankton Charley, and Red Shirt, who
guided General McKenzie into the Cheyenne Village on Powder
River, both Ogalalas. The West was still a far country in those
days, and one seldom met Ogalalas in Philadelphia.
Everything was exactly as represented in that show but one
thing: the shields carried by the Indians were not genuine.
Instead of being made of indurated rawhide from the neck
of a buffalo bull, which had then gone from the Plains, they
were barrel-hoops with canvas painted and decorated with
feathers, and they resembled shields so well that no one in the
audience knew the difference.
Cody was always very generous with his men, in fact with
everybody. One time I was sitting with him in 1884 at Phila-
delphia on the upstairs veranda of a club-house when the show
passed by to entrain. A cowboy left the column and called up
asking for an advance of a dollar on his pay. Cody told him
to hold his hat and threw down a twenty-dollar gold piece into
it as a gift. No old-timer ever came to him with a hard luck
story in vain; in fact, he was far too generous for his own
good.
Johnny Baker was his nephew and general executive, a sort
of aide-de-camp for every sort of confidential use. We loved
the colonel as did everybody else, but Cody was Johnny's
idol. The first time I ever saw Johnny was at Philadelphia, and
he was standing on his head, breaking glass balls with a shot-
gun, alongside of Annie Oakley, who was doing the same thing,
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Some Memories of a Soldier
although standing well planted on her own feet. The last time
I saw him was lately in his museum and tea-house outside of
Denver, near which the colonel is buried on the top of Lookout
Mountain, where I hope his spirit can look far off over the
Plains he used to scout and loved so well.
The colonel came up with Johnny to the office of the chief
of staff in the War Department in 1916, bringing a photog-
rapher, who took a picture of us both together. He invited me
to stay with him for a month at the Hot Springs of Wyoming
in the Big Horn Basin and to stay another month at his ranch
above Cody. He said: "You have been sitting in that chair too
long. It will build you up-build you up." That was the last
time I ever saw him, for he died within a month; and it was
the last photograph he ever had taken, a copy of which was
sent to Mrs. Cody, after his death.
He loved the army, with which he had been associated
nearly all his life and never let army officers pay to enter the
show if he could help it. He would give them a box or a dozen
boxes if they wished. He rather mortified me a little by his
kindness in 1908. For several years he invited the whole first
class at West Point to the show at Madison Square Garden
and told me to bring down all the officers any and every time
I wanted to come; but one time he invited Mrs. Scott and
myself especially, and we took two boys of one of our friends
to shake hands with Colonel Cody, as I wanted them to remem-
ber his personality. He sent us to our place with an usher, and
we found ourselves in the most important place in the show,
acclaimed by all the Indians when they massed up in front of
the box for a demonstration. This was all very well until I
looked down to a very inconspicuous position and saw the
general commanding the department there, hidden away almost
out of sight, which mortified me extremely, lest he should think
that I had engineered things. Mrs. Scott and I discussed the
Service on the Plains
175
question of going down and exchanging with him but concluded
that we were guests and would have to stay where we were put.
The facts were that the general had come from the coast
artillery, and Cody had never heard of him on the Plains.
A number of the officers of West Point, including Chaplain
Travers, asked me to take them to the show at Madison
Square, saying that they had never seen the sign language used.
When we went together I told them we would get Cody to take
us into the Indian Village between the performances; the
Indians were a new lot of young men I had never seen before,
but I would be able to gain their friendliness by the sign lan-
guage within ten minutes. Cody was not about and had to be
sent for to his hotel. He took us down to Iron Tail's lodge
where the others soon congregated, and I was on excellent
terms with them all within five minutes, asking about their
relatives who were no longer with the show.
When I first saw Cody in Chicago, he had a magnificent
head of long dark hair; and with his tall stalwart frame, I
thought he was the handsomest man I had ever seen. In later
years I several times heard him say that he despised a man
with long hair and that his first act after going out of the
show business would be to cut his hair. His long hair was
part of the Buffalo Bill show as much as the horses and
Indians.
Colonel Cody was a most remarkable man; as a boy in
Kansas he had started out in a lowly capacity in a bull train,
not even with the full title of bull-whacker but as the bull-
whacker's assistant, a bull-wrangler. From that humble posi-
tion he raised himself by his own talent and determination
until he became a welcome guest of presidents and kings, the
idol of every red-blooded boy in America and withal a most
genial, kindly gentleman, the success and adulation he every-
where received never for a moment affecting his poise and
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Some Memories of a Soldier
judgment. He was the foremost plainsman of his day, the
exponent of one class of scout as Ben Clark and Horace Jones
were of another.
BEN CLARK AND HORACE JONES
Ben Clark had been the trusted chief of scouts for Custer
in 1868 on the southern Plains. He was the most accomplished
white sign talker I ever met, and I have visited him several
times at his Fort Reno home which was scrupulously cared
for by his Cheyenne wife, and extracted from him all the
knowledge of the sign language I could, which it afforded him
much pleasure to impart. Ben spoke very fluent Cheyenne and
once wrote a dictionary and grammar of the tongue for Gen-
eral Sheridan, who died before its publication could be ar-
ranged for. He had a comprehensive knowledge of the indi-
viduals of the different tribes of the Plains-their character,
legends, and customs-and knew how they would react under
given conditions. His different commanders looked to him for
advice as long as the Cheyennes were wild and dangerous,
and they trusted his opinions implicitly in a crisis, as the Fort
Sill commanders did that of Horace P. Jones, interpreter for
the Comanches, who had lived long with the Kiowas and
Comanches. General McKenzie had him in his house with him
so that he would be immediately available in troublous times.
Both interpreters were simple, efficient, dependable, honest
men and both died poor, scorning innumerable opportunities
to become rich in an unethical way.
When General Sheridan wanted to know real facts about the
´southern Cheyenne or Arapahó he would telegraph Ben Clark
directly without regard to the post commanders, who seldom
knew about anything off their parade-ground and took little
interest in the Indian. Ben Clark had letters and telegrams that
anybody would be proud to have from General Sheridan, Gen-
1
1
Service on the Plains
177
eral Miles, and other high commanders. I first saw him when
he conducted Little Chief's band of Northern Cheyennes from
Fort Lincoln, Dakota, to Fort Reno in the Indian Territory in
1878. He had just returned from a mission given him by
General Sheridan in the northwest provinces of Canada where
he had been in Sitting Bull's camp trying to induce White
Bird, a Nez Percé chief who had escaped across the line during
General Miles's fight with Joseph at the Bear Paw in 1877,
to surrender and join his people.
Buffalo Bill was not this type of plainsman. He spoke no
Indian tongue, and had no particular knowledge of Indians
other than that which he had acquired from experiences at
different ends of a gun, until after contact with them in the
show. He was a wonderful shot on foot or on horseback, a
super-hunter of large game, a splendid guide for troops in the
field, and a pony express rider without peer. His endurance
was most remarkable, his courage undaunted, and there was no
country infested with hostile Indians too dangerous for him
to carry through it an important despatch. He was greatly liked
and admired by the troops. His service was more with troops
against Indians than with the Indians themselves, and I am
sorry to say that the world will never see another Buffalo Bill,
the friend and companion of the army.
There came a transitional period in the history of the Plains,
after the Indian wars were over, when Ben Clark and Horace
Jones had become old after serving the government many
times from their youth up at the risk of their lives. General
Sheridan, their greatest friend, was dead; their other old
friends were scattered everywhere; a new race of young officers
new to the Plains were coming into responsible positions, and
a certain quartermaster-general was in Washington who did not
care what happened to anybody on the Plains so long as he
could save a nickel, not for the government but to enhance
his own prestige as an economical administrator. By this
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Some Memories of a Soldier
scheming policy the army was nearly ruined. Most of the
mules and spring-wagons, even from the posts far from the
railway, were sold off and Ben Clark, Horace Jones, and my
packer, Chambers, were discharged, although Jones and Clark
were still needed as interpreters. I went into a campaign along
with General Miles, though he was then persona non grata in
Washington, and we got them all restored in spite of the
quartermaster-general.
I was sitting at my desk in the Palace in Havana in 1900
when two letters were handed me, the first from Horace Jones
at Fort Sill, saying that he had fled from the railroad for more
than forty years but now it was crossing the creek below
his house, blowing smoke in his windows, and he was bed-
ridden and could not go away any farther and did not expect
to last much longer. He had an old fox-horn that he had used
as master of the hounds when he was a young man, he said,
and since there was no one in the world whom he would like
to have it as he would me, he was having it sent to me by mail.
I have it now.
The other letter was also from Fort Sill from my old first
sergeant, Ernest Stecker, then quartermaster-sergeant of the
post, later a captain of Philippine scouts, and still later agent
for our old friends the Kiowas and Comanches at Anadarko.
His letter told me that Colonel Jones had died in the night and
that he was sending me the interpreter's fox-horn as he had
been requested to do, and I prize the gift most highly to this
day.
Poor old Ben Clark became afflicted with a painful disease
and shot himself about 1915 at Fort Reno, leaving a paper
behind him saying that he could stand the pain no longer. He
had been a trapper and a mountain man with Kit Carson in his
youth, had been in the Utah war, and like Cody and Wild
Bill Hickok had served throughout the Civil War. He was my
friend for many years, and I mourned him sincerely. It was
Service on the Plains
179
a great privilege for me to have known intimately all those
men. They were the product of a time that is gone forever.
General Miles was once sitting in the office of the chief of
staff, talking with me about old times on the Yellowstone, and
I said, "General, if we could go back to those old days with
the buffalo and all those old conditions, I would trade my
commission as a major-general for that of a second lieutenant
of cavalry before you could get out of that door." He said he
would do the same.
A VISIT FROM CODY
The Wild West Show closed on October 31, 1903, and
Colonel Cody was brought down by General Miles to hunt
with us in the Indian Territory at the end of November, in
which interval he had spent thirty thousand dollars, throwing
it to the birds. I had two troops of cavalry on Cobb Creek as
escort to General Miles, who brought with him a number of
such celebrated plainsmen as Ben Clark; Jack Stillwell, who
had carried the despatch that brought succor to Sandy Forsyth
beleaguered on the Republican by Southern Cheyennes in
1868; Pony Bob, who was a rider on the pony express, and
had helped carry the news of the election of Abraham Lincoln
from St. Joe, Missouri, to San Francisco in seven days. I had
Indians of various tribes making a notable camp, and after
dinner in my huge tent they told delightful stories every night
for two weeks. I had to go out to give the orders for the next
day, assigning such and such horses, dogs, and Indians to
this and that party, laying out their hunting-grounds, and I
would run back as fast as possible to avoid missing the
stories.
Colonel Cody called, one day, with Mrs. Miles on old Doc
Sturm who had lived long with the Caddo lower down on Cobb
Creek, taking with them my boy Hunter, who had never been
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Some Memories of a Soldier
allowed to have a gun on account of his youth but had loved a
gun since before he could walk. He would pull away from me
walking in Pittsburgh when he was two years old whenever
we passed a gun-store to look at the guns in the window with
delight. Cody began to throw empty cans up in the air and
perforate them with the 22 caliber Colt rifle he had used to
break glass balls from horseback in the Chicago show. Look-
ing around, he saw the hungry look on Hunter's face and said,
"Hunter, do you want a shot?" Hunter wanted it terribly and
perforated the first can he ever shot at, which pleased Cody
so much that he cried out, "Hunter, I give you that gun!"
Hunter carried it next day with General Miles at the lower end
of Cobb Lake. Colonel Maus had wounded a mallard duck,
which came over them slowly at the lower end when General
Miles called out, "Give it to him, Hunter!" and Hunter killed
it on the wing. Hunter's own boy now has that famous gun.
CHIRICAHUA APACHE PRISONERS OF WAR
All during the incumbency of Secretary Lamont at the War
Department, 1893 to 1897, he had been badgered by the good
people of the East about the Chiricahua Apache prisoners of
war. This band was credited by the press with twenty-five
hundred homicides in Arizona and had held back the State for
twenty-five years. They had been chased for years in and out
of Arizona and Old Mexico through a fearful country, first by
the troops of General Crook, then by those of General Miles.
When at last they tired, Lieutenant Gatewood, Sixth Cavalry,
boldly entered their camp and negotiated their surrender.
The band, under Gerónimo and Naiche, were sent as prison-
ers of war to Florida, then to Mount Vernon, Alabama, where
they failed to thrive. Many of them died of tuberculosis, and
the death-rate was higher than the birth-rate. The secretary
was continually being abused in the press for keeping chil-
Service on the Plains
181
dren, born since the surrender, as prisoners of war, which he
could not legally help, for Congress had passed a law for-
bidding the sending of that band west of the Mississippi
River, and there was nowhere else to put them. The secretary
had tried to induce the Cherokees in the mountains of North
Carolina to receive them, but their reputation had preceded
them, and the Cherokees refused.
After much trouble in reconciling General Miles, a bill
was introduced that would permit sending them west of the
Mississippi. This bill, sponsored in the Senate by Senator Joe
Blackburn of Kentucky, at that time defender of the policies
of President Cleveland in the Senate, was strongly opposed
by the delegates from Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma,
joined by the representatives of Utah and other States. Dennis
Flynn, then delegate from Oklahoma, made a very impassioned
speech in committee against the project, declaring it a crime
against humanity to "turn loose four hundred red-handed
murderers amid the law-abiding population of Oklahoma."
Senator Blackburn asked if his eloquent friend, the delegate
from Oklahoma, wished the committee to believe for a moment
that the turning loose of four hundred red-handed murderers
among the population of Oklahoma would increase the pro-
portion of crime in that State. The bill passed in the laugh that
ensued and finally became a law.
The troubles of the secretary did not end here, however,
for there was no place west of the Mississippi where the
Apaches would be welcome to go, their reputation having pre-
ceded them everywhere, and the secretary nearly lost his mind
over those prisoners. Captain Maus of General Miles' staff
wrote me to come up to Chicago to talk with General Miles
about the feasibility of locating them in the Kiowa and Co-
manche country. I answered that I was just going into the
field and would telegraph him on my return.
Soon after I had sent Captain Maus notification according
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to my promise, the post commander summoned me to tell me
that he had telegraphic orders for me to go to Chicago and
asked if I were going to hunt with General Miles. I told him
I could not afford to hunt with that party; they were going
in a private car with Secretary John Sherman, and my share
of the expenses would be more than a month's pay. He then
asked, "What are you going to do then?" I said, "The papers
are carrying an item discussing the sending of the Apache
prisoners of war to Fort Sill, and maybe that is what the
general wants to talk to me about." The post commander broke
into a violent rage against General Miles. "The idea of his
sending for a first lieutenant of my garrison to consult him
about sending a lot of blankety-blank Indians to my reserva-
tion without saying a blankety-blank word to me about it!" I
said, "colonel, it is possible he wishes to talk to me about some-
thing else," but this failed to quiet him.
The article in the paper was noted by the Kiowas and
Comanches, who held a council at Anadarko and appointed
a delegation to go to Fort Sill and inform me of their knowl-
edge of the article; they had never liked those Apaches who
used to kill Comanches whenever they could, but I was not to
wait for authority to bring them to the Comanche country, for
I had the authority now to do as I saw fit-to bring them or
not. Armed with this I reported to General Miles at his camp
at Evanston where he was just clearing up affairs pertaining
to the Chicago riots. He directed me to go to Mount Vernon,
Alabama, to talk to the Apaches and handed me a vast mass
of correspondence connected with them to read on the train.
I asked them how they liked Mount Vernon. They answered
that they did not like to live there at all: they were rapidly
dying off with tuberculosis; they were harassed by the civil
authorities; the reservation they lived on was no larger than
your thumb-nail, on which the trees were so thick that you
would have to climb up to the top of a tall pine if you wanted
Service on the Plains
183
to see the sun; and when you climbed down and went some-
where to sit down and rest yourself, there was always some-
thing waiting there to bite you; and of course they all wanted
to go back to Arizona. They were told that this was impossible,
since the white men of that State would kill them all because
of their former crimes, but if they would promise me to behave
themselves I would take them to where they could see the sun
without climbing a tree and would be able to see the mountains
in the same view; and they all promised.
Eskimazin told me that he and his forty people were in a
different category from Naiche, Gerónimo, and their people,
imprisoned for killing white men, for Eskimazin, he explained,
had not been at war for twenty years. Somebody had said
that he had seen the notorious Apache Kid the week before;
then on account of that bit of gossip he and his forty people
had been kept in prison at Fort Wingate, New Mexico, for
three years, and three years more in Florida, and now ought to
be allowed to go back to Arizona.
The correspondence given me to read on the train bore out
this statement. Returning to General Miles's camp, I recom-
mended that Gerónimo, Naiche, and their people be sent to
Fort Sill, and that Eskimazin and his people be sent home to
Arizona. General Miles flushed up at hearing the recommenda-
tion in the case of Eskimazin and became quite angry. He
declared that Eskimazin should never again set foot on the
soil of Arizona as long as he, Miles, was alive because
Eskimazin had buried a white man up to his neck in an
ant-hill. I reminded the general that this had been wiped out
by the lapse of twenty-five years, and that he himself had
condoned many acts of savagery in the case of other tribes;
why single out Eskimazin, who had led an extremely good
life for many years? He had located off the reservation in
Arizona, had become self-supporting by his own efforts, and
had been driven away from his place by designing white men
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Some Memories of a Soldier
who had stolen and destroyed his property and forced him to
give up his place and go back to the reservation. It seemed a
little stiff that he should be imprisoned with forty of his peo-
ple for the crime of speaking to the Apache Kid, of which
fact there was no proof, even if it were true. The general was
adamant, however, and after I had told him I thought he was
making a mistake, the matter was dropped, and I never men-
tioned it to him again.
Eskimazin had learned his lesson and had not misbehaved
for twenty years. There was a vast difference in my mind be-
tween him and a criminal who has had the advantage of
civilization and example. I thought he had already been pun-
ished too much, and since he had not been concerned in the
recent crimes for which Gerónimo and Naiche were being
punished, he should go back to Arizona. Forty of his people
were not concerned in the episode of the ant-hill; why punish
them at all?
Neither Gerónimo nor Naiche was being punished in one
sense. To be sure, they were not allowed to go back to Arizona
because they would have been killed if they had gone. They
had duties to perform, but they had the freedom of the place
otherwise. They and their children were called "prisoners of
war," a sort of legal fiction by which the army could restrain,
feed, and clothe them. As soon as this legal fiction was re-
moved, the army could no longer feed, clothe, and educate
them on the military reserve; they would have to be turned
over to the Indian Department, which had no restraining
force or place to put them. It did not have influence enough
with any Indian tribe to have them incorporated on a reserva-
tion, and this legal fiction that covered the children born in
captivity was solely in the interest of those Apaches.
I got the Kiowas and Comanches to permit them to occupy
the military reserve that was to revert to them in case the land
was no longer to be used for military purposes, so that by

ONE OF SEVENTY HOMES BUILT BY APACHE PRISONERS OF WAR, FORT SILL
OF
Service on the Plains
185
agreement, signed by the Kiowas and Comanches, the Apaches
could be allotted land severally on the military reserve, which
was enlarged by executive order so as to afford an allotment
of 160 acres apiece-something more than fifty thousand acres.
It was President Cleveland's idea to abandon the post and
reservation when no longer needed for military purposes, and
his Washington adviser had reported to him that that time
was near. The policy changed, however, in the time of Gen-
eral J. Franklin Bell as chief of staff, who caused the expendi-
ture of more than a million dollars on Fort Sill as a school of
fire, since which time there has been no thought of abandon-
ment. When the time came to leave Fort Sill I had a number of
photographs taken of the plant and forwarded them with my
last report to the War Department. I knew very well my
policies would not be followed by my successors; those fences
and fields would disappear and people would be apt to say,
"Scott talks a great deal about his corn fields and so on,
operated by Indian labor, but he has nothing to show for them,
and he only imagined them." The photographs may be seen
any day in the office of the adjutant-general in Washington.
Several days after my return to Chicago from Alabama,
the press announced the abandonment of nine military posts
in different parts of the country, among them Fort Supply in
Oklahoma, and coming into the Pullman building I was told
that General Miles wanted to see me and wished me to take
the Apaches to Fort Supply. I hid out for a while to consider
this and to consult the list of property at Fort Supply in the
office of the chief quartermaster, which I wanted to have sent
to Fort Sill for my use instead of having it sold at auction at
Supply, as this would materially help my appropriation of
fifteen thousand dollars for the establishment of the Apaches.
This accomplished, I was ready to be found.
The general asked how I would like to take the Apaches to
Fort Supply, to take over the reservation as a cattle range and
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Some Memories of a Soldier
live in the abandoned post buildings. I told him I would not
like it at all, and based my objections on the size and shape of
the reservation, which would not permit me to get more than
a mile away from a border, making it impossible to keep clear
of the whisky sellers. Those Apaches were homicidal mono-
maniacs who would kill anybody when intoxicated, having
killed sixteen of their own people and wounded others in
drunken clashes in Alabama. The general nevertheless painted
quite an alluring picture of Fort Supply. He said he would
send my Indian troop there and give me a doctor, and I would
in reality be a post commander, a pretty good position for a
first lieutenant; I could occupy the post buildings and save my
appropriation thereby. But the liquor question remained para-
mount in my mind.
The general got a little impatient with my stubbornness and
ended by saying: "Well, you go out and look at Supply any-
how, with Maus. I am going to New Mexico on a bear hunt;
you and Maus go with me in my car as far as Newton, Kansas,
and I will meet you afterward at Fort Sill."
He was going to New Mexico with Captain Leonard Wood,
of the Medical Department, and with Frederick Remington,
the artist. I asked him for the sixty-seven mules then at
Supply, to be reserved from sale for me, with wagons, harness,
tools, coffins, window-sashes, and so on. He looked at me to
see whether I really meant this, thinking it possible that I was
trying to joke with him about the mules but seeing that I was
really in earnest he said, "All right."
It was at this time that I first saw Captain Wood and
Remington, but by no means the last.
Remington told me that I was the most disappointing man
he had ever seen; he had been hearing about me in the Indian
country for ten years and now meeting me at last he found
me looking like a college professor. I asked him what he had
expected me to look like, but he avoided specifying. Notwith-
Service on the Plains
187
standing his disappointment at my appearance, we became ex-
cellent and enduring friends. He asked me to come and stay
with him at New Rochelle for a month or two and tell him
stories about the Indian country, to give him copy.
Going down on the train we all had a discussion about
uniforms over the cleared dining-table. Remington, to illustrate
his point, produced some large sheets of paper on which he
drew pictures of the soldiers of different European armies and
left them on the table when we broke up, as of no more use to
him. Later I thought I would go back and get one as a souvenir,
but they were all gone. He drew with extraordinary facility.
Long before, Remington had had a judgment entered against
him in Kansas, probably a remnant of his cowboy days, that
Maus knew about. When we stopped, en route to New Mexico,
for a few minutes at Kansas City, Kansas, Maus, impersona-
ting a sheriff, called in from the platform in a gruff voice, ask-
ing if Mr. Frederick Remington were on board. Remington put
for his state-room, locked himself in, and would not come out as
long as he was in Kansas.
I had heard from Fort Sill that the post commander had
announced his intention of building a palisaded pen somewhere
away from the post, in which to corral the Apache prisoners of
war, detailing a company of infantry out there as a guard over
them for a month at a time. I asked General Miles if that
were his idea of the way those Indians should be managed.
He said, "Don't worry, I will send Maus there with you to
start you right," showing that he had already abandoned the
idea of our going to Supply-although he was sending us there
to look at it anyhow-for he recognized the validity of my
objections and had mentally given up the project. Maus and I
called together on the post commander in his office the morn-
ing after our arrival at Fort Sill and found him affability itself..
He told us that he had picked out just the right place to
locate the Apaches. Maus answered, "Excuse me, colonel, the
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Some Memories of a Soldier
department commander directs that Lieutenant Scott shall
locate those Indians." Every proposition our host advanced
was met in the same manner, and I felt so uncomfortable at
hearing him knocked about in that fashion that I slipped out
into the adjutant's office so that I would no longer hear. He
drew it all down on himself, however, by impossible proposi-
tions, and I was glad when he was ordered east soon after.
He would have driven those Indians into running away had he
remained in command.
The Apaches arrived in the beginning of winter, conducted
by Lieutenant Allyn Capron, Fifth Infantry, who had been
with them at Mount Vernon. He was extremely anxious to
transfer to the Seventh Cavalry, and I sympathized with his
wish. He had made five applications that had all been refused
by General Schofield, with instructions to stop making any
more. I told him to make one more, and we would all take
hold of the wheels and make the wagon go. This time he was
successful, and he was transferred to my Indian Troop L,
Seventh Cavalry.
It was too late in the season for the Apaches to accomplish
anything more than cut palisades for their houses. They were
camped down in the brush out of the wind, and wintered very
comfortably for them. George Wrattan, who had been their
interpreter ever since their surrender, came with them to Fort
Sill. I took some of the Kiowa Apaches to see them. That band
had come from the North with the Kiowas before 1682, and
had never been in Arizona. The Chiricahuas called them Half
Apaches because they could understand half they said. ·
When the Chiricahuas arrived from Alabama they brought
only a few trunks and boxes with clothing and trinkets, and
had for live stock not even a dog or cat. Several hundred
Kiowas and Comanches came to see them on arrival and tried
to talk to them in the sign language. They had come from
far west of the sign-talking country and thought those people
Service on the Plains
189
crazy for making such foolish gestures. It was not until each
side produced a Carlisle boy that the amazing spectacle was
seen of three Indian tribes unable to communicate with each
other except through the English language.
An old Comanche named Isatai came to the post afterward
and asked if I had seen "all those people on the other side of
the ocean." I told him I had seen some of them. He asked if
they were all as ugly as those Apaches-"some white men are
ugly and some Comanches are ugly, but those Apaches are
all ugly"; wherein Isatai struck a greater truth than he was
aware of, for the different branches of the Athabascan family
as far north as the Arctic Circle are particularly ugly.
When General Miles had finished his bear hunt he came
down to look over the Apache situation, and he acknowledged
that Fort Sill, thirty-three miles away from the border of the
reservation, was the proper place for them, and ordered their
location on the military reserve. When the Apaches had first
arrived from Alabama we were told that Eskimazin and his
people had been left behind at Mount Vernon with no in-
timation as to their disposition, under guard of Captain
Bailey's company of the Fifth Infantry. Several telegrams
were handed General Miles while he was sitting on my porch.
He would hand these to Michler, his aide, without a word.
Michler told me later these were from the War Department,
asking for a recommendation for the disposition of Eskimazin,
the later ones, rather insistent, saying, "You are delaying the
concentration of the Fifth Infantry"; but the general would
not answer.
I went up to Chicago with him when he left in his car, and
at Kansas City, Michler brought me a message from Mrs.
Scott at Fort Sill, saying a telegram had arrived there for me
from the War Department with an offer of the five-year de-
tail as military instructor at Girard College, Philadelphia,
carrying with it a thousand dollars a year extra pay and a
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Some Memories of a Soldier
house to live in, which she had declined in my name without
consulting me, well aware what my decision would be on
account of my promise to stay with the Indians a certain
time, if permitted by the War Department. Mrs. Scott was very
anxious to live for a while in Philadelphia with her parents,
and it was a source of grief to her to give up this opportunity,
especially as she never saw her mother again.
Soon after I returned to Fort Sill from Chicago, a sergeant
of the Fifth Cavalry from San Antonio brought up an Apache
who had been left behind in Alabama in the hands of the civil
authorities on a charge of murder. The sergeant told us that
the Apache had come on a special train to San Antonio with
Eskimazin and his people on their way to Arizona escorted
by Captain Bailey's company of the Fifth Infantry. The
general had finally come down out of his tree; he had not
wanted to do it, but neither had he wanted to put aside my
recommendation, and he finally saw it was best.
Several years after, a troop of the First Cavalry that had
escorted Eskimazin from the railroad to their agency came
from Arizona to Fort Sill, and Lieutenant Osborne told us that
those Apaches ran far ahead of the wagons, with the tears of
joy streaming down their faces as they recognized the land-
marks in their old country. The agent established them on their
reservation, where they proved to be the most industrious, well
behaved and progressive people he had, a notable example to
the others. Eskimazin died soon after his return, and I felt
glad that I had had something to do with allowing him to die
in his own country, for he had been greatly wronged by the
people of Arizona.
The Fort Supply property I had asked for was ordered sent
to Fort Sill, including the sixty-seven mules, wagons, and
coffins; and I rested secure in the expectation of their arrival
in due course, but met a rude shock at El Reno, where Captain
Glennan and I went up as witnesses before the civil court,
Service on the Plains
191
when I learned that the quartermaster-general of the army
had ordered most of the mules and wagons sold at auction at
every post, even at those far from the railroad, leaving them
stripped of transportation in order to show an economical ad-
ministration; this regardless of the necessities of the army,
and for this act he would have paid dearly had he not been
retired before the Spanish War, which found the Army with-
out anything.
We met a man at El Reno who asked how many mules were
to be sold at Fort Sill. He said that they were selling sixty-
seven mules at Fort Supply, the auction to take place at eleven
o'clock the next day, and he had sent a man up there to buy
them all. Glennan and I hurried down to the telegraph office,
where I sent a telegram to General Miles paying extra to de-
liver it to him wherever he might be, notifying him of the sale.
The sale took place next day at eleven o'clock as advertised.
Seventeen mules had been sold when a telegraphic order ar-
rived stopping the sale, and I got fifty mules at Fort Sill. Some
of these died of colic and other troubles, and some were
drowned in Cache Creek, but I turned over fifty mules to my
successor when I came to leave. I do not know how it hap-
pened, but I do know that none were bred there.
That mule-train was put to hauling palisades, lumber, and
shingles from the railway, sixty-six miles the round trip; then
it brought agricultural implements and a well machine,
operated by a mule; it broke up seven hundred acres of land
and operated mowing machines, rakes, and a hay baler. I had
seen the maize corn of the Comanches grow up a dark green
color, breast-high, year after year, only to be struck by the hot
winds from Mexico and turned to the color of dried tobacco,
a total loss. I had heard of a Kaffir corn, one of the varieties
of sorghum from South Africa, a drought resistant, and
brought the first Kaffir corn to that district. We raised three
hundred thousand pounds one year and sold it to the govern-
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Some Memories of a Soldier
ment. We cut and hauled a thousand tons of prairie hay for
the government and baled five hundred tons of it, all by Indian
labor-built seventy-one dwelling houses and one storehouse,
sank wells, some as deep as two hundred and fifty feet, and
fenced fifty thousand acres of the reservation to control our
cattle. Those Indians performed an enormous amount of labor
during the four years I remained with them, and they kept
their promise of good behavior to the extent that no com-
plaint by an outsider was ever lodged against one of them.
Their death-rate diminished, their birth-rate increased, and
this was considered the most successful experiment with In-
dians ever entered into by our government.
The following letter bears upon it:
Headquarters Department of the Missouri,
Chicago, Illinois, September 15, 1896.
To the Adjutant General,
United States Army,
Sir:
Washington, D. C.
I have the honor to submit report of affairs in this military de-
partment covering the period to September 15, 1894, the date of the
last annual report, from August 30, 1895. . .
In conclusion I call attention to the reports of the different staff
officers at these headquarters, and to that of Captain Scott in charge
of the Apache prisoners.
This latter officer by his zeal and perseverance has made
remarkable progress in the improvement of the minds, charac-
ters, and condition of the Apaches, and deserves great credit
for the thoroughness and intelligence with which his work has
been done.
The report of Assistant Surgeon Glennan (J. D.) on the vital
statistics of the Indians will be found interesting and instructive.
I unite with Captain Scott in commending his assistants. They are
fully worthy of all the praise bestowed.
Very respectfully,
WESLEY MERRITT,
Major General, Commanding.

ARRIVAL OF APACHE PRISONERS OF WAR AT FORT SILL, 1894
Service on the Plains
193
When the Apaches first arrived those who had known them
in Arizona predicted their escape to Old Mexico. When I
visited General Brooke at Omaha he said they would all run
away before I got back to Fort Sill, and this was the common
belief. I did not know myself but that if they got intoxicated
they would be likely to commit some crime and run away to
escape the consequences, and they were fully capable of mak-
ing their way west unseen. One of them, going east, had jumped
off a car near Independence, Missouri, and was never heard of
again until he turned up later, an outlaw in the Sierra Madre
in Old Mexico. Some were found by their people and brought
into Fort Sill, who had run away from Carlisle and made their
way out there, although they had never been there before.
I had a map drawn of the trail, with all its water-holes, over
the seven hundred miles to the Mescalero Agency, by a
Mescalero Indian living with the Comanches, who had
traveled it several times. Copies of this map were sent to the
department commander to enable him to cut off runaways
with troops from the other end upon telegraphic notice that
they had started. I told them plainly on first arrival that they
had better not try to get away; the Comanches were my
friends, not theirs, and would tell me at once where they were,
and I would open fire on them as soon as I saw them. I showed
them twenty days' rations maintained in the stables where
Chambers lived, with a pack outfit so that we could be on the
road after them in half an hour, and it would go hard with
them if they should start; but there was never even any talk
of it among themselves. I made a particular effort to attach
Naiche, Toclany, and Kaahtenay to me personally.
The Apache Kid was loose then in Old Mexico, as well as
thirteen of the Chiricahua band that had refused to surrender
with the others. They were committing depredations on both
sides of the line and would come into the agency secretly now
and then, steal a woman, and get away, pursued by the troops
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Some Memories of a Soldier
across deserts and mountain ranges, without result; and it
seemed to me that that method was as certain to result in
failure as hunting deer with a brass band. My Apaches were
perfectly familiar with their strongholds, hid away in the high
ranges of the Sierra Madre in Mexico, and I submitted a plan
to Colonel Lawton, inspector general, who put it before Gen-
eral Miles, who in turn approved it.
This plan was to go west on a hunting trip from Fort Sill,
telling no one our destination, taking those three Apaches,
whose families would be left behind in our power; taking also
Capron, Clancy, and about fifteen officers and sergeants picked
for such service, and boarding a train somewhere in the South-
west. Lawton agreed to have supplies and a pack-train waiting
for us at Fort Bowie, Arizona, and we would start out ostensi-
bly to hunt, moving slowly down outside the foot-hills of the
Sierra Madre in Old Mexico, chasing deer and small game,
and turning loose at the same time those Apaches who had
grudges against the Apache Kid and hated him intensely, to
examine the Apache trails and all their old strongholds in the
mountains of Old Mexico until they found the outlaws, when
they were to back out without being seen, join us on the
prairie, and conduct us to within a night's march of the strong-
hold and guide us so that we could surround it before daylight.
Both Lawton and General Miles said that this was the only
plan with hope of getting them, and I went on to Washington
to arrange for it, but it was all spoiled by the attitude of the
Mexican minister, who refused to allow us to enter Mexico
unless on a hot trail within certain limits of the border, as
laid down in the treaty with Mexico, and the plan had to be
given up, much to my chagrin, because I believed in its pros-
pect for success. General Miles and Lawton, Charles, Capron,
Clancy, and the three Apaches were greatly disappointed also,
but General Miles could not change the Mexican minister,
whose name was Romero, if my memory serves me rightly.
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195
In a fight in Mexico, Squid Rice of the Seventh Cavalry
killed Matsé, the Apache who had jumped off the train near
Independence, Missouri; several of those thirteen Chiricahua
were killed by Mormons in the mountains, and in 1913 General
Villa told me that he knew where to find the survivors, but
more important matters prevent considering their capture, for
there were then far worse outlaws on every side of us.
In order to prevent the lapse of our cattle appropriation
into the treasury, with no certainty of getting it out, we were
obliged to purchase our cattle before we were ready, before
we could build a fence or raise winter feed for them. The
first storms of winter drove them for twenty miles the first
day, right down into the Comanche country, far from white
supervision; and the hungry Comanches liked beef. We would
often have to drive them back in the teeth of a storm. I know
of no better way to lose a herd quickly than to drive them on
the open range in winter, and we were confronted with the loss
of the whole herd without feed or shelter.
We had been told many times never to sleep in the Apache
camp if we did not want to have our throats cut and the
Apaches to escape. Nevertheless, when the storms got bad,
Capron and I would take turns sleeping in the camp, and
whenever a black cloud was seen at night in the north our
horses would be saddled before daylight by Naiche or some
of his Apache cowboys, and we would then round up the
cattle, throw them into the shelter of the woods and bluffs,
and hold them there until the storm was over, and this saved
the greater part of our herd.
We had to turn cowboys ourselves to teach the Indians to
rope and throw cattle and brand calves. All nature seemed
to combine against us, and it seemed that it would be a miracle
if we could ever establish that herd. First it was the Texas
fever, then the cold and starvation, the heel-fly, the screw-
worm and anthrax. The Indian had to be taught to recognize
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Some Memories of a Soldier
these and to understand the manner of treatment, and he had
to see that the treatment was applied. We had to learn farm-
ing in order to teach it, had to teach carpentering, well sink-
ing, teaming, and the care of mules. My accounts were well
kept for me by First Sergeant Stecker.
Our first calf, born on the range, was long recognized
among hundreds of others by its tail, broken when mobbed
by the mules. The first bulls were pedigreed Herefords with
white faces, considered the best beef breed able to rustle for
itself on the open range. The cows were seven-eighths Hereford,
and new pedigreed bulls were added from time to time until
the experiment was abandoned. The Apache steers used to
take the top of the market at Kansas City, and the herd
yielded a revenue, when once established, of $25,000 a year.
The first cattle cost $12,000, and when the herd was finally
sold out it was known far and wide as the best herd of cattle
in the Southwest and brought at auction $294,000.
I saw one day a cultivated-looking gentleman walking about
Fort Sill, evidently a stranger with no place to stay, since
there was no hotel, and I invited him to our house. No one
knew his name or his business, and I did not ask him. He was
invited to go about with me to see the Apaches at work. We
struck the hay camp in the middle of the morning, when every-
thing was going full blast in every direction-mowers here, hay
rakes there, stackers over there, making quite a little scene of
Indian industry. My guest became somewhat indignant and
accused me of framing up a scene to impress him. I told him
that I did not even know who he was, and knew no reason
why I should take the trouble to impress him. It turned out
that he was Francis Leupp, sometime afterward commissioner
of Indian affairs under President Roosevelt, then acting as an
inspector of the Indian Rights Association. I soon convinced
him that the Indian Rights Association had nothing whatever
to do with me, and I did not care a whoop with whom he was
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affiliated. He soon saw that he had made a mistake, recognized
that the scene was the ordinary daily routine, and never got
over that picture of Indian Industry. He got President Roose-
velt to offer me the command of the Indian school at Carlisle
when General Pratt resigned, and upbraided me every time
I saw him for not accepting.
I had made application for the appointment of my First
Sergeant Stecker, who had been trained for years with Indians
and knew every one of the Kiowas and Comanches, as agent at
Anadarko. Commissioner Leupp asked me, "Do you know
what you have done?" I told him I knew of many things I
had done but not what I had been caught at. He said, "You
have just defeated Dr. Hugh Scott of Oklahoma City for the
position of agent at Anadarko." This was the first time I had
ever heard of Dr. Hugh Scott, but we became friends after-
ward in Washington, and long received each other's mail.
Not long after the arrival of the Apaches at Sill they asked
for a permit to go after mesquite beans, which they had not
tasted since leaving Arizona. My friends told me that it was
too risky to let them go, for the nearest mesquite grove was
west of the mountains, forty-five miles away, and they would
get a good start toward running away. I gave them permis-
sion to leave after work Saturday noon, if they would promise
to be back ready for work at 7 A.M. Monday. They promised
and were allowed to go. They had only a few horses to carry
tentage and supplies and bring back the beans. They gathered
some three hundred bushels of beans, traveled that ninety miles
on foot, and were back ready for work Monday morning as
they had promised. They never during four years broke a
promise to me.
Arrangements were made with the Indian Department to
put the Apache children in the Indian schools at Anadarko.
The parents were assembled and told that the wagons would
be ready in four days to take the children to school at Ana-
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darko, and I wanted them to start neat and clean, a source
of pride to their parents. This was received in complete silence,
and I asked Chihuahua if they had anything to say about it.
Old Chihuahua got up and said, "Of course, we don't want our
children to go away from us, but we have been here long
enough to know that when you say the children will go to
school in four days, they are going to go, and it is no use for
anybody to talk about it."
During the school term those mothers would buy a little
candy or other presents and trot the thirty-three miles on
foot to Anadarko and back just to give it to the children.
William H. Quinette, the post trader, my old friend for many
years, used to say that the Apaches were more thrifty and
knew how to manage their money better than any of the sur-
rounding tribes, and General Pratt often said that the Chiri-
cahua Apaches were the brightest children that went to
Carlisle.
Naiche was the hereditary chief and was the son of old
Cochise, after whom Cochise County, Arizona, was named.
He was a straightforward, reliable person. When he was in
charge of the cattle herd I could depend on him completely
in every weather, and he never disappointed me. Gerónimo,
like Sitting Bull of the Sioux, was an unlovely character, a
cross-grained, sour, mean, selfish old curmudgeon, of whom,
as of Sitting Bull, I never heard recounted a kindly or gen-
erous deed.
When they surrendered, General Miles said Naiche was the
wildest man he had ever seen, but I never heard of an im-
proper act during the four years he was with me.
Old Chihuahua was called the Apache Chesterfield, from
his polite manners. He wore an officer's blouse with major's
shoulderstraps and a derby hat, and his manners were very
courtly.
We raised the first season more than two hundred and fifty
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thousand watermelons and cantaloupes. Everybody had all the
melons he could eat. The seed was new, the soil virgin, and the
melons acquired such a reputation that they undersold all that
were raised in that part of Oklahoma. I can see my daughter
Anna, then about nine years old, behind the quarters, sitting
in front of an Apache melon wagon doing the bargaining and
making the change for the Apaches. Each man made for him-
self what he could in the sale, which taught him how to market
his produce.
Every summer the officers of the garrison used to make
purses for competitions between troops and Indians on the
Fourth of July, which drew large and picturesque crowds.
I built a grand stand by placing a number of large army
wagons without bows, their tongues parallel, about six feet
apart and covering them with floor-boards. I put an awning
and a railing about the platform with chairs that made quite
a comfortable stand, pulling it down afterward in half an
hour and returning the material where it belonged.
I remember there were thirty-two entries in one race, and
all got off at the first trial without any jockeying to gain an
improper advantage, and the losers took the decision of the
judges without a murmur.
Gerónimo, then sixty-seven years old, rode a two-mile race
bareback, and came in far behind on his worthless old plug.
He had bet on his horse and expected to win, fortified in the
belief because of the efficacy of his medicine power. Those
Indians were all inveterate gamblers, taking their losses with-
out a whimper.
PRESIDENT CLEVELAND AND THE INDIANS
In 1892 the Cherokee Commission came to the Indian Ter-
ritory to arrange for the purchase of the Indian lands for
settlement by white people. Its members were charged with
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all sorts of irregularities in obtaining agreements. The Kiowas,
Comanches, and Kiowa Apaches elected me to take a delega-
tion of their tribes to Washington to prevent the ratification of
the treaty by Congress. Some of the influential Indians were
said to have sold out the interests of their people to the
Cherokee Commission. Quanah Parker, chief of the Comanches,
was in favor of ratification. He got permission to visit his
children at Carlisle and ran over to Washington without the
knowledge of his agent, and arranged for a hearing before the
Committee on Indian Affairs, of which Mr. Holman of Indi-
ana, often referred to as the Watch-Dog of the Treasury, was
chairman.
Quanah's appointment for a hearing was on the day we
arrived in Washington, and my delegation attended the hear-
ing. It was Quanah's appointment, and he had it all his own
way at first, and held the sympathy of the committee, who
wanted to open the land for settlement by the white man. The
committee was about to close the hearing and go to lunch
when I asked for my day in court. The chairman asked, “Who
are you, and what are you, a white man, doing here?" I handed
him my card, and he exclaimed, "Why, you are a soldier;
how do you come here?" I told him I was there by order of
the commanding general of the army. Quanah jumped up in
a great rage and said he wouldn't have any white man speak
for him or his people.
I said: "Quanah objects to my speaking here for the Kiowa
and Comanche people, but he is speaking only for himself and
not for his people, who have not sent him here, and he does
not represent their sentiment. If he has any credentials, as I
know he has not, let him produce them. Here are my creden-
tials, signed by the agent of the Kiowa and Comanche people,
certifying to my election with this delegation to represent them
in open council, and I would like to be heard." Whereupon the
committee agreed to hear me for an hour at I P.M.
UN
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201
Ι
We met and quarreled from I until 5 P.M., the delegate from
Oklahoma the most conspicuous in the opposition in support of
Quanah. We metaphorically kicked shins, pulled hair, gouged,
bit, and scratched, catch-as-catch-can, no holds barred, all the
afternoon. Quanah announced his intention of killing me
before I could get back to Fort Sill, and the committee re-
served decision.
The Southwest from St. Louis down was determined to open
the country, fraud or no fraud. In those days I used to be the
enemy of the Indian Department and everybody in it, but three
men I knew to be honest, James McLaughlin, J. George
Wright, and Major Larrabee in the Indian Office; and I set out
to arrange an interview with President Cleveland through the
War Department. I knew nothing of the tangled mazes in
those days to be found in Washington-wheels within wheels,
and deep pits for simple people like me-but some of the
wiser men in the War Department advised me to arrange
my interview through the commissioner of Indian affairs, Mr.
Browning.
Ahpiatom, a Kiowa of my delegation, made a great impres-
sion among the senators and congressmen in the President's
anteroom. He was beautifully dressed in soft yellow buckskin
with long fringes, and with his silver medal on his breast. He
looked off down the Potomac like an eagle off a crag, paying
no more attention to the senators handling his ornaments than
if they had been ants crawling about his feet, and despising
their effeminate curiosity about his trinkets.
We went in with Commissioner Browning, and when I had
finished stating my case to the President he jumped up from
behind his desk, striking one hand into the other in emphatic
indignation, and exclaimed: "I will not permit it. I will see
justice done to those Indians as long as I am in power!" And
he did. Through the influence of President Cleveland and of
Senator Matt Quay of Pennsylvania, who had a romantic in-
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terest in the Indian as well as a wide knowledge of them and
their history that filled me with amazement, the ratification
of that agreement was prevented, against all the power of the
Southwest, for seven years; but I later picked up a newspaper
in Havana and read that it had been ratified, fraud and all.
Every now and then some one would send me a marked copy
of the "Congressional Record," in which Mr. Dennis Flynn,
the delegate from Oklahoma, would dance a fancy dance on my
poor carcass, which pleased him and his constituents but did
me no harm, although it did not conduce to pleasant relations.
He came down to Havana on a congressional investigation
and asked at the door of the Palace who was upstairs, and,
hearing my name, exclaimed with joy: "What! Colonel Scott
from Oklahoma? Lead me to him." He seemed overjoyed to
see some one he knew in that strange country, but I felt like
throwing him out, for I don't like people who blow hot one
minute and cold the next. I reflected, however, that that would
not be tactful, as it would make an unnecessary enemy for the
governor-general, so we made it all up.
I never applied in vain to President Cleveland or Senator
Matt Quay for help in getting justice for the Indian. Clancy
caught a soldier with a twenty-five gallon keg of whisky selling
drinks to the Apache Indians in violation of the law. I wanted
to try the man by court martial as the only way I could get
him punished, but the judge-advocate in Chicago decided that
he would have to be tried in one of the civil courts in Okla-
homa. On my way to Washington I stopped in Chicago to see
the judge-advocate about it; I was only a first lieutenant in
those days, a football for everybody. I told the judge-advocate
that it was very necessary to stop whisky selling to Indians,
who as said before were homicidal monomaniacs under its
influence, and I could not get the man punished in the civil
courts. He ruffled up like an angry owl, snapping his eyes at
me, and said, "Do you have the audacity to come here and
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say to me, sir, that the courts of the United States will not do
justice?" I told him that was just what I had come to tell him,
since he did not seem to know about it; but he would not
recede.
I explained the matter to President Cleveland, who took me
into the old cabinet room upstairs in the White House, where
the Cabinet was then assembling. He called the attorney-
general, Judson Harmon, to whom he introduced me, saying,
"This is Lieutenant Scott of the Seventh Cavalry, who will
explain a case to you which I want you to prosecute without
mercy." The case was called at El Reno, but the prosecuting
attorney failed to subpoena the principal witness, and the case
was thrown out of court. I did not have money enough to pur-
sue it further, but it went far enough to frighten people from
selling any more whisky to Apaches in my time.
While waiting with my delegation in the anteroom of the
White House to see President Cleveland, a man asked what
tribe of Indians those were from. I replied that they were
Kiowas and Comanches. He said, "I used to fight the Com-
anches before the Civil War when I was in the dragoons in the
Wichita Mountains."
I told him, "I know all about you then; you used to be at
old Fort Radziminski on Otter Creek near the Wichitas, with
Major George H. Thomas, later the 'Rock of Chickamauga.'
He turned out to be Major Leoffler, who had kept the door
of the Cabinet Room since the time of Lincoln, whose orderly
he had been. He said, "You are the only man alive now in
Washington who knows there ever was such a place as Camp
Radziminski," and seemed overjoyed at his discovery of me.
Whenever I wanted to see any of the Presidents after that I
had only to poke my head into the door of his office and ask
"Does old Major Radziminski live anywhere around here?"
and the President would have to see me whether he wanted
to or not, no matter who was waiting to see him in the ante-
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room. He came up later with his wife to see us at West Point,
having stayed in our house last in attendance upon President
Lincoln.
Before going home I met a friend on F Street late one
Saturday night, who told me that R. V. Belt had just been
nominated for commissioner of Indian affairs, which gave me
a severe jolt; and I considered how I could prevent his con-
firmation, concluding to try Senator Matt Quay first.
I found that the senator was sick in bed. He sent for me to
come upstairs and asked how I was getting on. When I told
him I was not getting on, he asked what my trouble was, and
I said, "R. V. Belt has been nominated commissioner of Indian
affairs." He broke out, "What damned business is that of
yours?" I told him that Belt had once been assistant commis-
sioner, had learned the inside of the Indian Office, and had
become counsel in claim cases against the Comanches aggre-
gating two million dollars, with fees amounting to some three
hundred thousand dollars to be got out of those Indians, and
the Senate was going to confirm him in a position to adjudicate
on those cases himself.
The senator seemed disgusted with my meddling in political
appointments. He turned over with a snort with his face to
the wall, as if to say, "Get out; I am tired of you." I got out,
believing that my shot had missed the mark and I would have
to try somewhere else.
There was a man from Oklahoma, originally from Pennsyl-
vania, who wanted to be assistant commissioner of Indian
affairs. He thought I had some influence with Senator Quay
from Pennsylvania which I could be induced to exert for him,
and he dogged me wherever I went. He asked my delegation to
sign a petition for his appointment, and when they asked what
they should do about it I told them to forget how to write
their names, and they forgot. The man followed me into the
room of General Miles's aides in the War Department on
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205
Tuesday and told me that R. V. Belt had been nominated as
commissioner of Indian affairs on Saturday. On the following
Monday Senator Quay appeared in the office of the secretary
of the interior and told him that if he did not withdraw that
nomination he would defeat its confirmation in the Senate.
The secretary withdrew it. This caused great joy in the Indian
Office, where Belt was much disliked. It was soon found out
how it was accomplished, and I got ready for trouble with
Belt, but nothing ever happened; I never saw him and never
heard from him at any time.
When one of the new agents was appointed at Anadarko for
the Kiowa and Comanche Indians, Captain Schuyler and I,
passing through, stopped to call on him and make his acquaint-
ance. He occupied most of our call by trying to find out from
us the different ways an agent could obtain graft, which dis-
gusted us extremely. His grafting during the next two years
went beyond bounds, and his actions were a demoralizing in-
fluence on his Indians, who were all enraged against him on
account of the treatment received from him, and he became
intolerable to everybody. I wrote out a request for the Indians
to present to the Indian Office for his dismissal, gave it to my
cousin with a pen and bottle of ink, and told him to go in the
buggy with I-see-o to every Kiowa and Comanche Camp and
witness himself the signature of all those who wanted to sign.
They drove down two teams and followed some Kiowas clear
up into the Cheyenne country to get their signatures. The
agent had saved enough in two years on his salary of eighteen
hundred dollars, as he said, to buy a new farm for himself
and set his son up in a store and his son-in-law in a canning
factory. The agent was subsequently discharged.
Shortly after President McKinley was inaugurated, General
Miles introduced me to a Mr. Tonner, who lived next door to
the President at Canton, Ohio, and had come on to Washington
with him to receive some vacancy as yet undetermined. In the
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meantime he had a desk in Secretary Cornelius Bliss's private
office. He later became the assistant commissioner of Indian
affairs, and told me that they were going to send that dis-
charged agent back to Anadarko. I told him that it would be
only over my dead body and raised a fearful racket in Wash-
ington. After some two weeks, Tonner told me that the admin-
istration felt that the ex-agent was too strong for them and
they would have to do something for him, but if I would shut
up and go home they would not send him to Anadarko, merely
appointing his son-in-law agent for the Poncas. I answered
that I was not holding any brief then for the Poncas, for whom
I was very sorry, but that if they would really promise not to
send him to the Comanches I would shut up and go home. The
son-in-law was sent to the Poncas and went to the penitentiary
in a year and a half.
One reason why I was so averse to the return of the ex-agent
to the Comanches was his action when the children in the
Kiowa school began having measles. Instead of keeping them
quarantined in the school and treating them rationally, he
turned them all out, carrying the infection into every family,
and shortly afterward he brought the Comanches as well as
the Kiowas into the same camp at the agency for a payment.
The parents had no knowledge of the proper treatment of
measles and put the children in water to allay their fever, with
the consequence that the Kiowas lost three hundred children of
measles in one month. The sight of so many mourning parents
in one camp was heartrending. The women cut off their hair
and scratched their faces, arms, bosoms, and legs, and some
cut off the joint of a finger in mourning. The blood covered
them and was allowed to remain without washing until worn
off. The cries of mourning were heard in every lodge.
We had measles in our camp at Fort Sill, where Captain
J. D. Glennan, of the Medical Corps, labored with them in-
cessantly, as did Lieutenant Quay, Sergeants Stecker and
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207
Clancy and myself, and having authority to compel proper
treatment we lost no cases of straight measles; our only losses
were those complicated with such other diseases as whooping-
cough, for none of those children could stand two such dis-
eases at once. We quarantined the camp and our loss was very
small. It was an unusual sight to see two lieutenants of
cavalry sitting on the floor of an Indian lodge making poultices
for Indian children.
The parents were so grateful to Captain Glennan for his
tireless and skilful care that they brought me forty dollars as
their first payment and asked me to buy him a horse. I told
them he already had a horse and could not use any more
horses and suggested a piece of silver, which pleased their
fancy. This was presented to him with the inscription that it
carried the gratitude of the Indians of Troop L Cavalry for
his services.
The Indian women used to nurse their children until they
were three years old, when the milk would give out and the
child would be weaned on jerked beet, as dry and hard as a
piece of sole leather. This would cause intestinal disorders that
led to the loss of many children. We got a cow for the camp
and weaned the children on cow's milk with much better
results.
END OF THE PLAINS
Unable to sleep one night in 1897 in Washington, I turned
over all my affairs in my mind. I thought: "You have your
coyote and bear dogs, your horses, your Indian interests,
everything you want; you are freer than any junior officer you
have ever seen out there. But you are not educating your chil-
dren. Give away your dogs, get rid of your horses, say good-by
to your Indians, and go somewhere where your children can
be educated properly."
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Some Memories of a Soldier
Since they had now outgrown the school facilities at Fort
Sill, I went down to the War Department next morning and
arranged for a station in Washington in either of two capacities.
My choice of them was a detail in the Smithsonian Institution,
the Bureau of Ethnology under Major J. W. Powell, director,
of deathless memory, to write a book on the sign language of
the buffalo plains. Then I went back to make arrangements to
leave Fort Sill with my family, and my children were soon at
school in Washington.
Before I left Fort Sill, Sergeant I-see-o came in and sat
down by the fire and asked if what he had heard was true; he
had heard that I was going away from Fort Sill forever to live
in the east. I said, "Yes, it is true." He turned his face away,
and I could see the tears run down his profile while he sat
crushed in his chair without a word. I tried to comfort him,
but he soon got up and went away unable to speak.
I wound up my affairs, gave away the pack of coyote and
bear dogs I had bred and trained so carefully, sold my horses,
and bade farewell to all my Indian friends.
I had seen Dr. McMurdo leave for one of the great northern
posts after a long and happy sojourn. He had looked all around
at the landscape of mountain and plain for the last time to
impress its memory on his mind before getting into the ambu-
lance for the drive of thirty-three miles to the railroad, and
now it was my turn to do the same thing; loving every bit of
it in sight, I got into the ambulance with real sorrow in my
heart. After nine years of service, nine useful years of the
strenuous outdoor life on horseback, where we had been so
happy, a life of usefulness to white men and red, now I was
leaving it. I did not know it then, but it was the end of my
happy plains life without anxieties. I expected to go west
again when my children were through with school but the
Spanish War changed all that. I was to become thenceforth a
dweller in cities engaged in administrative work. This seemed

INDIAN PRISONERS OF WAR BRANDING CATTLE, 1905
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OF
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the road to preferment. I traveled that road and am traveling
on it yet.
I want to conclude the account of this part of my life with
a few letters bearing on these years:
St. Petersburg, Russia,
August 21, 1897.
To the Honorable
Russell A. Alger,
Sir:
Secretary of War.
In view of the vacancy that will occur in the Adjutant General's
Department of the Army, I have the honor to earnestly recommend
the following named officers for the promotion with the hope that
one of the number will be selected.
Captain H. L. Scott, 7th Cavalry;
*
Captain Scott is one of the most earnest, faithful and accomplished
officers in the service, and has for many years devoted his most
earnest efforts to the dangerous and difficult task of successfully
governing the worst tribe of Indians on the continent. The appoint-
ment to the position of Major and Assistant Adjutant General would
be a just recognition of the service of a most deserving officer.
I have the honor to be
Your obedient servant,
NELSON A. MILES,
Major-General, Commanding U. S. Army.
Headquarters, 2nd Division, 1st Army Corps,
Columbus, Ga., December 23, 1898.
To the Secretary of War,
Washington, D. C.
Sir:
I have the honor to recommend for appointment as either Adjutant
General or Inspector General in the Army, Major H. L. Scott,
Assistant Adjutant General of this Division. Major Scott is a Captain
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Some Memories of a Soldier
of the 7th Cavalry, and graduated from the Military Academy in
the class of 1876, and his entire service has reflected the greatest
possible credit on his training, on himself, and on the Army.
While yet a cadet, he rescued a classmate from drowning, for
which he is entitled to the life-saving medal. This act of heroism,
although an incident of his youth, foreshadowed simply his char-
acter as a man. Very soon after graduating he was ordered to the
Western plains, where he has served for many years, among the
most restless and dangerous tribes of our Indians, the Sioux and the
Cheyenne, and he established such a reputation for intelligence,
sagacity, and fair dealing that he won their entire confidence, and
on this account rendered the United States Government a most
inestimable service. He is well known as a master of the Indian
sign language, with which he is probably more familiar than any
white man in this country.
He has now been under my daily observation for more than six
months as Adjutant General of this Division, and
it affords me great pleasure to testify to his excellent judgment,
and to his faithful execution of every trust and duty.
Very respectfully,
J. P. SANGER,
Brig. General, U. S. V., Commanding.
I know Major Scott most favorably, and most fully concur in all
that General Sanger says of him. I strongly recommend his pro-
motion as above indicated.
JAMES H. WILSON,
Adjutant General, U. S. Army,
Washington, D. C.
Sir:
Major General, Volunteers,
Commanding Ist Army Corps.
Fortress Monroe, Virginia,
January 15, 1909.
I have the honor to state that it is thought that Col. H. L. Scott,
U. S. Army, Superintendent U. S. Military Academy, did not receive
the credit he deserved when 1st Lieutenant 7th Cavalry, on duty at
Fort Sill, Indian Territory, for the courage, skill and unusual ability
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211
he displayed in preventing, on three separate occasions, an Indian
war (with its bloodshed and horrors).
Lieut. H. L. Scott, on entering the Army in 1876 from West Point,
made a specialty of studying Indians, their language, customs, man-
ners and history.
In 1890 and 1891 a religious excitement, generally called "The
Ghost Dance," spread through all the Indian tribes in our country.
Lieut. Scott spent months in visiting the scattered teepees of the
many Indian tribes in the Indian Territory; by talking directly to
them in their own language, he made their personal acquaintance,
gained their confidence and respect, and ascertained that they had
been led to believe that if they fasted and kept up religious dances
faithfully (often falling from exhaustion and becoming unconscious):
their Messiah would, without injuring the whites, move all the white
people back across the ocean, and give the country back to the
Indian, bring back the buffalo, and put the Indians in a comfortable
condition they imagined their ancestors had before the arrival of
the whites.
The Ghost Dance caused immense excitement in the West, not only
among the Indians, but among the whites, and they were uneasy,
not knowing what the Indians might do. Several regiments of Cav-
alry, Infantry and some Artillery were ordered into the Sioux coun-
try, and several conflicts occurred between those Indians and the
troops in which many of the officers, soldiers and Indians were killed
and wounded. Doubtless, similar conflicts would have occurred be-
tween the whites and Indians in the Indian Territory had not Lieut.
Scott kept constantly in touch with the tribes, Kiowas, Comanches,
Kiowa Apaches, Caddos, Wichitas, Delawares, Kecheis, Southern
Cheyenes and Southern Arapahoes. (The Department Commander,
General Merritt, wrote me that Lieut. Scott's reports were the only
reports that gave him a clear and correct knowledge of these Indian
affairs.)
In the midst of this excitement, on the evening of the 13th of
January, 1891, I (then Lieut.-Col. 7th Cavalry, Commanding Fort
Sill, Indian Territory) received a telegram from the Agent of the
Kiowa and Commanche Indians, at Anadarko, requesting troops to
be sent there, as the Indians were threatening to destroy the agency.
It was thought that if the troops were sent, it might precipitate
hostilities. The Indians would hear that troops had started, and,
knowing they could not obtain revenge after the troops had arrived
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Some Memories of a Soldier
at Anadarko, they would be tempted to set fire to the agency build-
ings, kill what white men they could, and get away before the
troops arrived.
Lieut. Scott personally knew these Indians, and they had confi-
dence in him; it was thought he could delay hostile actions on their
part until whites could be warned and precautions taken to protect
them. He started at once without troops in a light wagon drawn by
four mules and drove rapidly to Anadarko.
Two troops of Cavalry lightly equipped were ordered to be ready
to march at a moment's notice, and the rest of the Cavalry was
ordered to be ready to march at day-light, with supplies for an ex-
tended campaign.
Probably no parents are fonder of their children than these Indians
are; they never whip their children, regarding a blow as an insult
and an outrage. They had unwillingly allowed their children to leave
home and live in the Government Boarding School at Anadarko.
A teacher at the school had whipped one Indian boy and threat-
ened two others with whippings. The three little fellows got out of
the school at night and started for home, on foot. Twenty miles from
Anadarko, they got turned around in a snow storm and the darkness,
and their dead bodies were found in the snow several days later; so,
of course, their relatives were infuriated and started at once for the
agency for revenge. As their lodges were scattered, all of the tribe
did not hear of the death of these children; so that the crowd of
angry Indians at Anadarko, when Lieut. Scott arrived there during
the night, was not large. But unfortunately the next day was issue
day, and deputations from Indians came for miles to get their share,
and at once learned the fate of the children, became angry and joined
the crowd ready to act against the whites.
Although the Indian agent had been there several years, he knew
nothing about Indians. He gave them orders as though they were
small children, but when they showed they were grown men and
angry men, he barricaded himself in his house and would not see
any one.
Of course, the Indians would have preferred to kill the teacher
who did the whipping, but he got out of the country during the night.
But as the whites hold an Indian tribe responsible for the conduct
of any one of its members, the Indians held all the whites responsible
for the conduct of an individual.
Lieut. Scott called a council of Indians, sympathized with them
Service on the Plains
213
for the loss of their children, and encouraged them to talk, and ad-
journed the council from time to time to allow the Indians to cool
down and get over their anger, and finally induced them to forgive
the whites and go home peacefully. Any one familiar with the preju-
dices and peculiarity of Indians would consider the result Lieut. Scott
obtained astonishing. Probably no other man could have succeeded;
and possibly Lieut. Scott could not, had he not previously gained
the confidence and respect of these Indians.
After the affair was settled satisfactorily, a teacher swore out a
warrant for the arrest of an uncle of the boy who was whipped, for
assault. This Indian met the teacher in the first part of the excite-
ment. Fortunately the Indian was unarmed, or he would have killed
the teacher; but as his quirt was hanging to his wrist, he horse-
whipped the teacher.
The Deputy United States Marshal was going to follow the uncle
and arrest him, and Lieut. Scott could not induce him to desist, until
he threatened to telegraph the President to revoke the Marshal's
appointment, as the arrest would start all the Indians on the war-path.
The Indians considered that the death of their children was caused
by the whites; they went to the agency, expecting to do some killing,
but without taking any revenge or obtaining any redress, they had
gone peacefully home, supposing that everything was settled. To
disgrace the uncle by arresting and punishing him, would reopen and
revive the whole thing. As the lodges were scattered, the arrest might
possibly be made without bloodshed; but as soon as all of the Indians
heard of it, they would believe all the whites had gone back on their
agreement, and all the tribes go on the war-path.
During the summer of the same year, 1891, a report was received
at Sill that a white settler from Green County, Texas, had come into
the Territory and killed a Kiowa Indian, near the mouth of Elk
Creek.
Lieut. Scott with six Indians and a troop of Cavalry was sent to
investigate. One day, while on the march, he met an Indian messenger
who reported that a conflict between the whites and Indians was
imminent. Lieut. Scott left the troops, and with the six Indians
made a forced march of sixty-seven miles, arriving on the Red River
that night; and ascertained that the Indians had sent their women
and children away, and expected to attack the whites in the morn-
ing; also that the settlers had sent their families away, and had
organized an armed company to attack the Indians. Lieut. Scott
214
Some Memories of a Soldier
called a council and in time induced the Indians to forgive the
killing of one of their tribe, and to go peacefully home.
Had the Indians in this affair, or at Anadarko, decided to go on
the war-path, the first shot of every Indian would have been aimed
at Lieut. Scott. He would have been the first victim.
I respectfully recommend that due credit be given Lieut. H. L.
Scott for his courage, skill and successful management of these affairs
by which he undoubtedly saved many lives.
Very respectfully,
To the President:
C. H. CARLTON,
Brig. General U. S. Army.
Headquarters of the Army,
Washington, July 8, 1902.
I have the honor to invite your attention to the important services
of Captain H. L. Scott, 7th Cavalry, in connection with the band
of Apache Indians, under Geronimo and Natchez, located at Fort
Sill, Indian Territory. These Indians had been sent from Arizona
to Florida, thence to Alabama and finally to Fort Sill, Indian Ter-
ritory. For many years they had devastated Arizona, New Mexico,
Old Mexico. For the peace of this section it had been necessary to
remove them from their old haunts. How to finally dispose of them
was a serious problem. The Indian Territory was available, but it
was feared should they be located there they would escape to Ari-
zona; besides they might be a source of trouble to the white people,
as well as to the Indians who did not desire their presence. The most
important question was as to the officer who should take charge
of them after their location. Captain Scott was selected by me for
this most important duty, the intelligent and faithful performance
of which was of so much importance to the country. Had trouble
occurred, which was constantly predicted, and which would have
been possible under a less able and faithful officer, it would have
been a serious reflection, not only on the War Department that had
authorized this movement, but upon the military authorities who
recommended it. After many years of service, disregarding personal
interest (he had at the time opportunities for other stations much
more desirable and lucrative) he remained constantly with these
Indians and succeeded in safely leading them in the pursuit of peace
and civilization, and left them in a very prosperous condition, far
Service on the Plains
215
above the average of most other Indians that had been for years
under the influence of peaceful control. This could not have been
accomplished without much tact, courage and constant care, as well
as thorough knowledge and control of adjacent bands, with which
these Indians were brought in contact.
The important services rendered by this officer cannot be over-
estimated, and should be considered in connection with his most
commendable conduct in active campaign in the northwest, and
his gallantry in the field.
In justice to him I earnestly desire to bring it to your favorable
consideration. I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
NELSON A. MILES,
Lieutenant General.
PART III
The Spanish-American War and Cuba
UPON arrival in Washington from Fort Sill we settled the
family in De Sales Street, near where the new Mayflower Hotel
has since been built, and put the children at once in school.
I reported to the veteran ethnologist, Major J. W. Powell,
director of the Bureau of Ethnology, who gave me a desk and
told me that I knew my subject much better than he did and
that I could begin to record it in my own way. I soon obtained
access to the Library of Congress and to the Geological Sur-
vey, and began to search the records of the earliest Spanish,
French, and English explorers of the West. I found an enor-
mous quantity of literature carrying only small references to
the sign language here and there, but it had all to be searched
to glean out the little material in existence. It has always been
a deep mystery to me why those explorers did not better appre-
ciate the value of the sign language to their enterprises. The
famous explorers Lewis and Clark (1804-06), who were the
first white men to encounter many of the Indians of the North-
west, were directed by President Jefferson to make a compre-
hensive report of all they saw that was new and interesting.
They spent the winter of 1804-05 among the three tribes which
inhabited the earthen lodges on the upper Missouri, which
spoke three different tongues and received visitors from other
tribes, speaking still other vocal languages; they saw the sign
language used intertribally every day; their man Drewyer
learned enough of the sign language to interpret for them at
different times; yet their references to it in their report are
216

Wilsont Miles
OF
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 217
so casual as to do nothing more than prove a knowledge of
its existence. Every tribe on the Plains spoke it as an inter-
tribal language with varying degrees of skill, but only three of
the early travelers did more than allude to it. The officers of
our army lived with it all about them while serving on the
Plains for a hundred years, but Captain Philo Clark, Second
Cavalry, was the only one I ever saw who acquired a reason-
able degree of proficiency. I have seen many who had enough
interest to learn maybe a dozen signs, but not enough interest
to learn to put them properly together, and they never knew
that the language had a syntax of its own.
I have often marveled at this apathy concerning such a
valuable instrument, by which communication could be held
with every tribe on the plains of the buffalo, using only one
language, by which an officer could make himself independent
of interpreters, render great service to his associates and to
his government, acquire a commanding influence over whole
tribes and districts, and which possibly might save his life.
THE "MAINE"
I had hardly done more than locate some of the sources of
history when our war-ship Maine was blown up in the harbor
of Havana with the loss of some two hundred American sailors.
This event caused great resentment against Spain which, with
the unrest and ill treatment accorded the reconcentrados of
Weyler almost under our eaves, caused us to drift slowly into
war with Spain, notwithstanding the efforts of President Mc-
Kinley to hold us back. We were in no way prepared for war
in organization or material. Our army was the product of a
long term of peace that had produced ill considered laws, some
to favor, some to spite certain officers. The better informed of
our officers were perfectly aware that our army was organized
for peace and not for war, but they were powerless to remedy
218
Some Memories of a Soldier
the situation; it was only when actual war applied the test
that the nation at large became aware of it.
President McKinley was so confident he could keep the
country out of war that he told Colonel John J. McCook of
New York he might go back and tell the business men of New
York there would be no war, and this within two weeks of the
declaration. The people, however, took the bit in their teeth
and ran away. The soldier is often accused of making war for
his own ends, but we went into the wars with Spain and
Germany without the soldiers exerting the slightest influence
toward that end. It is the people and the politician who make
war and the soldier who makes peace. The former go blindly
into war without considering at all whether the country is
ready for it. Some day this will be done once too often. I
made every effort to get out of Washington except to apply to
go to my regiment, the Seventh Cavalry, which was designated
to remain in Arizona on account of the Apaches. The Eighth
Cavalry was likewise designated to remain in Dakota on
account of the Sioux. (In 1917, incidentally, the Indian went
with us.) My brother asked me what part I was going to take
in the Spanish War, and I believe I told him that I had been
educated at the expense of the nation as a soldier to help
fight her battles and that I was of a respectable character, but
was without political influence, and that it now appeared sol-
diers were not wanted in this war. I was going to pass it writ-
ing a book in Washington. Applications came to me from
officers in the West to get them volunteer commissions; they
seemed to think I had plenty of volunteer commissions to give
out while all the time I could not get one for myself. One came
from Capron at Fort Sill, and while sitting in the office of
General Miles's aides one day Captain Leonard Wood came in
and announced with much triumph that he had his regiment. I
asked him if he wanted an adjutant and recommended Capron,
whom he had known in California, and he said "Yes, get him
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 219
for me." Capron telegraphed me his thanks from Fort Sill,
saying, "You have been the making of my life," but it was
only a few months later that he was killed with the Rough
Riders at Las Guásimas. Capron took my old first sergeant,
Stecker, as sergeant major of the Rough Riders, and it was not
long before I wrote Capron, "I got you your job as adjutant
of the Rough Riders; now you get me placed as a captain," but
he could not do it.
Meeting Colonel Carter, an adjutant-general, swinging a
telegram in his hand in a corridor of the War Department, I
went with him to his office. He said he had a telegram about
me; the Apaches were breaking out on the departure of the
garrison for Tampa, and the department commander wanted
me sent right back to Fort Sill. I told him that was all nonsense
about the Apaches; they could not be driven into outbreak;
and I asked what he was going to do with that telegram. He
said he was going to show it to General Miles. I thought I
would see General Miles first, and leaving Carter's office I ran
straight into the general in the corridor and told him I wanted
to speak to him. He replied, "I can't talk to you now; I am
going with the secretary to the White House with the first call
for volunteers." I seized him by the arm and pulled him away
from the secretary by main force, saying, "General, I have got
to speak to you."
He saw I was much excited and asked very sympathetically
what the matter was. I told him that the department com-
mander had just telegraphed to have me sent down to Fort Sill.
He asked if I wanted to go. "That is no place, general, for a
man to be going at the beginning of a foreign war." He then
said, "You have done enough for that country; you won't have
to go." But it was a pretty narrow escape.
A troop of the Seventh Cavalry was sent instead from
Arizona, with a troop of the Eighth Cavalry from Dakota,
though these were not in the least necessary. The Apaches were
220
Some Memories of a Soldier
much incensed at having their loyalty doubted and volun-
teered their young men to go with the troops to fight in Cuba.
The Kiowas and Comanches were incensed also at the sending
of troops. They said, "We will take care of these Apaches with-
out any troops."
General Ludington, the quartermaster, next told me he had
ordered the purchase of two thousand pack-mules at St. Louis
and asked me to go there and organize them into pack-trains
and train them for service. I asked twenty-four hours to con-
sider. The duty would be very agreeable in time of peace, for
I love a pack-train, but I reflected that if I did it well I would
get fastened down in St. Louis, unable to get away during the
war, and declined the detail next day.
OLD-FASHIONED WARS
As time went on, a number of general officers recommended
me for a commission as colonel to the governors of New Jersey
and Pennsylvania, but no answer was received. General Scho-
field and General Miles recommended me to the secretary of
war for a volunteer commission as lieutenant colonel and
inspector general, the highest rank a captain of regulars could
expect to get. When the list was published my name was not
on it. General Miles, when I met him, on the street, told me he
was sorry about that, but General Corbin had told the secre-
tary of war that he knew I would rather be a major and
adjutant-general than a lieutenant-colonel and inspector-gen-
eral, and so they put John Jacob Astor in my place, whose
qualifications for the position consisted in having presented a
battery to the government. Mr. Dooley published a satire on
the method of appointment at that time that caused much
merriment in the army, but while this was all very funny as
satire the methods of appointment satirized were not good for
building armies, and you may be certain that they were held
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 221
in mind when it came to organizing for the World War as
methods to be avoided. When the squadron of the Fifth Cav-
alry at Fort Myer started for Tampa, I asked General Miles
to send me with it in any capacity and would even cook if I
could not go otherwise. He said: "Don't you get excited; I
will take care of you. I will put you on my staff, and you can
go with me." This made me feel vastly better for a while.
Captain Seyburn of the infantry was given charge of the
headquarters camp equipage, baggage, and horses, which were
kept loaded on the side-track for two weeks ready to start at
an hour's notice. General Miles would see the President, who
would give him a written order to General Corbin to let him
start, and we would get ready to start that night, only to be
told later we could not.
After two weeks of this I began to see that the President and
General Corbin were only playing with General Miles and did
not intend to let him go at all, probably on account of his
political tendencies. They did not propose that he should go
and come back a successful general, lest the slate be broken.
When General Shafter was given command I made up my mind
that General Miles would not be allowed to go in command and
I accepted the commission of major and adjutant-general of
volunteers and went to Chickamauga Park, Tenn., as ad-
jutant-general of the Second Division, First Corps, in training
for the attack on Havana. Slocum went out with me as inspec-
tor-general of the same division, and Nicholson, Seventh
Cavalry, came along after as chief ordnance officer, all of us
with a feeling of elation that we would be with the attack on
Havana. We were to land at the harbor of Mariel and take
Havana in reverse.
The nine volunteer regiments of the division were from the
militia of various States that were supposed to be composed
of trained men, but as always when the zero hour approaches,
so many men were found physically unfit and so many had
222
Some Memories of a Soldier
dependent families that it was necessary to catch people in the
streets to fill their quota required for acceptance by the Na-
tional Government.
Tentage and equipment were brought from the States, but
the quartermaster-general of the camp had next to nothing for
issue. I was obliged to purchase even my own stationery in
Chattanooga to start the business of the division. We would
get a general for command one day only to lose him the next,
and Slocum, Nicholson, and I seemed the only permanent
things in the division. A division is a military unit and should
be complete in itself, but there were many things lacking in its
organization, the most important of which were a judge-advo-
cate and civilian clerks. The only clerks available were those
detailed from the various regiments. Now and then a regiment
with political influence was detached and sent to Tampa,
taking its clerks with it and stripping the headquarters of
clerks at a most unhappy moment, and the force would be
demoralized every time a regiment moved.
The various civil lawyers detailed at division headquarters
had no knowledge of military law and I had to review all the
court-martial cases in addition to my other work, which often
kept me up until two o'clock in the morning, for if court-
martial cases were to be sent up to Washington improperly
prepared they would all be sent back for correction. Some of
those court-martial proceedings had to be sent back and forth
until the paper was nearly worn out, and it was not until near
the end of the life of the division that judge-advocates became
efficient.
Now and then a regiment would get orders to entrain for
Tampa and would sometimes be loaded on the cars when some
regiment with stronger political influence in Washington would
cause itself to be substituted, and when taken off the train
many of the men would smash their guns in rage and mortifica-
tion. Such movements had little if any connection with training
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 223
and efficiency, and the question of relative proficiency was
never asked in any case. I was told too by Colonel Arthur
Wagner, who had charge of the efficiency records of the indi-
vidual officers in the War Department, that not one of those
records was called for in making the appointments. Efficiency
was of slight weight in those days, when political influence was
the main vehicle to advancement.
Those nine colonels were big frogs in their home puddles
through their influence, rather looking down on a chief of staff
who was nothing but a captain of cavalry in his puddle, and
each wanted to go his own way without supervision or sub-
jection to the meticulous whims of the regular army or the
laws of Congress. When directed to send up a stenographer or
typewriter they would send some man whose only qualifica-
tion for typewriting was the ability to handle a plow.
I went with General Sanger, then commanding the division,
and Division-Surgeon Griffith from Kansas City to report at
headquarters our first cases of typhoid fever, and to ask for
means of prevention and for hospital cots, sheets, and nets to
take care of the fever patients who were sleeping on the ground
in the midst of the dust and noise of the camp. We were told
that those cases were not typhoid; moreover that there were
no cots to give us. We protected our own latrines and garbage
from flies, but could not do it outside the division, and the flies
came from every direction, spreading the disease. The families
of the patients were allowed to take them home for treatment
and recuperation, and this scattered the epidemic all over the
United States. Our army had greater loss from typhoid fever
than from all the casualties of battle, and this was the story of
all previous wars down to the last one. Out of that epidemic
of 1898 grew a research that has provided an immunity for the
first time in history. If anybody dies nowadays of typhoid
fever it is a case of contributory neglect, since the means of
prevention are within the reach of all.
224
Some Memories of a Soldier
The camp ground at Chickamauga had formerly held a
forest that had been cut down. It never had a sod on it and
was always either mud or dust. The water-supply had become
inadequate for the number of men, and animals and the water-
wagons were hauling water all day and night.
Colonel Slocum was sent to Lexington, Kentucky, in the
blue-grass country to select a new camp site. He found there
a brigade of volunteers without a regular officer in it. Its com-
mander had run away to Porto Rico to avoid being left behind
and the brigade was an orphan with nobody to look out for it.
It was drinking from a sewer, and there were no hospital cots,
supplies, or tents for the sick. Slocum saw their troubles at a
glance, jumped in without any authority from anybody, got
them water from the city, got an ambulance, tents, hospital
supplies, and good food, and put them on their feet after
expending twenty thousand dollars. He would have been cruci-
fied for this before the war, but the poor secretary of war was
a victim of the system of peace-time management that soon
destroyed him without any fault of his own and would have
destroyed any one else. He had been so criticized and ham-
mered in the press that he was charmed to find anybody who
would take the responsibility and spend any amount of money
without authority, to secure results. Slocum's accounts were
passed without a murmur. All power was so concentrated in
Washington before the Spanish War that I heard his chief
quartermaster say that General Merritt could not issue an
order that would cover him in the purchase of one lead pencil.
I have taken my routine papers in to one of those old post
commanders who had grown up under that system and whose
initiative and courage to sign papers was so atrophied that he
would hide a check for $100 under his desk-pad, afraid to
approve it, until I would have to take it away from him to
avoid being reprimanded in Washington for not forwarding
my quarterly returns. Since those days my own initiative and
UNIN
OF

GENERAL WILLIAM LUDLOW, GOVERNOR, AND STAFF AT HAVANA
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 225
courage have been so exercised that I have signed a check for
$150,000 without giving it a second thought.
While still at Chickamauga the Twenty-first Kansas came
to the division, wearing straw hats and linen dusters and look-
ing like harvest hands just off the fields. The staff jumped in
and got them outfitted and made comfortable in short order.
When they were mustered out, the colonel came over with his
field and staff to say good-by. He made us quite a little ora-
tion, saying that back in Kansas they had been warned by
the veterans of the Civil War to look out for the regular
officers, who would try to oppress them; "but I want to say
to you gentlemen that if the Twenty-first Kansas has arrived
at any degree of efficiency in this war it is only through the
kindness and consideration of the regular officers of this divi-
sion. I own two newspapers in Kansas, and if either of my
editors ever print a word against the regular army, by g— I
will discharge him."
When the division was moved to the new camp site at
Lexington it was like going to another world. The only dust
was on the limestone pikes, and it was very gratifying to see
the soldiers rolling in the blue grass like tired horses. Their
health began to improve right away. It was very gratifying to
me also to find how green the memory of my father and mother
had been kept about Lexington and Danville, where I was born.
Although my father had been dead for nearly forty years when
my name appeared in the newspaper as "arrived," a gentleman
drove out the seven dusty miles from Lexington to our camp
to give me a letter my mother had written him thirty years
before, and I was recognized at a ball among all the officers
present from my likeness to my parents, a fact I thought most
remarkable.
One of our volunteer colonels thought it would appear well
back home if he were to preach to his men on Sunday, a notion
that did not appeal to the men, who remained away. The next
226
Some Memories of a Soldier
Sunday they were given the option of attending his services or
of marching the seven miles to church in Lexington. This ap-
peared in the Lexington paper as a news item, and a clipping
was sent the colonel with a query as to whether its contents
were true. It was returned with the statement that the facts
were as stated. A letter was then sent him to the effect that
the division commander directed the practice to be dis-
continued.
Shortly after that the corps commander invited the people
of Lexington to a huge bonfire and band concert. I was talking
to a lady when the colonel came up and was introduced to me.
He said with a merry twinkle in his eye: "Oh! I am well
acquainted with Major Scott, well acquainted. We are accus-
tomed to corresponding, sometimes on religious subjects." Six
months afterward a copy of that newspaper fell into the hands
of the War Department and was sent down to us with an air of
grave reproof for allowing such things under our jurisdiction,
and it afforded me a malicious pleasure to return it saying that
the practice had been stopped six months before.
The signing of the protocol with the Spaniards brought us
great trouble. The men had volunteered for the war and now
that the war was over they could see no reason why they should
not lay down their guns anywhere they happened to be and
walk home. As many as three hundred men would be reported
absent without leave from a single regiment. Our wars are so
short that we never have time to discipline our men thoroughly.
Their esprit is most admirable while they are being trained;
they are full of purpose and remarkably well behaved. But the
end of the war brings a slump in everything.
Some of our men who went to Lexington on leave drank too
much and became involved with the city police. Captain Noel
Gaines, a citizen of Lexington, was sent into the city with his
company of the Third Kentucky to act as a provost guard and
keep order among visiting troops, to prevent them from clash-
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 227
ing with the police. They clashed instead with the provost
guard, and some of them got killed. A very bitter feeling arose
over it among the men, for nobody ever likes a provost guard.
While I was sitting in a theater box one night some one whis-
pered in my ear that one of the regiments in camp had taken
their arms, broken away from their officers, and were at the
moment entraining with a view to coming into Lexington to
wipe out the provost guard. I excused myself to my host,
went to the telephone, and ordered three regiments to surround
the insurgents, take them off the cars, and arrest the whole
regiment and march it back to camp. My orders were well
carried out, and there was no disturbance in Lexington. In fact
it all happened so quietly that I doubt if the good people of
Lexington know anything about it yet.
Then came a time when orders were received to move the
division to Georgia, for what reason I have never known.
General Sanger took Slocum with him to pick out suitable
camps, apologizing at the same time for not taking me, for
some one must be left to carry on. I have heard this apology
often before and since, but that does not make it more
pleasant.
I asked General Sanger whom he wanted to command the
division during his absence. He broke out in his emphatic
manner: "You command this division yourself! I won't have
anybody else around here!" He would be in telegraphic com-
munication all the time but did not want to be bothered with
anything but a life and death matter. The day after he left I
saw the ranking colonel coming over to take command and got
ready to argue with him. The colonel was very agreeable and
after chatting a while about men and things he asked, "Are the
papers ready for signature?" "No," I answered. "When will
they be ready?" he asked. "They won't be ready," I said, and
that was all. He bowed himself out very pleasantly in a few
moments, leaving me with the sheepish feeling that one has
f
割
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Some Memories of a Soldier
when one tunes oneself up for a battle which does not eventuate.
I was sorry too that conditions made such action necessary.
That officer learned a great deal in the Spanish War and
rendered very eminent service to his State thereafter. My
relations with all the colonels used to become a little frayed
around the edges sometimes, but nothing serious ever came out
of it, and we parted in the end with mutual confidence and
esteem. I count it a red-letter day whenever I meet one of
them.
Matters were running very smoothly at Lexington, and I
obtained a month's leave before going South, in order to visit
my family in Washington, and the division moved to Georgia
during my absence.
I rejoined at Americus, Georgia, and found a new com-
mander installed, General William Ludlow, colonel of engineers,
General Sanger having taken Slocum and gone to Cuba as one
of the advance officers to make arrangements for those to
follow.
General Ludlow, who had gone with the Seventh Cavalry
on Custer's expedition to the Black Hills in 1874, had a soft
spot in his heart for a Seventh Cavalryman, and we had much
to talk about and began a friendship that never slacked.
We were visited at Americus by the corps commander, Gen-
eral J. H. Wilson, who had commanded the cavalry in Sher-
man's march to the sea, and he took us out over the terrain on
horseback and pointed out the places of interest. He took
General Ludlow and staff in his special car inspecting, and a
message was received in the car from Washington offering
General Ludlow the military governorship of the city of
Havana and command of that department, which he accepted,
asking at the same time for his division, "the best he had ever
seen." This request, however, was not backed up by any
political influence and failed.
We bade good-by to General Ludlow as we had to General
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 229
Sanger with great regret, for both had endeared themselves to
the division by their high-mindedness, their force and energy,
as well as by their kindness and consideration, without which
the regard of a division cannot be long held.
General Ludlow had not been long in Havana before writing
to ask me to go down to him in Havana, without, however,
specifying any duty for me there. The division was now break-
ing up. The regiments with political influence were being mus-
tered out and sent home; those without influence in Washing-
ton had to go to Cuba. The end of the division was in sight,
and I saw no reason to stay with it any longer. I accepted
General Ludlow's offer, and my orders came in January, 1899,
to report for duty in Havana, leaving Colonel Nicholson of
the Seventh Cavalry, the last of our first staff, who has since
been made a brigadier-general for excellent service in France;
and the division soon passed out of existence without taking
Havana in reverse as all hoped to do at one time. The war
was entirely over.
THE REGENERATION OF CUBA
Approaching the coast of Cuba, we raised first the peak of
the Pan de Matazanas and soon after entered the landlocked
harbor of Havana, bristling with fortifications on either side,
one of the safest, most beautiful and interesting in the world.
The harbor is shaped like a bottle with a long neck and is
frowned down upon at the left by the stone defenses of Morro
Castle (1598) and Cabaña Fortress (1764), which overlook
the city and the Bay of Havana, the base of the bottle guarded
by the castle of Atarés, now converted into a prison. The
military mast and some girders of the ill fated Maine sticking
up out of the water were conspicuous in the fairway. On the
right the Fuerza or Castillavieja (Old Castle) was to be seen
near the Caballeria wharf, the main landing-place, while at the
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mouth of the harbor was the Castilla de la Punta, and opposite
that on the water level, the Battería de los doce Apostoles, shel-
tered at the foot of Morro Castle.
These had been very formidable defenses in their day against
the sailing-vessel, especially when supplemented by a chain
across the mouth of the harbor. The Morro Castle stood a long
siege by the English in 1762, when our ancestors went down
from New England to take part. The Morro was finally cap-
tured from the higher hill of the Cabaña, and the English
occupied the city for a year, giving it back to Spain by the
treaty which also returned Manila.
The hill of the Cabaña was strengthened in 1764 by the
erection of the Cabaña Fortress. It is related that the Spanish
king stood up one day looking westward over the Atlantic,
and, when questioned, said he was looking to see the Cabaña
Fortress, which had cost so much money that it must be high
enough by that time to be seen across the ocean.
The sweep of the city southward, with its multicolored
houses built in a great curve along the white coral beach with
the surf dashing at their feet, about which the famous Malecón
of Havana now runs, is a sight of surpassing beauty. I have
since seen many cities of the world, but to my mind Havana is
by far the most interesting.
I went at once to the hotel after landing, and having estab-
lished myself, reported at General Ludlow's headquarters
where I was not yet expected.
General Ludlow and his staff were absent at a función at
the Ayuntamiento (the City Hall). Later I wandered into the
American Club, wondering where I was going to eat, if at all,
since all the tables were occupied by officers whom I had never
seen before. Happening to pass a table occupied by the staff of
the governor-general, I was suddenly seized by Frederick Rem-
ington, the artist, who threw his arms around my neck and
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 231
pulled me up to the table, where I recognized the chief quar-
termaster, Charles Humphries, at the head, flanked by Philip
Reade, George Kennan of Russian fame, Curtin Quay, James
Dean, and others. But a moment before a stranger in a strange
land, I was at once given a permanent seat among the elect
and made to feel at home.
I found my classmate, Colonel Tasker H. Bliss, installed as
the collector of customs of Cuba with the present president of
The Century Co., Mr. W. Morgan Shuster, as assistant. They
occupied the church of San Francisco as a custom-house, partly
because of its central location at the docks and partly because
it had been abandoned for religious purposes after the English
had used it to stable their horses during their occupation of
the city in 1763.
As I strolled back to the hotel that night looking at the novel
sights of Havana, a number of little open-air fruit stores were
passed which displayed many kinds of tropical fruit unknown
to me. Purchasing a specimen of each, wrapped in a separate
paper labeled with its Spanish name, I took them to the hotel
for study, and soon became acquainted with the appearance,
name, and taste of all of them.
Some months later I started to learn to differentiate between
the various species of Cuban palms; I had conquered seventeen
when some one told me that there were two hundred and fifty
more, and my interest in Cuban palms suffered a severe check.
Reporting next morning to General Ludlow at Jacon numero
uno, he told me to go downstairs and have myself announced as
chief of staff of the Department of Havana. I told him he had
a fine lot of officers down there already and suggested that he
perhaps might have some other duty for me that would not
interfere with them. He replied sharply, "You go down and
do what I told you!" And I went.
There were a lot of young artillery officers of about the same
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period at West Point who did not seem to mind being super-
seded by an older man. Our service together was delightful, and
we are all firm friends to this day.
THE CUBAN SITUATION
Everything was in the process of reorganization. Imagine,
if you can, a city of the size of Washington without any sort
of government whatsoever, inhabited by two classes of people
-Cubans and Spaniards, who had been deadly enemies and at
war with each other for ten years, with many deep grudges yet
to settle and you may get a fair idea of the situation con-
fronting the American force of occupation.
The Nanigos, a criminal element lately liberated from jail,
were ready to loot the city, and indeed began their offensive,
changing their minds after forty of them had been killed one
night in an attack on our troops guarding the streets.
There was no mayor, no city council, no police, and not a
dollar in any public treasury; no public schools, no public
library, and there never had been in all Cuba. There was no
sanitary service except the hordes of struggling buzzards, the
chief scavengers of Cuba. The blood and offal from the mata-
dero was thrown into the shallow waters of the upper bay to
rot and fester in a tropical sun and pollute the harbor. Dead
dogs and cats were thrown into the street to be battled for by
the buzzards.
Smallpox, malaria, yellow fever, human glanders, and
leprosy were rife, and twenty thousand of the reconcentrados,
herded into the city from their country homes by Weyler, were
dying in the streets without shelter, food, clothing, or medical
attendance.
The Eighth and Tenth Regiments of the regular infantry
were camped within the city, and fifty thousand volunteers
outside. General Máximo Gómez, with a large part of the
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 233
Cuban army, was not far away, still under arms, ostensibly
friendly, but possibly harboring the intention of driving the
Americans from the island.
The press was bitterly hostile to our remaining, entirely
oblivious to the anarchy, bloodshed, destruction, and plunder
that was but awaiting our departure.
Such was the sickening mess from which a commanding
general must bring order, putting an end to the sufferings of
the populace, holding down the criminal element, sanitating the
city, and building up its deplorably neglected institutions.
General Ludlow was the man who was busy at this task
under the governor-general of Cuba, General John R. Brooke.
Immediately upon landing, the American commander issued a
proclamation to the Cuban people, reëstablishing the local laws
and courts under his protection backed by his power, and
directing the people to go quietly about their affairs beneath
the ægis of the American flag.
Our civil jurisdiction was confined to the city, which formed
also the military department of Havana. The whole island of
Cuba was divided into similar departments, having the boun-
daries of the old provinces of Cuba, each with a military gov-
ernor and his staff, through whom the governor-general con-
trolled the island. Thus every center of population was occu-
pied by troops, and no one could "start anything" and expect to
finish it. There were plenty of troops for every purpose, and
for once the government was not sending a boy to do a man's
work. A smaller number would have been a temptation to the
Cubans to try to expel them, which would have brought on a
bloody clash.
A military government is the only kind fit to cope with
such conditions; it is the only kind known under such circum-
stances to international law. As soon as a military intervention
is proclaimed with force to back it, everything falls imme-
diately into place. Foreigners and natives alike learn at once
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their status, and there is a legal basis of government. The will
of the commanding general is supreme; he is responsible only
to his own government for the maintenance of law and order
and for the accomplishment of justice; he alone has the power
to protect the people in their business and in their homes.
With the electric telegraph and cable largely responsible, the
Cuban government of military intervention was far more re-
sponsive to the spirit of the American people than the govern-
ment of any State in our Union. Whenever any person of any
nationality, race, or color felt that he had a legitimate griev-
ance against the military government of Cuba, he had only to
cable to the secretary of war in Washington, whereupon the
governor-general of Cuba would be called upon by cable to
account for his action before the secretary of war, and it would
require but a few failures at justification of his deeds and
policies to bring about his relief in favor of another governor
who would not give occasion for legitimate complaint. No civil
government in the world was ever so responsive to the correc-
tion and prevention of injustice. The conditions in Cuba needed
immediate relief. The people were dying in the street on every
hand, and it was no time for argument or for the conflict of
factions. The interests of all required prompt action by the
only authority with power to act, the military governor.
This must not be misconstrued as an argument for a per-
manent government by the military, for I believe with Abra-
ham Lincoln that "government of the people, by the people,
for the people must not perish from the earth." But under con-
ditions similar to those then existing in Cuba, the military is
the only government capable of safeguarding life and property,
and able to satisfy the aspirations of the American people. Any
attempt to mix the civil and the military leads only to ineffi-
ciency, dissatisfaction, and defeat. International law sets forth
that where the power lies, there the responsibility and control
should lie also until normal conditions are fully restored; when
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 235
the country is put on its feet, with a stable government prop-
erly elected by the people, a going concern ready and able to
protect itself and both able and willing to protect the common
people from the oligarchy always grasping for power to exploit
and enslave the poor, then the intervening force should be
removed, but not until then.
There are other situations where the strong hand of the
benevolent despot is necessary, as in the case of backward
peoples, unfitted to maintain a civil government to protect its
own citizens from anarchy and spoliation. The American people
are prone to believe that a race can be civilized overnight; that
it is sufficient to declare a republic on paper to have one in
fact, forgetting that the English-speaking peoples had to
struggle a thousand years for their liberties. You may declare
a republic on paper among the mules and monkeys, but you
will never get one. The nations able to govern themselves
as a republic are few in number, and the attempt to have them
function as a republic before they are ready for it is a back-
ward step.
I was greatly surprised to find that Germany was not to be
occupied by the Allies in this way after the Armistice. The
Allies had destroyed the government of Germany and were
responsible to the world for the maintenance of law and order,
for the protection of life and property in Germany, and the
establishment of an elective government of stability. Instead,
they evaded their proper and obvious course; and had Berlin
been looted and destroyed by the mob or had the Red Terror
succeeded in getting control of Germany as the world then
feared, the responsibility would have been laid directly at the
door of the Allied governments. They had the power and the
responsibility to prevent disaster, and, failing to use it, might
rightly have been accused of having had neither the vision to
see their duty nor the courage to perform it.
There was no such shirking of responsibility in Cuba. The
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whole island was marked off into districts, and as soon as each
district was cleared by the Spanish troops marching out at one
end, American troops marched in at the other, leaving no in-
terregnum during which one class might destroy the other.
Our troops took over the safeguarding of public buildings
and all state and municipal property. The homeless and starv-
ing were gathered into buildings or tents, registered, fed,
clothed, and medically treated. Colonels Mott, Treat, and
Greble caused twenty thousand reconcentrados to be so at-
tended. They, with Colonels Gorgas and Kean, established a
bureau of charities and hospitals. Many of the insane had been
kept at home with their families, and wherever violent they
were chained or kept in barbed wire cages like animals. These
were all gathered into a hospital for the insane at Mazorra,
the lepers were placed in the San Lazaro Hospital and there-
after taken care of at the public expense. The widows of
Spanish officers were established in a windows' home.
THE PRESS
The press of Havana was outrageous in its attacks on my
predecessor, and I got ready to receive the same sort of treat-
ment, especially after General Ludlow had directed me to
summon the editors of three newspapers and read them the riot
act. They were summoned to stand on the carpet, one at a time,
an hour apart. After telling them some very unpleasant truths,
it was impressed upon them that if they desired to run news-
papers in Havana they would have to alter their tactics. I
thought Mrs. Scott would be reading in the Havana despatches
of the "Washington Post" next morning what a confirmed
criminal I was and opened the Havana papers with much
interest, but not then, nor at any time during my entire four
years' stay in Havana, was there ever anything derogatory to
me printed in a Havana newspaper. Now and then, to be sure,
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 237
an amusing cartoon would appear, and the family still
chuckles when these are encountered among my papers, but
never was there the slightest sting to any of these, or ground
for the least objection.
A cartoon appeared in one paper showing Cuba crucified
between two thieves, President McKinley and General Wood,
who had arrived to relieve General Brooke. This displeased the
general extremely, and he told me to send for the editor. In-
stead of coming himself, the editor sent his foreman to report
that he was too ill to come. General Wood said to me, "You go
and get him."
One of his aides telephoned for a doctor and a carriage to
meet me at the door of the newspaper office immediately, and
I detained the foreman in order to give them time to get there.
Then I strolled down the street with the foreman, chatting
about Havana architecture, until I felt certain of their arrival,
and indeed found them waiting. The editor came out into the
office all muffled in an overcoat in that warm climate, with a
scarf around his neck to indicate the severity of his illness, but
when I shook hands with him he felt cool, free from any fever.
I told the doctor to examine him and find out if there were any
reasons why he could not get into the carriage and return with
me. The doctor obeyed and reported there was no reason what-
ever, and he was forthwith invited to accompany me to the
palace, where he was turned over to General Wood, questioned,
arrested, and put in jail for a while; he was later released. He
certainly could not have enjoyed my exposing him before his
whole office, but he never on any occasion thereafter gave open
sign of his displeasure.
JAILS, SANITATION, AND THE LAW
A year after our arrival, General Ludlow was ordered to
Germany to report on the organization of the general staff of
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the German army, and General Wood came as governor-gen-
eral to Havana. I was ordered as chief of staff to Porto Rico,
against which General Wood protested by cable. I started for
Porto Rico by the North Coast boat, but was recalled upon
arrival at Santiago de Cuba. General Wood placed me on duty
assisting General Chaffee in the budget, with the control of the
city of Havana, upon General Ludlow's departure. This went
on for some time until General Chaffee left and I assumed his
duties in the Palace and served as chief of staff of Cuba during
the next three years when we left the island. As the island
became more and more tranquil, the number of American
troops was reduced from time to time and the six military de-
partments in the provinces were given up one by one, the
general officers with their staffs returning to the United States
and their duties passing over to my office until only two were
left: that of Santiago de Cuba, which persisted to the end
under Colonel Whiteside, and the Province of Havana, under
General Fitzhugh Lee.
Among other duties wished upon the American officers, who
were ready to take over anything, was the examination of the
jails, where there were people who had been imprisoned with-
out charges or record. None knew their identity nor why they
were confined. These and all political prisoners were at once
released and helped to get on their feet in an economic way
with suitable employment. Captain Devery was borrowed from
the New York Metropolitan Police and brought down to train
and build up a police force for Havana.
The cleaning up of the city was begun in a systematic man-
ner, first by Colonel William Black, chief engineer, later, in
conjunction with Major William Gorgas, the chief sanitary
officer of Havana. All the offal and garbage of the city was
carried in barges outside of the harbor and unloaded in the
Gulf Stream, where the easterly current of three miles an hour
carried it out into the Atlantic Ocean. This was a great en-
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 239
couragement for the monster sharks that waited outside the
harbor mouth in great schools. It was worth going out to see
the water lashed by their tails in their struggles with each
other. They would seize like a flash every man who fell off the
barges, and he would disappear in an instant.
One of the great abuses discovered in the practice of law
in Cuba was that a person could be arrested and placed in-
comunicado, i.e., not allowed to communicate with his friends
for an indefinite period. The writ of habeas corpus, one of the
bulwarks of our own freedom, was unknown to Spanish juris-
prudence. The legal fraternity had previously had legal matters
in its own hands, and many used their power for oppression of
the poor, stringing out indefinitely adjournments and exam-
inations even in trifling cases, until they were no longer profit-
able. Their extortions gave rise to the Cuban saying, "No one
can afford either to lose or win a lawsuit, for the lawyers will
take all you have in either case."
Captain William Pitcher of the Eighth Infantry was ap-
pointed chief of police and police magistrate, with a limited
jurisdiction to try summary cases. This was fiercely opposed by
the Cuban lawyers, who were thus prevented from fattening on
the poor. Captain Pitcher was soon nicknamed "Ten Dollars
or Ten Days," and his court became immensely popular, re-
quests coming in from different parts of Cuba for a "Meesta
Pecha." Being unable to account for the remarkable popularity
I enjoyed for a while in a certain circle, I suddenly discovered
that it was because they thought I was "Meesta Pecha."
INCIDENT OF THE COLETA
"Meesta Pecha" brought us once to the verge of disaster
when he cut off the coleta of a Spanish bull-fighter on his way
under contract to fight bulls in Mexico. A coleta is a little
braided pigtail on the back of the head of a torero, the badge
of his profession. Of course it could not be expected by any
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Some Memories of a Soldier
one that a torero could fight bulls without a coleta. The injured
hero appealed to the Spanish consul-general, and an interna-
tional complication became imminent. Secretary Root was then
in the Palace and became quite irate on hearing about the loss
of the coleta, and Ten Dollars or Ten Days was saved to Cuba
only by the skin of his teeth.
It seemed that there was a standing order that when a
prisoner was brought in to the station drunk or disorderly, he
was to be given a bath and a hair-cut on sobering up. The
torero had been brought in off the street drunk and disorderly
and given the usual treatment. The American sergeant in
charge had a soul too small for knowledge of such great matters
as coletas, and, being no respector of persons, had the coleta
off in short order with what threatened to be disastrous conse-
quences, The rules were framed thereafter to exclude the
roaching of toreros, drunk or sober. We have read in the Bible
about the messengers who had their beards cut off and had to
"Tarry in Jericho until their beards were grown." Like them,
our friend the torero had to tarry in Havana until his coleta
was grown, and it was for Havana to laugh.
It is interesting to look back now and remember the remarks
I made to Captain Pitcher in the light of after events. I said to
him that if he made good in Havana as chief of police, who
knew but I might some day make him chief of police of Berlin
or Paris, for nothing could be more strange than that an
American officer should be chief of police of Peking, China;
if that, why not of Berlin or Paris? Since that day, an Amer-
ican Officer has been in charge of American military police in
both of those European cities.
JUSTICE AND GRANDEES
Pitcher came up to my office one day in some perturbation
to ask advice. It appeared that a small news urchin had ap-
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 241
proached a certain marqués of Spain in one of the hotels with
his wares, and had been struck a severe blow across the bridge
of the nose with the nobleman's cane. Now, it is a well known
fact that a grandee of Spain does rather as he pleases without
fear of punishment, but Pitcher was informed that this was
not Spain, and that here. was his opportunity to show Havana
that he sought the accomplishment of justice for rich and poor
alike, and that a grandee of Spain was no better than any one
else before the law. So he sentenced the marqués to a month's
imprisonment at hard labor in the castle at Atarés.
This turned Havana upside down with horror, and all the
haute monde of the city fell upon my back like a ton of bricks,
but without result. Their next move was to present a doctor's
certificate showing that the health of the marqués was too deli-
cate to undergo hard labor. I compromised on this, saying that
of course we would not think of compelling a sick man to
undergo hard labor; if he were too ill to stand up on a rock
pile at Atarés, I said he might sit down at his task with a little
hammer in his hand and break rocks for the roads of Havana.
Imagine the commotion in Havana by this decree of the
brutal and ignorant interventores against a grandee of Spain
-a marqués, if you please! No more reports, however, arrived
of little boys being struck by grandees or by anybody else,
and it was not long before the justice of the sentence was
recognized by every one, and I have reason to believe that
strange though it may seem, no rancor was felt, even by the
marqués himself.
SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES
The subject of public instruction was taken up early in the
period of occupation. Captain Hanna, General Wood's aide,
who had once been a school-teacher, made a study of the school
law of all of the States, and, selecting that of Ohio as the best,
adapted it to the circumstances of Cuba. Many barracks and
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Some Memories of a Soldier
other public buildings were converted into school-houses, while
more were built and others leased. Millions of dollars' worth
of modern school equipment was purchased in the United
States and distributed all over Cuba. As there were not nearly
enough school-teachers to fill the void, summer normal schools
were organized, and those eminent philanthropists of Boston,
Major Henry Higginson and Dr. Eliot of Harvard, interested
themselves in having our teachers receive tuition at Harvard.
These volunteers were taken up to Boston in transports until
we had enough instructors for our purposes, and seven hundred
thousand children were enrolled.
Whatever may have been the condition of the University of
Havana before the war, when we found it, it was little more
than a name. General Wood put it on its feet and established
it in the building of the Ordnance Department on the hill of
the Pirotéchiña and started it on its way.
It was discovered that there was no public library in all
Cuba and never had been. I brought the matter to the attention
of General Wood, saying that it would be a shame for us to
leave Cuba without establishing a public library where a Cuban
might find reference books to help him write the history of his
country. This idea struck the general very favorably, and he
told me to investigate the subject. I reported that the two best
libraries in Cuba were those of the Count of Fernandina and
one Pedro Morales, and I suggested that their collections be
purchased and arranged in the Fuerza, and that a Cuban who
had been educated in a library in Paris be placed in charge.
The general directed that my plan be carried out, and that is
the history of the origin of Cuba's first public library.
After our departure the library was moved from the Fuerza
to my old quarters in the Maestranza and was when I last
heard of it in flourishing condition.
When we first arrived in Havana the shore near the Punta
Castle was a tin-can dump, and the neighborhood had never
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 243
received attention. There was no malecon, no place for the
band. The center of the Prado, the most popular promenade in
the city, was of gravel that ruined ladies' dresses. Colonel
Black was directed to pave this with asphalt, and he began the
construction of the malecon at the Punta wall and carried it
out by degrees to the Reina Battery near the San Lazaro
Hospital where construction was perforce brought to a halt by
our recall to the States. I am told that it now extends far
beyond this point and is one of the famous public works of
the city.
RAILWAYS AND MAHOGANY BRIDGES
General Grenville Dodge, the chief engineer of Sherman's
march to the sea and of the construction of the Union Pacific
Railway, came down to Havana with Sir William Van Horne,
the builder of the Canadian Pacific, to foster a railway from
Santa Clara to Santiago de Cuba. We assisted their operations
all we could and saw a good deal of them in Havana. They
obtained a part of the right of way for the railway on condition
that they would not cut any mahogany, and instructions were
given their engineer to refrain from using the precious timber.
It was not long before cries of anguish came up to Havana,
complaining of the cutting of mahogany. The engineer was
sent for and denied the charge, saying that he had cut only
caoba. It happened that this is the Spanish name for mahogany,
of which he had built a bridge. The wood was so valuable that
it paid the railway to substitute a steel bridge.
We saw much of General Dodge later in Washington and
New York, and we all loved him. When he died at Council
Bluffs, I was telegraphed at Washington to send a caisson for
his funeral. I ransacked all the Western country for a caisson
artillery harness until one was found at Fort Leavenworth and
ordered up for his funeral. I fully intended going out from
Washington myself but was prevented by necessity. He was
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one of the finest old soldiers of the Civil War, and I felt it a
great privilege to be associated with him and to have his
friendship.
BANKS
Before the American occupation of Cuba, the people knew
little about the use of checks and were very distrustful of
them. An old Spaniard when called upon to make a payment
would take sixty thousand dollars in gold out of his strong box
for the purpose. Checks were not wanted.
The American government established an American trust
company as the fiscal agency of Cuba with a branch in Havana,
with whom our customs and other revenues were deposited, and
through which the government disbursements were made. This
company had deposited more than a million dollars' worth of
the bonds of the city of Havana, with the government as
security for the faithful performance of its duty. Later on, it
had got into some difficulty with its old Spanish directors who
had formed the Banco Nacional de Cuba, and General Wood
had arranged matters in Washington to turn over the fiscal
agency of the island to this bank. He directed me to return the
Havana bonds to the old fiscal agency and relieve it from fur-
ther duty as fiscal agent, upon which it would give the bonds
to the Banco Nacional de Cuba as arranged in some way be-
tween them in New York. The latter would give the bonds back
to me as security as the new fiscal agent of Cuba, and we would
deposit with it our funds thereafter and make our disburse-
ments through it as our agent.
I accepted this without examination until it came time to
carry out my instructions. General Wood was ill with typhoid
fever, and the doctor would not allow him to be spoken to. It
occurred to me that the accounts of the New York company
should be audited before their security was returned to them
lest I should be fastening a lawsuit on the island of Cuba.
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 245
They became impatient in Washington and sent me several
cables to withdraw at once the funds then deposited and to
deposit them with the Banco Nacional and make disbursements
through them. I sent for the cashier, who informed me that the
cash in the bank was far short then of what it owed the govern-
ment and that there were on the books in addition seven hun-
dred thousand dollars of deposits of the people of Cuba, not
then available for payment. I saw at once that if I demanded
the withdrawal of all the government cash it would cause a run
on the bank, which would close its doors since it could not hope
for aid from the Spanish directors it had quarreled with, and it
would take a long time to get cash down from New York.
My refusal to give up the bonds embarrassed the Banco
Nacional very much, but it could not be helped. The auditor
was started at once on the books of the trust company. In the
meanwhile the payments were made directly by the customs
officer in cash as the auditor proceeded. He would notify me to
return bonds covering the expenditures of each province, one
after another, beginning at Santiago de Cuba with two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars, and so on, province by province,
until all were released and the transfer completed. General
Wood was carried down to the steamer to go north for recup-
eration, and the vice-president of the Banco Nacional told him,
as he told the directors of the trust company in New York,
that they were doing business only through the kindness and
consideration of Colonel Scott of Havana.
General Wood's illness, during which he could not be con-
sulted, placed me in a serious dilemma. The ordinary course
would have been for me to send notice to Washington that he
had a severe case of typhoid and could not be expected to
return to duty for some months, requesting the designation of
a substitute commander. But everybody knew that if some
commander with influence were sent down and installed in
Havana, he might be able to oust General Wood completely,
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depriving him of the fruits of his previous labors. On the other
hand, if I should try to carry on during his absence, it would
be at a great risk to myself, for I am no more immune to
mistakes than any one else and the first blunder brought to the
attention of Secretary Root might bring about my sudden
disappearance from Cuba, with a killing frost for all my little
reputation at the same time. A little reflection, however, made
it clear that since General Wood was too ill to take care of his
own affairs, it was for me to take care of them for him, regard-
less of the cost to myself, and I carried on without any author-
ity until he returned safely to his command long afterward.
General Wood had been accustomed at times to handle some
of his affairs through the Cuban cabinet without saying any-
thing to his office about them. One of these culminated while
he was still unable to be seen.
A Cuban estate in which the consuls-generals of France,
Germany, and Costa Rica were involved was advertised for
sale, and no one around the office knew anything about it.
General Wood, in whose hands it had been could not be con-
sulted. I stopped the sale in order to investigate, since the
transaction involved more than a million dollars, and a fearful
scandal might result if everything were not regular. This
brought in the German consul-general, breathing slaughter in
the most offensive and arrogant manner.
I said, "Baron, I would be obliged if you would alter your
manner here." Then the lid blew off, and I had to say, "Baron,
if you cannot alter your manner in this office, I would be
obliged if you would leave it," ringing for the orderly to show
him out. Then, with all discretion thrown to the winds, he be-
gan to tell me what his kaiser was going to do to me. Still
sputtering, he was ushered out by the orderly. Looking back
in the light of recent events, one sees that Germany, even
then, hoped to control our destinies.
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 247
THE ISLE OF PINES
One day while I was acting governor of Cuba in Governor
Wood's absence, an American delegation came up from the
Isle of Pines to Havana stating that they had settled and
invested their money there under the authority of the Treaty
of Paris, which provided that all the western islands of the
West Indies belonged to the United States except Cuba, and
on the strength of the assurance of some senators in Washing-
ton that the Isle of Pines was American territory. Now the
Cuban authorities were demanding the payment of taxes from
them, and they had come to Havana to ask me to declare the
Isle of Pines American territory.
The Isle of Pines was sixty miles south of Cuba and their
contention seemed at first glance to have merit in view of the
provisions of the Treaty of Paris, but after looking into the
matter somewhat and in a lucid interval I refused to comply
with their request for the reason that the Isle of Pines was
a part of the government of Cuba, having long been under the
jurisdiction of the Province of Havana with its seat of govern-
ment in the capital city of the province. The commission went
away with direful threats about what the Senate was going
to do to me for robbing good Americans of their property.
Their application was sent up to the War Department with
report of action and reasons therefor, which were approved by
the War Department. This by no means brought a settlement,
but with senatorial encouragement the agitation went on even
after a decision had been made by the Supreme Court of the
United States that the Isle of Pines had always been a part
of Cuba.
This view of the Supreme Court was embodied in the first
treaty drawn up with the Republic of Cuba, but sinister influ-
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Some Memories of a Soldier
ence prevented the ratification of this treaty by our senate for
twenty years, leaving Cuba with the only impression possible
under the circumstances, that the United States intended to rob
Cuba of the Isle of Pines. I am glad to be able to say that
this treaty has lately been ratified and our reputation cleared
of the suspicion under which we have lain for two decades.
POLITICS
When the whole island of Cuba had become tranquil and
people were at work everywhere, General Wood thought it time
to begin the education of the people in the exercise of the
franchise, and rules for the election of municipal officers were
published. The elections passed off very creditably, probably
the first representative and honest elections Cuba had ever had.
Several, however, were contested, notably the election for
mayor of Cienfuegos. Captain F. Foltz of the Second Cavalry
and I were sent down to supervise the recounting of the votes.
The mayor had been an appointee of General Wood. The
skeptical saw something sinister in the recount. "Colonel Scott
has gone down there to count in the friend of the administra-
tion," it was whispered about knowingly. But it happened just
the other way, for the friend of the administration was counted
out.
It was then asked upon all sides, "What manner of men are
these who have the power to count in their friends but who
count them out?" Nobody could comprehend such extraordi-
nary people.
The Cubans divided into parties with high-sounding names,
but they actually knew little about party politics. Like Mexico,
politics are mainly personal-although in Mexico they follow
the leader that promises the most loot. They do not know,
moreover, what you are talking about when you speak of party
policies. They will usually tell you that they are for la partida
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 249
de la reforma, blinking at you like an owl, but of what sort of
reform they have not the vaguest conception.
Many of the new mayors contemplated discharging the
police en masse in order to make room for political appoint-
ments. I warned the mayor elect of Havana against this. The
police of Havana had become a well drilled, efficient, and fear-
less body of men, secure in their belief that they could not be
molested in the discharge of their duty so long as they were
correct. That this fine force should be ruined in a day for
political reasons was unthinkable, and it was certain that no
new body could be independent. General Wood told me to
issue an order protecting them.
Since this was a military intervention, every order I signed
by direction of the governor-general had the force of one of
our Acts of Congress, to be adjudicated in the courts. We were
extremely careful of the kind of orders we issued, taking into
due account the character of the people and their history, and
all orders were scrutinized by our judge-advocate, Colonel
Edgar Dudley, who put them in proper form and saw that
they did not conflict with each other. Some few of them were
foreign to the national genius, such as those providing for the
writ of habeas corpus and marriage by a justice of the peace,
but it is a remarkable fact that although the Cuban might
have been expected to abrogate every one of the laws of the
interventores by a blanket act at the first meeting of the Cuban
Congress, the laws were so necessary for their well-being and
so particularly suited to the temperament of the Cuban people
that not half a dozen were abrogated during the next four
years of freedom from the interventor, and I am told that
most of them are still in effect, although they have been codi-
fied and are no longer in the shape of military orders.
Although the law forbade the discharge of the police except
for some just cause, the press reported that the mayors of
Santiago and Cienfuegos had both discharged their whole police
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Some Memories of a Soldier
force upon their first day in office. A telegram was sent them
asking if this were true, and both replied that it was. A second
telegram pointed out to them that they had violated the law
and must reinstate their police. The mayor of Santiago did as
directed immediately, but the mayor of Cienfuegos asked per-
mission to come to Havana for a conference.
He appeared with his backer, José Miguel Gómez, governor
of Santa Clara, afterward president of Cuba, who had come
along to intimidate me. I listened patiently to the mayor for
half an hour until he was through, when I told him that he had
given me no reason why he should break the law. He burst
out, "I cannot put them back!" and I told him that if he could
not put them back we would have to find some one who could.
Whereupon he jumped up, bade me a very punctilious adieu,
and went out, followed by his backer, who had not opened
his mouth. As he passed through the office of Captain Frank
R. McCoy, the general's aide asked him something about
Cienfuegos, and he replied, "I am no longer mayor of Cien-
fuegos!" He was given time to change his mind, but when
it was found that he did not wish to change it and had moved
out of the mayor's office, a new mayor was appointed as pro-
vided in the law.
This episode made a great commotion all over Cuba, and it
became a cause célèbre. The senator of Cienfuegos came up to
Havana, announcing that he was going to make such a cam-
paign against me in the press that I would have to leave Cuba
within ten days, but the press refused to print his material.
The mayor then went up to Massachusetts with several
admiring friends of his, and saw General Wood, who declined
to reinstate him.
Sometime thereafter, at a dinner given by the city of Havana
to the North Atlantic Squadron, what was my surprise and
pleasure when the ex-mayor came up and asked if I would
shake hands with him! I told him I would be most glad to do so.
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 251
Later in Cienfuegos when the city was holding a theater
performance for the navy, a box was given me. Colonel Robert
Thompson, the friend of all mankind, including the army and
navy, came into the harbor in his yacht with a party of guests,
and the ex-mayor offered him his box, whereupon I invited
the ex-mayor and his daughter to sit with Mrs. Scott and me.
All Cienfuegos looked up at us in astonishment at seeing the
lamb and the lion lying down together, with the lamb outside.
And thus in harmony and friendship ended a very disagreeable
episode.
General Wood had passed through Cienfuegos a little while
before and had announced on arrival in Havana that he would
have to go back to settle the labor troubles which were ruining
the commerce of that port. Conditions failing to better them-
selves during the next ten days, he remarked, "You and I will
have to go down to Cienfuegos." Ten days more went by, and
he said to me, "I wish you would go down to Cienfuegos and
clean up that mess"; and it was surmised that there must be a
bad situation in which the general did not want to burn his own
fingers.
I gathered a few details from the captain of the port, an
officer of the infantry, who told me that the state of affairs was
impossible. Every interest in the port was fighting every other
interest. Conference after conference had been held, resulting
only in worse entanglements than before, with the entire popu-
lace worked up to such a pitch that every citizen was ready
to cut his neighbor's throat.
I called on my old friend, Barker, the chief quartermaster,
who told me that it was an outrage to send me to become in-
volved in a situation which could only result in the loss of my
prestige in Cuba.
Returning to the captain of the port I directed him to sum-
mon all of the various interests to his office. Upon their arrival,
I said: "The governor-general is much concerned over the
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Some Memories of a Soldier
situation at Cienfuegos, because you are killing the goose that
lays your golden egg, and he has sent me to ask you what the
trouble is. Don't you like golden eggs?"
Importers, exporters, lancheros, etc., all began to gesticu-
late and talk at once. As soon as the captain of the port could
quiet them I said I could only hear one man at a time and
that if they would all go out and select a spokesman for each
interest, they would have the opportunity to speak one at a
time, and we would begin again, in a more orderly manner.
I listened to them for two days and nights, when the captain
of the port blew up. He asked: "Why don't you kick every one
of those fellows out of here? They've talked now for more
than two days and we haven't gained an inch. Let's kick them
all out." I told him he had tried his way and had not got any-
where, and I would be obliged if he would allow me to try
mine.
I listened to them for seven days and some nights until they
were all completely talked out. When they announced that
they had nothing more to say, they were handed two papers,
each suggesting a solution and told that I would be glad to have
them take their choice and sign either one. They rejected the
first completely, but all of them signed the second, which was
the same as the first, couched in slightly different language.
This was presented to General Wood in Havana, who was
asked whether the signed project would suit him; for he had
given me no idea of his wishes as to the nature of settlement.
He told me to put it in effect, and two weeks later delegates
came up from every interest in Cienfuegos to thank General
Wood for sending me; and we had no more trouble there dur-
ing the remainder of our stay in Cuba, although it was the
most turbulent port on the island.
Years afterward General Marti and General Pino Guerra
came up to visit West Point and said: "They are talking about
that settlement in Cienfuegos yet. No one knows how it was
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 253
done. You went down there. You didn't say anything, didn't do
anything. You just sat there, and when you left, it was all
settled. We don't understand it yet."
It was, however, only the result of a little courtesy and
patience. The Latin-American is very punctilious in his
courtesy and expects you to be the same. Our American
brusqueness turns his fur the wrong way. He would rather
have you refuse his request with courtesy than grant it with-
out. I was most careful in my courtesy, especially to some of
the negro members.
Again it requires patience to listen all day in the tropical
heat to a succession of empty speeches. Each one, however,
was entitled to his day in court, and I saw that he got it.
We have each a certain amount of energy like a charged
machine. If most of it is used up in friction, there is little
power left to do work, and so it is with many men. They use
up their power in talk; when they say something they feel
that they have actually done something, and their desire for
action is satisfied. When negotiating with armed and angry
Indians I am never anxious over the voluminous talker, but
I watch the silent one over in the corner. His desire for action
is not dissipated in talk, and he may act. When they talk out
all their opposition there is no power of resistance left, and
they must fall like ripe fruit into your hand. I have seen this
happen times without number, not only in Cuba, but in Mexico,
in the Philippines, on the Plains of the West. One only needs
an unfailing and sympathetic courtesy and an unconquerable
patience. If you have not these qualities, try some other busi-
ness, for diplomacy is not for you.
BANDITS
At the beginning of the period of occupation, there were
many bandits at large who were run down from time to time
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Some Memories of a Soldier
and jailed or shipped from the country. It was the custom
of these outlaws to notify a sugar planter that unless so many
five-dollar gold pieces were put in a certain place by a given
time, his plantation would catch fire with great loss.
One bandit by the name of Lino Lima was particularly
troublesome in Matanzas Province, but we were too busy to
attend to him for a while. I asked General Wood as he was
starting for Washington, "How about Lino Lima?" He said,
"You attend to him while I am away." The chief of the rural
guard of Matanzas Province was sent for and told that Lino
Lima was playing horse with him too much. He acknowledged
this but excused himself on account of the obstacle of the great
Zapata Swamp. I asked him if he considered the matter too
difficult for him. He said, "No, not too difficult." So he was
given fifteen days to arrest Lima and bring him to trial.
He made but a feeble effort and was superseded by another
official, who was given the same instructions. The latter began
to enliven matters for Lima and things began to happen. The
Cuban secretary of state came panting up the stairs in the
Palace, evidently much pleased with himself, saying, “I've
got it all fixed." I told him that I was much gratified at his
having fixed it, but would doubtless feel more grateful if he
would tell us what it was he had fixed. He replied that he had
fixed it so that Lino Lima would leave the island for five
hundred dollars. "Why," I said, "Captain McCoy and I would
both leave the island for half of that." He looked at me with
reproachful sorrow under the impression that he was being
spoofed and asked, "What will you do then?" "I will guarantee
him a fair trial," I said, "if he will come in and give himself
up. Otherwise I am going to catch him or kill him!"
Matters became still more lively in Lima's territory, and his
mother came in to intercede for him and was given the same
ultimatum. A few days afterward the rural guard tried to
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 255
arrest him. He resisted arrest, and I sent a cable to General
Wood in Washington, "Lino Lima is dead." There were no
more bandits after that in Matanzas Province.
CHURCH REFORM
In Spanish times the Catholic Church belonged to the state,
and at one time it was very corrupt in Cuba. It was said there
that the charges of the church were so great that the poor
could not afford either to die or get married, and in conse-
quence eighty per cent of the people of Cuba were illegitimate.
We made a law legitimatizing these children and permitting a
marriage by a justice of the peace for a dollar and a half.
A Cuban funeral among the poor is a very sad affair. You
hear music coming and see, in the midst of a crowd in the
street, a coffin carried by a few men, with a man walking be-
hind playing a fiddle. The coffin is rented only for the occasion
and is brought back to be used again for some one else. The
body is put in a niche in a wall with a square stone to close
the entrance. The rent must be paid promptly when due, or
else the bones are taken out and thrown on the bone pile in the
cemetery. From the size of the pile it is seen that many have
defaulted on their rent.
In Spanish times the governor-general and his staff used to
have a great part in the religious ceremonies, such as the
religious procession on the day of the patron saint of Havana,
San Cristóbal de la Habana, when the holy images were carried
through the streets with great pomp and ceremony. I used to
have to represent the governor-general when invited to the
cathedral and sit up in the chancel opposite the Bishop of
Havana or the Archbishop of Cuba during the high mass, after
which we would go to the house of the Bishop of Havana for
lunch (they were hospitality itself), where they would have
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Some Memories of a Soldier
everything to eat and drink known to civilized man, and we
would not be allowed to get away until four or five in the
afternoon.
I was brought up a Presbyterian of the Presbyterians in
Princeton within a stone's throw of Princeton Seminary, the
very essence of Presbyterianism in America, and I have won-
dered while sitting up in the chancel at high mass in the
Cathedral of Havana, opposite the Archbishop of Cuba, how
I had strayed so far off my accustomed range. But my asso-
ciation with Catholicism was not always so friendly. We had
one clash that sent us to the mat, and I believe that I am
the only individual I have heard of who has won a fight with
the Catholic Church.
When General Wood went up to the funeral of President
McKinley, he told me to hold a memorial service that would
be notable in Havana. Chauncey Baker, the chief quarter-
master, closed the Tacon Opera House and dressed it in mourn-
ing, and we got the tenor of an opera company to sing "Nearer,
My God, to Thee," the President's favorite hymn.
I invited the resident Methodist missionary to take part in
the ceremony. He said he would if he could have it all to
himself. He was reminded that McKinley was not President
of the Methodists alone. He said he did not care about that;
he must have it all; and he was forthwith ushered out by the
aide, and it was a great pity that the President's own church
could not be represented. A Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and
Baptist missionary each took part, and a Roman Catholic
priest of Havana, Emilio Fernández, played a prominent rôle
by permission of the Bishop of Havana. The Seventh Cavalry
was brought in from Camp Columbia, with several bands.
Fifteen thousand people attended, and the press pronounced it
to be the most memorable ceremony ever seen in Havana.
A few days afterward, Father Emilio came to me in great
distress, saying that he was being persecuted for having taken

ENTRANCE TO THE PALACE OF HAVANA AT HAVANA, CUBA
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 257
part in the ceremony, although he had had the permission of
the bishop, who withdrew his permission after the event, fright-
ened by the clamor. His enemies said that "he was no Spaniard
for having taken part in the memorial service of the man who
had made war on Spain; no Catholic because he had taken
part in a religious ceremony with those heretics." He was the
assistant to the cura of Monserrate, who was more than eighty
and was about to resign in his favor, but now they were
going to take the curacy away from him, and he had come to
ask for advice. I told him to go home and stay there, for this
was my fight, and he need not concern himself about it any
more.
I explained the case to General Wood on his return, adding
that we could not allow the man to be crushed for taking part
in the memorial services for our President. The general told
me to go as far as I liked, and so I took the matter up with
the Bishop of Havana and the Archbishop of Cuba, who were
frightened by the clamor made by the friends of a priest with
seven children who was anxious to get the church of Monser-
rate away from Father Emilio. They refused to yield an inch,
and our several conferences waxed at times quite acrimonious,
but it was an important matter, and must be settled satis-
factorily.
Finally, it was seen that we could not move them, and the
case was carried over their heads through the papal delegate
to Rome, where the Holy Father decided that Father Emilio
should be established in the church of Monserrate during life
and good behavior. This was then the best parish in the West
Indies and yielded him at that time ten thousand dollars a
year. When last heard of he was also a monsignor of the
church. He was a native of Castile and spoke the purest Cas-
tilian, and I often went to his church solely for the purpose of
hearing his diction. It was very different from the Spanish of
Mexico or Cuba in its clarity and beauty. Even a poor Spanish
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Some Memories of a Soldier
scholar could understand it and its cadence was delightful,
reminding me of the Latin of Virgil, much of which I had had
to learn by heart to expiate my sins at Lawrenceville.
A large element of the Cuban people was opposed to the
church and wanted it stripped of its property, as had been
done in Mexico and France. When I was in the city of Mexico,
in the time of General Diaz, the Catholic Church had to pay
rent to the government for its buildings. The enmity toward
the church in Mexico was the result of its mixing in politics.
A great percentage of the people of Cuba, however, were on
the side of the church, and we proposed at the separation to
deal justly by the church in spite of opposition.
The island was plastered with censos, which were bequests
of money to the church left for masses for the soul of the
donor or his family. Many of these bequests were in the form
of liens on property, found everywhere, often overlapping,
and throwing a cloud on the title of most of the landed prop-
erty of Cuba. A commission of learned Cubans studied for a
year the question of the separation of the church and state.
A lump sum was paid to the church as agreed upon with the
papal delegate for all the censos of Cuba, thus enabling all
titles to be cleared. The property was divided so equitably that
it pleased all factions; and although this happened about
twenty-five years ago, it was done so much to the satisfaction
of the Cuban people as well as to the church, and so justly,
that it has remained settled ever since. It required more than
seven years to accomplish this in the Philippines.
YELLOW FEVER
Cuba from far back in its history had been considered a
hotbed of el vómito (fièbre amarilla, yellow fever). This plague
was accustomed to cross over into the Southern States, follow-
ing the lines of travel sometimes pursuing the Mississippi
as far as St. Louis, and ravaging even New York and Phila-
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 259
delphia. A single case would throw the Gulf States into a panic,
causing at times what was called a "shotgun quarantine" to
prevent travelers from going north; and it was said that yellow
fever cost the United States a hundred million dollars a year.
No one could find out how it was carried from patient to
patient, and the theories were numerous. Dr. Carlos Finley,
a physician of Havana, thought the disease was carried by the
mosquito, and I have his pamphlet printed in 1884, advancing
this claim, which made him a subject of derision at Havana,
and which he was never able to prove.
Yellow fever was considered at one time a filth disease, and
General Ludlow cleaned up Havana so that the buzzards de-
parted. Still the deaths went on, and no man could tell how or
why. The disease then began to take toll of our staff. The chief
quartermaster died. The chief commissary, Peterson, became
ill, and his wife was sent for from Cincinnati.
Some thought yellow fever could be acquired from a pa-
tient's breath or perhaps from the black vomit itself, but no
one was certain whether you got it by drinking water, as in
the case of cholera, by breathing it in the air, or by eating
it with food. It seemed to strike here and there like lightning;
no one knew where to look for it.
Peterson's wife arrived a short time before he died and was
beside herself. One hour after his death she shot herself. This
made things very gloomy. I buried them beside each other, and
Captain Page, coming back from the funeral in my carriage,
was taken with a chill and was soon taken back along the same
road and buried beside the others.
The plague spread so that no one knew whom he would
find at the office in the morning. The chief surgeon, Valery
Howard, the chief paymaster, and the inspector-general all got
mild cases and recovered, but it took heavy toll from the
clerks. It seemed to be most virulent in the Segundo Cabo,
the palace of the Spanish lieutenant governor, now the Cuban
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Some Memories of a Soldier
Senate. I moved everybody out of it and had it sealed her-
metically, swabbing everything I could reach with formalde-
hyde and filling the building with formaldehyde gas. Although
we did not know it at the time, this was the very best thing
that could have been done, as it killed all of the infected
mosquitoes.
The staff was scattered all over Cuba, leaving Frank Stein-
hart, the chief clerk, Captain Hanna, and myself to attend
to business, and when General Wood returned from the north,
his staff had almost evaporated and his clerks were out at
Camp Columbia. A month after his return he reopened the
Segundo Cabo, and no more cases came from it, since all the
infected mosquitoes had been formaldehyded to death.
General Wood's staff in Cuba lost more in deaths from
yellow fever than the staffs of all the generals in the Spanish
War lost from all causes combined. I had a strong
fever myself one night and sent for Dr. Gorgas, who broke
the news to me gently by asking whether I wanted to be taken
to Las Animas Hospital or up to the Yellow fever ward in
the Cabaña Fortress across the bay. I had a very mild case,
however, and was soon over it. In fact I am not altogether
certain it was yellow fever, though Gorgas seemed to think it
was and, I suppose, would have given me a white certificate if
I had asked for it, which would have allowed me to land in
the United States without quarantine. These white certificates
are much sought by the Spaniards working on the vessels ply-
ing between Cuba and the United States as the holder draws
higher pay for being immune to the fever, as he may land
freely on both coasts.
As has been mentioned before, the mosquito theory of Dr.
Carlos Finley was regarded as a joke in Havana. Nobody
believed that such a tiny insect could do so much damage,
and the Cuban doctors ridiculed the idea.
Then one day Major Walter Reid of the medical corps came
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 261
to Cuba on an inspection tour. He had no money and no
mission, and he did not know any more than anybody else
about how yellow fever was carried. In a conversation one day
in the Palace about the cause of yellow fever, General Wood
told Major Reid that if he would investigate the matter, he
would start him with ten thousand dollars and furnish the
buildings and everything necessary.
We all coöperated as best we could. Doctors Lazear and
Carroll were associated with the experiments, showing great
enthusiasm, and some of the enlisted men offered themselves
for experiment, sleeping in the bed of deceased patients, until
it was proved that the disease could not be transmitted in that
way. A room was then divided by mosquito netting into de-
partments, in which men lived, and into which both infected
and uninfected mosquitoes were introduced without result.
The experiment was almost given up because it was not known
that it required fifteen days for the disease to incubate in the
mosquito. The infected mosquitoes were kept in test-tubes
and regularly fed to prolong their lives.
The action is very erratic, causing at times a comparatively
inocuous case and at others a virulent one. In this way one of
our nurses lost her life from a mosquito that had been giving
mild cases. Doctors Lazear and Carroll also lost their lives in
their zeal for science, veritable martyrs to the cause of
humanity.
When it was fully determined that the mosquito was the
means and only means by which yellow fever could be con-
veyed, the fact was published to the world, and General Wood
issued an order requiring every case of fever of any kind to be
placed at once under a mosquito net to prevent any insects
from being infected; Major Gorgas, the sanitary officer, was
directed to make a vigorous campaign against the mosquito in
Havana by attacking the breeding-places-water, barrels, tin
cans, and the like-by emptying receptacles and covering pools
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Some Memories of a Soldier
with oil. Gorgas came in one day and reported that there were
five cases of yellow fever at Santiago de las Vegas, seventeen
miles from Havana. I said: "Gorgas, here are two thousand
dollars. I wish you would go out and kill every mosquito within
a square of each one of those cases," which he did, and those
were the last cases in Cuba of yellow fever during our occupa-
tion except those caught in the quarantine from Vera Cruz,
Mexico.
While Dr. Finley was on the right track, he had no means
with which to operate, no money or authority to experiment
on human beings. In Dr. Walter Reid's experiments the Span-
ish government intervened to prevent experiments on Span-
iards, but General Wood stood behind him and saw him
through. He could never have succeeded alone any more than
Dr. Finley. It has always seemed to me that General Wood
never received his due share of credit in this matter. It re-
quired a broad-minded man to withstand the ridicule over
Dr. Finley's theory; it required also the conjunction of money
and authority, and if General Wood had not possessed all of
these, it is probable that the truth about yellow fever would
not be known even yet-or the Panama Canal dug.
A CONSTITUTION AND A PRESIDENT
With the restoration of law and order and the success of the
franchise, it remained only to draw up a constitution for the
new republic, elect a president and a congress, and appoint
Cuban understudies for all the American officials, so that when
the time came the Americans might step back, leaving Cuba
with a trained governmental force as a going concern, and
the ship of state might sail proudly and confidently on under
the new skipper and crew.
The constitution, drawn up by a convention of elected dele-
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 263
gates, I personally took to Washington, where it was approved
by the War Department and introduced into the Senate by
Senator Platt of Connecticut under the name of the Platt
Amendment, and it governs the relations between the United
States and Cuba to this day.
The nomination for the presidency was strongly contested,
but each of the contestants had been in the limelight too long
and had acquired enemies. Señor Estrada Palma, who had been
associated with the Cuban Revolution but who had long been
out of the country teaching school in the Erie Valley of New
York, was the only one without enemies, and was duly nomi-
nated and elected.
When the president elect arrived in Havana, General Wood
sent me to receive him and escort him to the Palace. A double
line of troops was formed along the dock to the carriage, and
only comparatively few of the prominent Cubans were per-
mitted on the dock. When the president elect came ashore,
these patriots became tremendously excited and would have
mobbed him in their enthusiasm. Often they would launch
themselves at him like a bolt, head first, horizontally, and I
had to punch a number of them with my fist with all my
strength and knock them out of the way. President Palma
was more than seventy years old and quite frail and would
have been crushed to death if undefended.
We started up from the dock in a low victoria with mounted
escorts front and rear. The excited populace filled the streets
outside the curbs, leaving barely room for the carriage to pass,
and now and then an enthusiastic citizen would hurl himself
headlong into the carriage, only to be knocked off by a police-
man's club. I breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief on reaching
the Palace and turning the President over to the general, intact.
During the interval between arrival and inauguration on
May 20 I took the new leader about the city in a carriage and
264
Some Memories of a Soldier
pointed out to him the monuments of antiquity, making him
promise me to do all in his power to protect them. I pointed out
in particular the Fuerza, built by the order of Hernando de
Soto in 1538 before he came to explore the Mississippi; the
destruction of this venerable old landmark, for the purpose
of erecting a post-office on its site, I myself had thwarted
several times.
I directed to the president's attention the little Martello
Tower at San Lazaro, a fortress which, built as a watch-tower
after the looting and burning of Havana by pirates in 1598,
I had likewise saved from the engineers who proposed tearing
it down to permit the passage of a street railway, making them
purchase a house instead and cut through it.
The Morro Castle and the Castilla de la Punta (1598), as
well as the Cabaña and Atarés (after 1764), were all still
intact when I last heard of them. These historic structures
are a magnificent heritage for Cuba, and should be preserved
forever. It is a curious thing that they should have been pro-
tected by the Northern stranger from destruction by the
native. I believe, however, that the native has now advanced
far enough to appreciate the distinction which such buildings
lend Havana, and will value them himself, not only for their
historic significance but for their rare medieval beauty, which
accords so well with the Old-World Moorish aspect of the city
itself, so different from anything to be seen in our own country.
It is a remarkable fact that when it was desired to repro-
duce the gates of the old Spanish fort at St. Augustine, Florida,
the original drawings, by which the gates were replaced, were
found in the archives of the engineers at Tacón numero uno,
General Ludlow's headquarters, and the records showing that
the silver dollars used to pay the troops of George Rogers
Clark, engaged in taking Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin from
the British, were obtained in Havana, were also unearthed in
that ancient city.
OF
/C

CATHEDRAL OF HAVANA AT HAVANA, CUBA
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 265
SOCIETY AND MANNERS
The architecture of Cuba in general was an unfailing source
of interest to me. That of the older part was derived from
the architecture of the Moors of Seville. The crooked streets
had "just growed" like Topsy and often curved around out of
sight, paved with cobblestones-with the exception of Calle
Obispo, paved with Belgian block from Connecticut. The
Cuban resents the antique appearance of his towns and always
mentions the streets of Cienfuegos with approbation as having
been trazada a la cordelle, traced out with a rope, but they fall
far short of the streets of old Havana in picturesqueness.
My classmate, Colonel Slocum, had charge of the rural
guard of Cuba, and, bringing his band to play in the plaza,
was called upon for five cents by the owner of the concession
for furnishing metal chairs for the plaza. The Cuban tongue
is incapable of saying "Slocum" as we do and always puts an
"e" before the "s"; i.e., "Escott, Esloco." Slocum did not
understand about the chair concession, thinking the man was
trying to charge him for listening to his own band. The Cuban
became more and more excited, and the rural guard aide tried
to calm him down by telling him who Slocum was-"That is
Comandante Esloco." He replied that he did not care whether
the comandante es loco (is crazy) or not, but that he wanted
his money. He got it.
Within a few days of my arrival in Havana I took up an
intensive study of the Spanish language. The foundation re-
ceived at West Point helped me greatly, and it was not very
long before I could go out in society and hold my own.
We were received in a very kindly manner and soon acquired
a wide acquaintance, finding Cuban society most attractive.
Many Cubans have been educated in Paris and New York and
have traveled widely. The daughters of the Count of Fernan-
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Some Memories of a Soldier
dino, a grandee of Spain, were goddaughters of the Empress
Eugénie, and danced, sang, and played well on the piano and
guitar, having performed on the amateur stage. Both were
charming cosmopolitan women, speaking three languages, and
both were married to grandees of Spain.
The Cuban is very fond of sport, betting heavily on the
races, and on the Basque game of pelota, which is the most
strenuous game within my knowledge. Every winter a Basque
team was brought over from the Basque provinces of Spain
to play in the Fronton of Havana, where very large sums
change hands with startling rapidity.
Counteracting the native love of gambling, however, the
people of Cuba are extremely temperate, and it is a rare thing
indeed to see a Cuban intoxicated. He likes to sit in an open-
air café with his family, listen to the music, and drink
refrescos made of the different fruits-limón zapote, guana-
bana, granada, chirimoya, mamey-which "cheer but not in-
ebriate."
The educated Cuban has a highly cultivated ear for music,
and opera companies came down through the United States
from France for their season, when the Tacón Opera House,
then the fourth in size in the world, would be filled to the ceil-
ing, offering a wonderful display of beauty in Parisian finery
and flashing jewelry.
The Spanish custom of reserving a box in every theater and
opera house for the governor-general was continued during
our time, and the members of the staff made use of this box
whenever it was not desired by the governor-general. If a play
was found uninteresting we would try another. Personally, I
always derived more pleasure and instruction from the more
humble theaters intended for the common people. Here were
seen the real plays of the life of the different provinces of
Spain, showing their provincial costumes and dances. As there
are two pieces of music heard in every Spanish-speaking com-
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 267
munity throughout the world, "La Paloma" (The Dove) and
"La Golondrina" (The Swallow), there are two plays, "Los
Gigantes y Cabezudos" (the Giants and Dwarfs) and "Don
Juan Tenorio," which every child knows as our children used
to know Punch and Judy.
A troupe of children about twelve or fifteen years of age
from Seville played an engagement in Havana. It was the last
thing on the program to hold the audience, and we used to end
up there every night, after visiting friends, to see those children
dance.
The Cuban girls are very strictly chaperoned, and I never
saw one more than ten feet from her chaperon during four
years in Havana unless on the dancing floor. The "Habanera"
seemed to be their favorite dance.
We used to sit up on the roof warm evenings and listen to
the music of the African slaves, made on a cornet accom-
panied by the guirra, a long slim gourd with ridges made
across it, played against some sort of a sounding-board by
drawing a stick back and forth across the ridges. This was
the first syncopated music I ever heard, and I used to listen to
it from the roof, played at some negro ball in the neighbor-
hood, until I became chilled in the damp air as morning
dawned. It was without a doubt the parent of our jazz music
brought from Africa.
Of all the Spanish dances which I witnessed, including
the Valenciana from Valencia and the Malagueña from
Malaga, the most graceful of all, to my mind, is the Sevillana
from Seville, where it is danced out of doors by the Manola
girls, with castanets and gorgeous Spanish shawls.
FAREWELL
During the greater part of the occupation the mess of the
headquarters staff was run in my quarters in the Maestranza
268
Some Memories of a Soldier
and was an element contributing in no small degree to the
success of the administration. It was a large mess with officers
of every corps and rank, high and low. All the headquarters
papers passed through my hands, and I noticed at once the
incipient quarrels arising between the different departments
before they got headway, and would take occasion to call the
officers concerned quietly together after dinner and compose
the differences. In this way the staff was kept together as
friends, a solid unit behind the governor-general until the end.
It is not unlikely that I rendered the administration greater
service in this way than in any other.
We had a wild Cuban negro named Bombero among the
waiters, from whom Colonel Greble especially derived much
amusement and never failed to draw him out. He was thought
to have taken something of mine, and was sent up to the chief
of police to be questioned and asked what he did with Colonel
Scott's property. He said he did not have it. "Yes, you have,"
insisted the chief of police; "How do you know?" demanded
Bombero. "A little bird told me," the chief said. Bombero came
back without having given any information but perfectly en-
raged against the chief of police. "Just figure to yourself," he
exploded, "the kind of justice we Cubans get from that man.
He won't listen to a word we say; he listens to what the
little birds tell him!" I watched old Bombero for a long time
and became convinced later that he never took the property,
and we got back to our pristine status of confidence and gave
the lie to the little birds. One of the last things I noted as we
were leaving the harbor of Havana for the last time was old
Bombero, dressed in his nondescript uniform, on the very top
of the Maestranza brandishing a white towel from a broom,
in farewell to his American friends whom he had served well
for four years.
Many foreigners did not believe that we were going to give
up Cuba and come away as we had promised. We all knew,
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 269
however, that the promise would be kept in due time. When
it was fulfilled, there were many Cubans themselves who con-
sidered our departure premature; conditions, they thought,
were not yet ripe for complete independence, as was proved
indeed by the necessity of our return at the end of another
four years for a second intervention.
In fine, nevertheless, we had found Cuba four years before
a backward nation broken by a decade of war, her treasury
bankrupt, her institutions run down and neglected, the titles
to her landed property clouded, her industries prostrate; with-
out knowledge of the use of checks, without police or sanitary
service, without schools or government of any sort whatsoever;
with disease of every kind rampant to an abnormal degree,
with her lepers and insane wandering loose about the island,
with twenty thousand starving and homeless sick and dying
in the streets. And after a period of arduous and conscientious
labor, we were leaving her with peace and order restored in
every part, with a trained democratic government on its feet,
with new roads and lighthouses, with school-houses taking care
of three hundred thousand children, with a public library in
Havana for the first time in history and the University of
Havana reconstituted; with every city on the island sanitated,
human glanders reduced seventy-five per cent, and smallpox
and yellow fever eliminated entirely; with a customs fleet in
the harbor, a strong fiscal and auditing system established,
and a million dollars in the public treasury.
At twelve o'clock, noon, May 20, 1902, in the old palace in
the Plaza de Armas, in the presence of a brilliant company,
General Wood turned over the sovereignty of Cuba, and, after
taking down the American flag from the Morro Castle, left the
island with his staff, amid the plaudits of a grateful and happy
people, aboard the cruiser Brooklyn, the rest of his command
following in army transports.
Secretary Root, in his annual report for 1902, gave it as
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Some Memories of a Soldier
his opinion that the military intervention of Cuba formed one
of the finest pages of American history; and I heard Lord
Cromer, the regenerator of Egypt, say in Cairo a statement
confirmed at West Point in 1910 by General Lord Kitchener of
Khartoum in practically the same words-that the regenera-
tion of Cuba by the United States had not been equaled by
any race in any age.
The following letter deals with my stay in Cuba:
1812 H. Street, N. W., Washington, D. C., July 11, 1902.
Business Pertaining to the Late Military Government of Cuba.
To the Adjutant General
United States Army,
Sir:
Washington, DC.
For consideration of the President.
I have the honor to invite your attention to Captain H. L. Scott,
7th Cavalry, formerly Lieutenant Colonel, Adjutant General of the
U. S. Volunteers, and to recommend him as an officer eminently fitted
by past experience, both by field and administrative work, for ap-
pointment as Brigadier General, U. S. Army.
Colonel Scott's record has been a long one, and possesses one dis-
tinguishing characteristic:
He has performed, in a highly satisfactory manner, every duty
assigned to him, whether it be of a military character or as an
agent in charge of Indians or of a scientific character while on
duty at the Smithsonian Institute, or of a civil or administrative
character while Adjutant General upon the Staff of the late Briga-
dier General William Ludlow, Military Governor of Havana, and
subsequently as Adjutant General upon my staff during a greater
portion of the time I was Military Governor of Cuba.
Upon the relief of Colonel Richards on account of failing health,
I selected Colonel Scott solely upon his well-known record for
efficiency, upon his reliability, faithfulness, tact and judgment,
and his performance of duty in the many and various positions
in which he has been placed during the last two years has been
such as to entirely justify the wisdom of my choice.
During my various absences from the island, Colonel Scott has
The Spanish-American War and Cuba 271
been, to all intents and purposes, Governor of the Island, at least
in all that pertains to the daily administration, meeting and solv-
ing of many problems which were constantly coming up. Last
summer, when I was incapacitated by typhoid, he was in charge
of affairs for aproximately two months.
Captain Scott, during the war with Spain, served as Adjutant Gen-
eral, 1st and 2nd Divisions, 1st Army Corps; Adjutant General
under the Military Governor of Havana and Adjutant General to the
Military Governor of Cuba. It is safe to say that in these positions
he saw more military and civil administrative work than many
older officers of higher rank have seen in their entire military career.
Colonel Scott as shown by the documents accompanying this let-
ter, has always been successful in the work assigned to him, and has
always gained and retained the entire confidence and respect of the
officers under whom he served. I invite attention to the accompany-
ing papers, which tell the story of his army service, setting forth
the opinion of those who are in the best position to judge.
There is no officer with whom I am acquainted who I believe
would better discharge the duties and obligations incumbent upon
a Brigadier General of the United States Army.
Colonel Scott was a member of the class of 1876 and is forty-
eight years of age. I am, sir,
Very respectfully,
LEONARD WOOD,
Brigadier-General, U. S. Army.
FIRST ENDORSEMENT.
Headquarters Department of Havana.
April 8, 1899.
Respectfully forwarded through Headquarters Division of Cuba,
approved and recommended. Major Scott is one of the most capable
and accomplished officers in the service of an admirable poise and
judgment thoroughly familiar with army administration and espe-
cially familiar and experienced in the work of an Adjutant General.
It gives me pleasure to state these facts and express my apprecia-
tion of Major Scott's exceptional value and qualifications in every
respect.
WILLIAM LUDLOW,
Major-General, U. S. V., Commanding.
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Some Memories of a Soldier
The following is an extract from the annual report of the
Secretary of War for 1902: 1
I know of no chapter in American history more satisfactory than
that which will record the conduct of the military government of
Cuba. The credit for it is due, first of all, to Brigadier-General
Leonard Wood, Military Governor of the Island.
*
*
*
and Colonel H. L. Scott, Adjutant-General of the Department.
'See also Appendix, first letter.
ELIHU ROOT,
Secretary of War.
PART IV
The Philippines
I RETURNED to Washington in May, 1902. My duties there,
and those of many others associated with me in the regenera-
tion of Cuba, consisted of "mopping up" our Havana affairs.
Returning to Washington one night from Columbus, Ohio,
in which State I spent some time selecting a site for a military
post, General Wood and I had a conference in the Pullman.
He told me that President Roosevelt wanted him to command
our troops in the Philippines, and asked would I go with him.
I consented.
Later General Wood told me the President had requested
that, en route to the Philippines, he lend study to the colonial
governments of England, Holland, France and Italy. General
Wood and McCoy also had invitations to attend the German
Army maneuvers. It was thus settled that, instead of sailing
west to the Orient, we would reach Manila the other way
around. McCoy and I, vastly pleased, spent much time study-
ing travel maps.
I wish I had space to recount some of my impressions of
this trip, but perhaps they do not properly belong among my
military memoirs. I can only say that the trip was intensely
interesting and educational to me. We sailed from Boston for
Genoa. We went to Naples, Rome, where we visited the king,
Venice and Vienna, where we witnessed a grand military re-
view and saw Emperor Francis Joseph. At Vienna we boarded
the Oriental Express for Constantinople, thence to Athens,
Cairo, and through the Red Sea and on to Bombay, Calcutta,
Singapore, Batavia, Java and eventually to Manila.
273
274
Some Memories of a Soldier
Our experiences were often amusing and always interesting.
We maintained contact, as far as possible, with American
diplomatic officers, who aided us in every way. General Wood,
McCoy and myself made some imperishable memories.
GOVERNOR OF SULU
In July, 1903, bidding good-by to friends in Manila, I sailed
with General Wood and his three aides, Captains McCoy,
Dorey and Langhorne, for Mindanao, southernmost of the
islands of the Philippine group.
Picture a long line of 182 tropical islands, with coral beaches
and covered with verdure, extending from the great island
of Mindanao, separating the Celebes from the Sulu Sea to
within sight of British North Borneo, and one sees the Sulu
Archipelago, a portion of the Moro Province of the Philip-
pines. About midway in the chain at 25° N. Lat. in the island
of Sulu, the largest of the group and the home of the fiercest,
the proudest, and the most powerful people in the Philippine
islands.
The Sulu Moros are fanatical followers of the prophet
Mohammed, and in the year 1903 they were still pirates and
slaveholders, accustomed to battle and bloodshed from their
earliest youth. A colony of Mohammedans was found settled
in Manila by the Spanish at their first landing on Philippine
soil in 1569, and it was the outstanding achievement of the
Spanish authorities during three hundred years of conflict
that they kept the Philippines from becoming Mohammedan
and established Roman Catholic Christianity as the dominant
religion, placing the Philippine race in civilization one hundred
years ahead of their neighbors.
At one time the sultan of Sulu considered himself the equal
of the kings of France and England and dealt with them ac-
cordingly. The Moro fleets ravaged the Asiatic seas to such
The Philippines
275
an extent that the governments of France and England in-
formed the Spanish that if the activities of the Moros were
not curbed, they would be compelled to take the islands away
from Spain and do a bit of curbing themselves. Spain pro-
cured steam gunboats with which she drove the little pirate
fleets of the Moros off the seas, but she never conquered them
on land, and when at length she evacuated the three small toe-
holds that she maintained as military garrisons, she left behind
her neither respect, affection, nor civilization, in spite of her
sacrifices of three hundred years.
I should explain that General Wood had been sent by
President Roosevelt to take command of all the troops on the
islands, but upon arrival in Manila it was found that his pre-
decessor, General Wade, an older officer though junior in
rank, had but a short time left on the active list, and General
Wood graciously waived his own right of rank to enable
General James F. Wade to serve out his term. In the mean-
while General Wood was ordered to take command of the
Moro Province as governor-general and commander of the
troops of Mindanao and Sulu.
We landed at Overton on the north coast of Mindanao and
rode across the island on horseback. We were rowed over Lake
Lanao in the middle of the island by picturesquely clad Moros,
who sang their native songs in unison with the movement of
their oars. Inspecting the military station at the end of the
lake, under the jurisdiction of my classmate, Colonel Alexander
Rodgers, we proceeded to Parang and Cotabato on the south
coast, where we made the acquaintance of the celebrated half-
caste Chinese ruler of the Rio Grande Valley, Datto Piang, a
very notable character, continuing on to Zamboanga, the head-
quarters of the province, where General Wood assumed the
command. Here we encountered for the first time Captain
Ford, an Englishman from Sandakan, captain of the English
ship Borneo under contract with our government as the gen-
276
Some Memories of a Soldier
eral's despatch-boat, with whom we had many pleasant voyages
in subsequent years.
After a few days we all boarded the Borneo, sailing south-
ward through the Sulu Archipelago, touching at Joló on the
island of Sulu, at Siasi and Bongao, where tiny white garrisons
were maintained, and thence over to Sandakan, British North
Borneo, to make the acquaintance of our English cousins,
whose hospitality we found to be as broad as the British Em-
pire, as wet and boundless as the sea. They would begin to
give you warm champagne at nine o'clock in the morning if
you would let them—not that they preferred it warm, but
they had made a virtue of necessity, since they had no ice,
and we thought we returned their hospitality more accept-
ably by sending them ice whenever a ship went their way. They
had fearsome names for their favorite brands of poison, and
I remember that when I wanted a green mint I was obliged
to call for it under the name of a "starboard light."
One English friend was greatly troubled over the pronuncia-
tion of the name of the capital of the Sulu Archipelago, and
kept saying, "But my dear fellow, how do you make Holó out
of Joló?"—apparently dissatisfied with our explanation that
the Spanish "j" is pronounced like our "h."
The governor of Sandakan invited me to go with him in
his launch twenty-five miles up the Sandakan River for soil
for his garden, and he added as an inducement that he would
guarantee that I would get an elephant. I had been a hunter
all my life without ever having so much as seen a wild elephant,
and here was my opportunity to get one; but the thought of
killing that great animal without the opportunity of utilizing
it was too heavy a burden for my soul to carry, and I had
to pass over my first and last chance to kill an elephant.
The English colonial governors live in state, far beyond
the means of the American governors, whose stipends will not
permit them to impress the native, much less the visiting
The Philippines
277
stranger. That is all very well at home; in foreign countries,
however, where appearance counts for so much, the influence
of the governor, and his prestige as a representative of the
United States, suffers, especially in contrast with the English
and Dutch governors. The governor-general of Java drew a
higher salary than our President and had several palaces to
live in. The governors I met in the Orient had big Sikh police
sentinels in front of their quarters, who asked the visitor to
register in a book, giving his name and address with probable
stay, which gave the governor information upon which he
might extend courtesies. As a result of our registration we
were invited by the governor of Sandakan to a bowling party
on a beautiful green, and he told us that Drake had been en-
gaged in a game of bowls when the Spanish Armada was
sighted off the English coast.
Returning from Borneo, we made short stops here and there
among the lesser islands to ascertain conditions and make the
acquaintance of the people. I usually asked where the ruler()
of the island had been born, and was invariably told that he
was a native of Sulu, showing that the people of Sulu dominate
the entire archipelago through their fiercer and stronger
character.
At last we arrived at Joló for the second time. The Sulu
capital is a charming little tropical town, primitive in the
extreme, with clean wide sandy streets shaded by tall um-
brella-shaped fir-trees (arbol de fuego), sweet-smelling ylang-
ylang, trees from the flowers of which the noted perfume is
distilled, and here and there bushes of the scarlet hibiscus.
The streets are straight and bordered by houses of two stories
with galvanized iron roofs. When a cocoanut falls on one of
them with a loud bang everybody thinks he has been shot,
suffering what the Spanish call un gran susto (a start or
fright).
The town is surrounded on the landward side by a high wall,
278
Some Memories of a Soldier
loop-holed for defense, and having three gates. The central gate
was kept open from six in the morning until six at night, when
it was closed and locked with all Moros outside. This gate was
always under heavy guard, and no Moro was allowed to carry
arms inside without a written permit from the governor; I am
glad to say that not a single violation of a permit occurred
during the term of my incumbency. Every soldier was obliged
to carry his side-arms everywhere to protect himself against
assault, for the shadow of sudden death was always present.
The population of the town of Joló, and the little barrios
under its protection outside the walls, represented many races
and nationalities. There were Americans, Germans, Spaniards,
Moros, Filipinos, Arabs, Hindus, Japanese, and negroes from
the Sudan, besides many Chinese who traded both inside and
outside the wall and whose little stores were scattered all over
the islands.
The Chinese are the traders or merchants of the Asiatic
islands, and some of them are quite wealthy. The captain
Chinaman of Joló was said to have been worth about three
hundred thousand dollars and was a most patriotic and trust-
worthy person. Originally from the city of Amoy, China, he
had lived in Joló during the Spanish régime, almost from the
beginning, and history has recorded of him in one of the very
early battles that "Capitán Leopoldo Don Canizares Tiana had
fought bravely all day on the first line." May his ashes rest
in peace as those of a brave and honest man and a loyal friend;
a Chinese of the Roman Catholic faith, a supporter of his
church and people.
General Wood directed the preparation at Joló of a force
of infantry, cavalry, and artillery as an escort to accompany
us on an information-gathering tour in the interior of the
island.
The principal interpreter of the Moro language (Jolóano)
was a German by the name of Charles Schück, born in Singa-
The Philippines
279
pore and brought up on the island of Sulu. During the Spanish
régime he had married a Moro girl, and this had caused a race
prejudice against him in the Joló garrison. We were warned not
to trust him, and General Wood refused to take him with us as
interpreter, relying instead on an ineffective Chinese half-breed
from Siasi, who was in such constant terror of the Moros that
he was afraid of his own shadow. The general became dis-
gusted with his inefficiency and switched over to Schück before
our second camp out. Schück had a brother Eddy, and a half-
brother, Julius, who at times were also interpreters.
The sultan of Sulu, the ruler of the archipelago, was absent
at Singapore. He had two brothers, the Raja Muda or heir
apparent, and the Datto Attick. The sultan never had any
children of his own.
The Raja Muda was acting as the ruler during the absence
of his brother. The night we camped near his residence he
failed to come out to call on the governor-general, sending
word that he was too ill to come. General Wood said to me,
"You go and get him." On the way to Maibun with Schück I
reflected deeply upon the disease that I should suggest he was
suffering from, and I settled on a boil as satisfactorily capable
of disproof.
The Raja Muda was found wrapped up in bed and was in-3
formed of the sorrow of the governor-general at his sufferings
from such a bad boil. He said yes, the boil was very painful;
too painful for him to leave his bed. Inquiry disclosed that the
boil was on his ankle, the most remote place under the covers
from where I stood near the head of the bed; so I sat down
at the foot and asked to see the boil, but it was far too painful
to be shown. The request was repeated with a little tug at the
covering which threatened to expose the ankle, whereupon the
boil jumped to the knee and finally to the crotch. When the
request to see it became more imperative, the Raja Muda
said: "My friend, to tell you the truth I haven't any boil to
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Some Memories of a Soldier
show you. My real trouble is that I have not yet recovered
from smallpox and cholera." I told him that if he had nothing
worse than smallpox and cholera, he would have to get on the
horse waiting outside and come with me, and he was forthwith
delivered safely to General Wood, carried from the horse to
General Wood's tent on the back of a slave, according to royal
custom.
I wondered during the night what effect the taking of their
ruler out of his bed and dragging him off against his will to
pay his respects to the infidel intruders would have on the
Moro people, and sent Schück to Maibun in the morning to
find out, expecting him to discover things there in a terrible
tumult. I was much relieved to hear that everything was very
quiet, and that the only effect produced was a vast ridicule
directed at the Raja Muda for having been caught so neatly
and completely in a lie.
Descending to the beautiful white coral beach near Siet Lake
we saw two transports anchored in the bay, bringing supplies
for the troops. I proposed to General Wood that each mounted
officer in the command put a dollar in a hat, the whole amount
to be given to the one who could first swim his horse twice
around the transports in a figure eight. I would put my dollar
in the hat and compete in the race, but would not take the
money, for I used to swim my old buffalo horse a mile out in
Devil's Lake, North Dakota, against his will, and I knew I
could do it. But no one would take me up.
At the next camp beyond at Taclibi the Borneo was the
only ship in the bay, and the other officers said to me, "You
talked so much last night about swimming horses; let's see
you swim yours around the Borneo."
The Taclibi beach was of a very different character; the
water for some distance from the shore was filled with rose
corals three feet in diameter and tall as a man, whose edges
were hard and sharp, making it difficult to get my horse

MAJOR-GENERAL LEONARD WOOD, GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF
CUBA, 1902
OF
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281
through them to deep water; he would cut his breast against
them under water, then rear, bringing his fore legs down on the
edge, and cutting them also.
The general's stenographer caught sight of us among the
corals, and thinking my horse was taking me out to sea against
my will, called for volunteers and came rowing out, asking
excitedly how he could help. It irritated me that he should
make such a commotion and alarm the whole camp, which was
turning out en masse to see me rescued, so I told him rather
brusquely, I fear, to take his boat back and mind his own af-
fairs. I did get a real fright, however, while swimming around
the stern of the Borneo, when I saw Captain Ford pointing
down into the water and thought he was warning me of a
shark, but I realized to my relief that he was only pointing a
place for a Chinaman to throw a rope. After making all my
turns around the ship, we got safely back through the coral
with a few cuts on the breast and legs of the horse, which soon
healed.
GOVERNOR OF SULU
Upon our return to Zamboanga, General Wood told me to
go back to Joló as governor of the archipelago and commander
of the troops, about seven hundred strong, with the compre-
hensive instructions, "You understand your business; go down
and attend to it." He urged me to take one of the Joló officers
as my secretary, but I did not know any of them, and they
were all due to return soon to the United States on the expira-
tion of their foreign duty. While sitting near the general on
the deck of the Borneo, while she was tied to the wharf, the
inter-island transport came and discharged passengers, and I
called out, "Oh, General! I see my secretary coming up the
dock!" It was Captain O. J. Charles, Tenth Infantry, an old
friend with whom I had served on the Plains before the Span-
ish War. We went down to Joló together, where he was ap-
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Some Memories of a Soldier
pointed secretary of Sulu and alcalde or mayor of Joló, where
he served with much credit until the expiration of his foreign
service tour.
I asked the members of the garrison the reasons for their
dislike of Schück, for General Wood did not want me to take
him as my interpreter, saying he would get me into serious
trouble, but I could get no answer other than that he was a
dangerous man. I had told the general that I was accustomed
to the use of interpreters, and that if he got his trolley off
the wire I would put it back.
I later found him the best interpreter I have ever known,
with a knack for putting my thought directly into the mind of
the Moro, and getting back his response in a way that enabled
me to talk them out of hostility times without number, avoid-
ing bloodshed. I found him honest and brave beyond compare,
and I am glad to remember that the last thing I did in Manila,
on coming back from leave in the United States, was to go
with General Wood to a jeweler's in the Escolta, where a gold
chain and watch were purchased by the general engraved
with the legend, "To Charles Schück-for gallant and faithful
services, from the Commanding General of the Philippine
Islands."
The Sulu Archipelago in 1903 was inhabited by approxi-
mately one hundred thousand Moros. The word "Moro" has
the same derivation as the word "Moor" and means a Mo-
hammedan of color. The Moro people are a portion of the
"Little brown brothers" of Governor Taft, although not always
either so little or by any means!-so brotherly. Their main
legitimate occupation is agriculture. They raise bananas, the
best class of Manila hemp with fiber eighteen to twenty feet
long, maize, tapioca, mountain rice, the mango, the mangosteen,
the lichi, durian, the breadfruit, and other tropical products.
Some are fishermen, who provide the market of Joló with
many varieties of cheap fish of fine quality and of every color
(4)
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283
in the spectrum. Some are expert pearl divers; notably those
from the island of Tapul, who make a specialty of exporting
both pearls and pearl shells. Others supply the markets of
China with edible birds' nests from caves near Borneo; with
sharks' fins, and with bêche-de-mer, a sea caterpillar cut in
sections and dried in the sun-not intended for consumption
by white people.
There is also a large exportation of copra from the finest
cocoanut palms in the world, as well as of various sorts of tex-
tiles. The Moro people are entirely self-supporting and are
very industrious. While some Mexican dollars come in from
China, the trading is mainly by barter; the few gold coins that
are received are used to ornament the handles of barongs and
to make jewelry. In 1903 Joló ranked third on the list of
revenue-producing ports of the Philippines.
The barong, it should be explained, was a razor-edged
cleaver with which a Moro could cut a man's body in two
at one stroke, after which he would chop his victim to bits
to test the blade of the weapon against the bone. The Spaniards
in the earliest times were armed with the old clumsy arquebus
which required a long time to reload. The Moro utilized this
convenient delay to charge home and chop to death many a
poor Spaniard fighting for his king.
The Moro people are descendants of offshoots from the
Malay Peninsula. The divergence of their language (Joloano)
from the Malay indicates a long period of separation and occu-
pation of Sulu.
The Joloanos-as the inhabitants of Sulu are called by the
Spanish, from the town of Joló, the only town occupied by
white people on the island of Sulu-write their language with
Arabian script, and their culture is partly Arab and partly
Hindu, the latter derived through Java. The Joloanos were
pagan until about 1400 A.D. when an Arab by the name of
Saripul Hassim came to Sulu. He made a peaceful conquest
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Some Memories of a Soldier
of the natives, converting them to the religion of Islam in the
space of two years; and he became the first sultan of Sulu,
the ancestor of the present sultan, Jamalul Kiram, who is best
known to the American public through George Ade's comic
opera, "The Sultan of Sulu," in which the momentous ques-
tion is broached as to whether the "cocktail followed the flag."
There were many questions connected with the real Jamulul
Kiram and his people that were far more tragic than comic.
He could trace his ancestors back through more than four
hundred years clear to Saripul Hassim and give you their
names in order, with the length of their reigns.
It was a fiction believed by the Spanish and American gov-
ernments that the sultan actually governed the Moro people.
He was, no doubt, the titular head of the religion of Islam in
the Sulu islands, but there was really no government as we
understand the word, and there never had been. The sultan
had no military force, no laws, nothing pertaining to a govern-
ment, except the headship that he himself represented. He
had a few councilors with high-sounding titles but no port-
folios. Hadji Taib was his "minister of war"; but there was
no army for him to administer nor anything warlike except
the Hadji himself. The ancestry and title of the sultan brought
him a little deference, but not enough to prevent powerful
dattos from making war on him if it pleased them so to do,
in which case he had to depend upon the good-will of friendly
chiefs, if such there happened to be. Sometimes they were
friendly, often not. A war made on the sultan by the brothers
Joakanain and Kalbi had ended a few years previously with-
out victory for either side.
The situation was analogous to that of England in the time
of the robber barons who each had their vassals, strongholds,
and castles. Sometimes they made war on each other or on
the king, who was not strong enough to control them, yet they
all at times yielded him deference. The fact that the sultan
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285
was the titular head of Islam in the islands gave him a certain
amount of respect; not, however, to be stretched too far.
There were no laws to be invoked, and no courts to administer
them, even had there been. Everything depended upon power
and custom. Custom would permit a man and his family to be
enslaved forever for the failure to pay a debt of five pesos
($2.50 in gold), if the creditor were powerful enough to carry
his point. The natives themselves likened Sulu to the sea
"where the big fish ate up the little fish," and there was no law,
no justice, no pity.
The Moros had been at war with the Spanish for more than
three hundred years. The town of Vigan on the north point of
the island of Luzón, twelve hundred miles from Joló, was
built some distance inland with a watch-tower on the shore to
give warning of the approach of a Moro fleet and in time for
the Filipino population to escape into the jungle before the
Moros could land. A similar watch-tower is standing to-day at
the entrance of the bay of Manila, from which the Moros took
a thousand Spanish and Filipino slaves in one foray. Other
towers were maintained on the coasts of Borneo, Celebes, the
Spice Islands and the Moluccas, and slaves were taken from
as far to the west as Siam and as far to the southeast as New
Guinea. The perpetrators of these forays were not national
forces but were the followings of several robber chiefs, allied,
for the occasion, to procure slaves and loot. It is not surpris-
ing that a Filipino turns pale even yet at the very name of
Moro. Bishop Rooker of the Catholic Church, while on a visit
to me at Joló in 1905, remarked, "I live in Iloilo, the second
city in size in the Philippines, and if I were to go out into the
middle of the street and shout that the Moros were coming,
the Filipino population would take to the brush."
As early as 1569 a Spanish fleet came suddenly out of the
sea and captured the Moro Cottas-the fort-at Joló before
a sufficient force could be assembled to protect them. A Span-
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Some Memories of a Soldier
ish governor was installed in the forts with a garrison, and the
fleet sailed for Manila, Immediately upon its departure the
governor was killed and his garrison thrown into the sea. This
same proceeding was repeated down the centuries, leaving
Joló unmolested for a decade or two, until at length a bare
toe-hold was established about 1876, when our old friend
Admiral Cervera of Santiago de Cuba won a name for him-
self as the first governor to refuse to be killed, and Joló has
been occupied ever since.
Joló was at first a penal settlement for deportados, and the
first Spanish governor to make a real impression on the place
was Governor Arolas, who filled the city in, and built the
wall and many of the wooden houses. He supposedly built a
house of brick for the governor; at least, he paid for a brick
house and sent the photograph to Spain to prove it, but, alas!
by the time I came to occupy it, it had turned into a wooden
house with a front painted to look like brick. Small wonder
that it appears in the scenery of Ade's comic opera.
Arolas was the most forceful governor of his time. He was
a republican in Spain, where republicans were non grata, and
it was said that he had been sent to Joló so that he would be
conveniently killed. He not only was not killed but did more
for Joló than all of his predecessors and many of his succes-
sors put together. He took the cotta at maibum of the present
sultan, when he was still a boy, by surprise from the sea
before a defending force could be rallied. When a real force
had assembled, it drove Arolas to his gunboat, into which he
retired quickly, abandoning his wounded; and after getting
away safely himself he reported that he had taken the sultan's
cotta, and there was great rejoicing in Manila over the victory.
Arolas was brought up from Joló to celebrate his triumph and
was made a general of the army of Spain. He left a son by a
Moro woman, one time a government interpreter, who is there
now bearing his name.
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287
On a twenty-seven-day march in the interior of Sulu I asked
a crowd of Moros if the Spanish ever came up there, and the
reply was "Cuatro ò cinco horas, no mas" (four or five hours,
no more). They would sometimes make a punitive incursion
suddenly from the sea; but before the war-gongs could assem-
ble enough men to oppose them, they would be gone from the
island.
In 1903 the Moros were well armed with Remington rifles,
Snyders, muzzle-loaders, spears, barongs, and lantakas or
bronze swivel-guns of two to three-inch caliber and of native
manufacture. The Remington rifles were obtained in part from
the Spaniards, when the Spaniards rearmed with Mausers, and
in part from the English, the Snyders having come from British
North Borneo.
The earliest Europeans wore a coat of mail to shield
themselves from the barong, sometimes of brass, sometimes of
plates of carabao horn to avoid the rusting away of a steel
cota in that hot, moist climate. I have one of the brass ones in
my own possession. The weight and construction of these an-
cient protective devices must have added much to the grief
of the Spanish soldier, toiling through the jungle carrying a
heavy arquebus in addition to his sword or battle-ax, and
staggering under the further encumbrance of a heavy brass
helmet. The modern soldier has indeed much to be thankful
for.
The Spaniards threw overboard many boxes of obsolete
Remington ammunition in eighty feet of water at the time of
their evacuation of the islands, but the Moro pearl divers
recovered every one of them. Many of these munitions of war
were afterward captured in fights, or surrendered at different
times and sent to Manila, but there was a good supply still in
the hands of the Moros at the time of my departure from the
islands.
Northbound once en route to the United States on leave,
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Some Memories of a Soldier
I stayed overnight with a classmate in command of Samar,
where a long, desultory war had been going on; and desirous
of impressing me deeply my host informed me that the natives
had twenty guns!-twenty guns! I smiled to myself, thinking
of the fourteen hundred Remingtons alone that I knew of and
could put my hands on in Sulu.
The munitions of war were private property, the subject of
barter and sale throughout the archipelago, and the com-
merce was not forbidden because there was no way to prevent
it. These munitions would gravitate toward the disaffected dis-
tricts, where the best markets were to be found both before and
during battle. I proposed to superior authority to end this
traffic quietly and insensibly to disarm the Moros, by buying
up all the munitions during a time of peace when the market
was dull and it could be done most cheaply, the purchase to be
accomplished secretly by Moros in my confidence, and full
compensation to be made for all confiscated property. My
project was not approved, however, and it cost far more in both
money and blood to effect the same result in the end.
The Spanish had told our government that it would require
one hundred thousand regular troops to control the Moros,
for whom they had a most wholesome respect born of three
hundred years' bitter experience. Our government was alarmed
by this as it did not have that many troops at its disposal;
and fearing the Moros, as the Spanish government had before
it, it sent General Bates to Joló with a naval cruiser, where he
signed a convention with the sultan called the Bates Agree-
ment couched in about the same terms as had been the agree-
ment formerly made by the Spanish government, stipulating
that the American governor might interfere in Sulu only in the
event of a crime against a foreigner. In other words, the Ameri-
can, like the Spanish governor, must look on and permit the
Moros to murder, rob, and enslave each other as they saw fit,
The Philippines
289
all of this bloodshed and anarchy to be protected under the
American flag.
It will be seen later that the sultan of Sulu, from his in-
ability to carry out his agreement and control the Moros, was
not in reality a treaty-making power.
The American, like the Spanish government, had abdicated
its sovereignty in the Sulu Archipelago and had failed to meet
the most fundamental duties of a government, which require
it to maintain peace and order, and to safeguard the life and
property of those living under its jurisdiction.
The Moros had fired twice on landing-parties of the navy
and had committed other wrongs against foreigners, for which
they were never called to account, because Manila did not want
the Moros to be aroused. Let sleeping dogs lie, was the policy;
but the dogs were not so sound asleep as it may have appeared;
and were quite ready to snap.
The commanders of troops were ordered by Manila not to
permit any clashes with the Moros for any cause whatever
until the arrival of General Wood as governor-general of the
Moro Province. This caused much ill feeling among the troops,
who felt outraged at being kept there unable to defend them-
selves.
I recognized from the beginning that my power as governor
of Sulu under the Bates Agreement was exceedingly limited.
I was expected to civilize one hundred thousand Moros, with
a bloody record of hundreds of years, and the only power
conferred on me for the purpose was that of moral suasion,
except in the case of a crime against a foreigner, and even
this exception was vague and undefined. Moral suasion is a
very weak weapon for such a purpose, and it was apparent that
the governor of Sulu was expected to make bricks without
straw. Even the most optimistic could see little prospect of suc-
cess for an American governor so handicapped, considering
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Some Memories of a Soldier
that he would be doing very well if he accomplished nothing
more than the saving of his own life.
My first case of moral suasion came in August before I was
actually governor, while I was still living on the Borneo. A
complaint was made by Panglima Ambutong that the Raja
Muda had compelled him and another sinner each to put up
two thousand pesos as bail for having made war on each other
during the absence of the sultan in Singapore. They both put
up the bail, whereupon the Raja Muda had fined Panglima
Ambutong two thousand pesos and kept the bail of both of
them. Ambutong asked that his bail be returned to him, which
was reasonable enough.
I sent for the Raja Muda, and he came at once; the moral
suasion, reinforced by the memory of his recent painful boil,
was strong enough to cause the bail of both to be returned.
This story rang out over the archipelago like a gong; nothing
like it had ever been known before. It was assumed that if
I could wrest the bail from the Raja Muda it could only be for
the purpose of keeping it myself; no other reason was even
dreamed of. Here was a favorable start, indeed; but the worst
was yet to come.
The fourth wife of Hadji Taib, the sultan's minister of war,
ran away from him and came in to Joló for asylum. If a woman
came into Joló asking for asylum in those days, she was very
apt to get it, and she was turned over to Hadji Butu, the prime
minister, and his wife for safe-keeping. This was all very
well until Hadji Taib appeared in Joló in a towering rage,
demanding his wife. Everybody knew that if he got her under
such circumstances he would proceed to slice off her head as
soon as they got outside the wall, and she begged to be pro-
tected from him. This was no case of a crime against a for-
eigner, and I really had no business to meddle with it, yet while
I had no legal right to keep her I could not deliver the poor
woman over to be decapitated. Here I was suddenly pre-
The Philippines
291
cipitated up to my neck in a most serious situation; the pro-
verbial choice between the devil and the deep sea was nothing
in comparison. If I should refuse to give up the woman on the
grounds that the other three wives were more than enough, I
would be acting against the Koran, for is not a true believer
entitled to four wives by that supreme authority? A refusal on
those grounds would operate to plunge me into war with the
Moro people before night as a destroyer of Islam.
Fifteen hundred Moros soon congregated to ascertain what
this new governor was going to do; the question was difficult
to answer, since the governor did not know himself. Our gov-
ernment had never laid down any policy in regard to polygamy,
and probably has never done so even yet. The English do not
interfere with it in their Asiatic colonies. Should the new
governor bring on a war with the Moros immediately upon his
installation, there would soon be a search for another and
wiser governor.
While this was all fully recognized as true, it provided no
way to keep that poor woman's head on her shoulders. She
was encouraged to make her complaint, and a trial was begun.
The proceedings were drawn out for hours, with much testi-
mony taken on both sides, swearing the witnesses in on the
Koran, and interpreting back and forth-killing time, in the
hope that a lucid interval would occur to light a path to a
solution. But none occurred. Hadji Butu, usually so fertile in
resource, was silent, thinking probably about his own plurality
of wives. The officers of the garrison, attracted by the crowd
and the gravity of the case, had nothing to offer. Matters were
getting desperate. Something must be done and that soon.
But what?
Shakespeare has written: "I can call spirits from the vasty
deep. But will they come?" They refused to come on this
occasion, until I suddenly noticed that the knot of hair on the
woman's head had fallen over to one side without her notice-
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Some Memories of a Soldier
because of her preoccupation, no doubt, lest her whole head
go off to one side, likewise.
I told her I knew the knot would not hang like that if she
had her looking-glass; where was her looking-glass? She re-
plied that she had none. "What's that?" I broke out in indig-
nation. "Hasn't he ever given you a looking-glass?" It seemed
that he never had. "No wonder she ran away from such treat-
ment?" I exclaimed. "I'll bet he never even gave you a comb
either!" "He never did," was the reply. "Just listen to that!"
I roared. "A good-looking woman like that never given a
looking-glass to see herself, or a comb to fix her hair! Hadji
Taib! You take that woman by the hand and go buy her a
looking-glass and comb right away, and don't you come back
here until you've done it!"
The woman was afraid at first to go with him, but after his
barong was left with me she consented to go, accompanied
by Hadji Butu and an escort of soldiers. They were away
some time, but came back at length, bringing the looking-glass
and comb, swinging hands like two children, and that war was
all over.
Upon what slender threads hung peace or war in those days
of the empire, when everything was set on a hair-trigger, to
explode for the slightest reason, and often without any reason
at all! And what an extraordinarily grand and glorious feeling
it is to get one's self scared almost out of one's wits, yet in the
end to escape by the skin of the teeth! These prosaic times of
peace in this part of the world are too effete to allow a fellow
to get himself genuinely scared any more. I do not know what
the next generation is going to do for excitement, and I am
truly sorry for it. But it has been written that "man is born
to trouble as the sparks fly upward." To this rule certainly
I was no exception, for my troubles were only beginning.
A most serious case had been inherited through two former
governors. A Moro named Biroa had murdered another Moro
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293
almost under the walls of Joló and had kidnapped a little
Moro girl the previous June. The American governor had made
a demand to have the murderer delivered to him for punish-
ment. Although this was no case of a crime against a foreigner,
the governor had gone far outside his province in making
the demand. In those days the American governor was not
considered by the Moros as very much of a personage. When
he sent for a Moro chief, the latter would report or not as he
pleased, and he usually did not please. Panglima Indanan once
told the governor that he did not believe the Americans could
fight, and suggested that they each furnish one thousand men
and let them fight it out like game-cocks, with a little money
or brassware laid on the event, and then the matter would be
settled.
On this occasion neither the sultan nor anybody else paid
the slightest attention to the summons, which really served the
governor right as the demand had no legal basis under the
Bates Agreement.
A new governor who arrived in July made the same demand
and received the same response. Then General Wood came
along in August and delivered the sultan an ultimatum, order-
ing that the murderer be produced within five days, and got
just as much attention as the other two and no more, for the
estimation in which American governors were then held was
not only low but even tending to drop lower.
The first governor had sown the wind, leaving me to reap
the whirlwind, and I would have been pleased if I could have
tied him and Biroa together to a ton of iron and thrown them
both into the Sulu Sea, for the case had now become very
serious, the whole of American prestige in the archipelago de-
pending upon its outcome. The demand should never have
been made in the first place, but having been made and insisted
upon by so many authorities, thus becoming notorious every-
where, it must now be upheld and enforced, albeit without
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Some Memories of a Soldier
legal sanction, if Americans were to be expected to live in
Joló.
If anyone should be killed in an effort to arrest Biroa it
might be shown by some unsympathetic person to be a murder
under the Bates Agreement, since no foreigner was involved.
After long consideration I could see but one way out, and that
one very dubious; to keep on worrying the very life out of
the sultan until he either effected Biroa's capture or acknowl-
edged that he had not the power and asked me to make the
arrest as his agent for trial by Moros, according to the agree-
ment. This was pretty thin ice, but matters were desperate,
with American stock at low ebb.
When the pressure was applied, the sultan sent his minister
of war to arrest Biroa and get the girl. He returned on Septem-
ber 3 when I had been governor only three days, just at a mo-
ment when the sultan and his councilors happened to be in my
office. Hadji Tahi was in a bad humor, probably at being
played with by the sultan, and he broke out into a tirade at
the injustice of being sent on such an errand with two slaves
only to assist him in such an impossible task. I asked the sultan
if he had heard that. He admitted in a most indifferent manner
that he had. I then asked, "What are you going to do about
it, then?" He replied with a yawn, in a still more bored and
indifferent manner, as if intending to convey that he did not
know and did not care, as in fact he did not. I said to him
then, "I've got a watch here, and if you don't find out in three
minutes that you are going to do what I tell you, you won't
leave this building." He found out in a minute and a half that
he would ask Panglima Indanan to go after Biroa with five
hundred men to make the arrest, and he never yawned again
when I spoke to him.
Years afterward, when we knew each other much better,
I asked him to do something that might endanger his life, to
which he demurred. I told him that I fully recognized the
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danger and did not expect miracles from him, but would be
satisfied with an honest effort, which I would recognize when
I saw it. He burst out with anxiety, "You won't pull that
watch on me, will you?" and I assured him that I would not
unless he failed to make the effort in good faith. At the risk
of being killed by his own people, the poor worried little man
rose to the occasion and could not have done better than he
did. "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," and the sultan
of Sulu nearly paid for his eminence with his life. Maharaja
Jagi of Talipau was shot and wounded by his own people for
the same thing at the same period.
Pursuant to the request of the sultan, Indanan took five
hundred men and went to arrest Biroa. He found that Biroa
had taken refuge with his father, whose name I never heard
and failed to ask, "Biroa's father" being sufficient to identify
him. The father had called out all his people, who were forti-
fied on the knife-edge of a mountain with vertical sides five
hundred feet high. Indanan burned a few houses and rescued
the little Moro girl who had been kidnapped by Biroa, and
matters were again at a standstill.
The admiral at Cavite kept in the port of Joló for my con-
venience a naval gunboat, the Pampanga, captured from the
Spanish at the time of Dewey's victory, and I asked Captain
Bennett of the navy to take me, with Captain Charles and my
interpreter, Eddie Schück, to the southern end of Sulu to see
how Indanan was progressing, and several cavalry officers of
the Joló garrison were invited to go with us for the trip.
We landed in the ship's cutter, manned by five armed
jackies, on the coast of Sulu, near what looked like an empty
house supported on bamboo stilts between the lines of the
shore and the jungle, which were about seventy-five yards
apart. Leaving the jackies with the cutter, we all went up to
the rear of the apparently uninhabited house, where there was
a bamboo ladder, and found Indanan inside with fifty of his
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armed men, who had all been keeping very quiet in the hope
that we would go by without discovering them.
I sat down on the foot of a sloping wooden bunk, close
enough to Indanan to permit my remarks to be emphasized by
the point of my elbow in his ribs. Schück began to get uneasy
and asked when we were going back to the ship, which was
standing off and on outside, as if it could not be too soon for
him. After some preliminary greetings, I said, in order to make
things pleasant for everybody, "Indanan, they tell me that
you are the biggest thief in Sulu." "Oh, they do me a great
injustice," he protested. "I used to be a thief, but I don't
steal any more." "Indanan," I replied, "I read in the records.
of the former governors that there will be no peace and order
for anybody in Sulu until after you have been killed. What
have you got to say about that?"
These few kind remarks seemed to displease his escort, who
made a great rustling among themselves, some picking up their
arms. Indanan protested against my believing the record, which
was most unjust, adding that he was behaving in an exemplary
manner.
I told him that he had better stay good if he wanted to go
on walking about on the ground like all live creatures. This
seemed to disturb his escort still more, and they scowled
mightily in a restless manner, but a diversion was created
by the arrival of the kidnapped Moro girl, who was brought
in and delivered to me. I ordered her sent down to the cutter,
and having acquainted Indanan with my views, we bade him
good-by and went down ourselves to the cutter.
We found the poor little girl weeping bitterly, not knowing
but that we intended to pick her bones; her poor little knees
and toes were quivering with fear.
Having no woman on board with us, I thought I would tell
Indanan to keep the girl and turn her in at Joló where we
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could put her in charge of a woman until she could be returned
to her own family. I called to Indanan to come down to the
boat to get his orders, but he made no reply. The order was
repeated louder, and again in a very imperative tone. Then the
armed men filed out of the door in the rear, and down the
ladder, forming themselves in line, close and parallel to the
edge of the jungle, where they were joined by one hundred
more, heretofore invisible. Next Indanan came down the
ladder in a very leisurely way and placed himself in front of
the center of the line, which advanced toward us like a line
of chorus-girls coming forward to the footlights. They stopped
about ten feet away from us, where we stood near the cutter,
some having half drawn their barongs, and Indanan asked,
"What do you want?"
The interpreter had turned gray by this time, and I could
hear his teeth chatter. The stage was all set now for some-
thing of a highly dramatic order; the keg of powder was right
close in front of the fire, needing only one little spark to
touch off the whole works. This spark was almost furnished by
a jacky who, finding the atmosphere too tense for him, threw
down the muzzle of his rifle and shoved in a cartridge with a
noise that sounded like a cannon. Captain Bennett reached over
calmly and took the rifle away from him, thus spoiling a per-
fectly good chance for us all to become mince-meat in another
minute.
Indanan was quietly told to turn the girl in to me at Joló
which he promised to do, and the jackies then floated the boat
and manned the oars. Those nearest the Moros were told to
go aboard first, and when all were settled, the cutter started
for the ship, while all gave a mighty sigh of relief, for things
had got a bit too tense for all of us, and I felt moved to
remark that "the devil still takes care of his own." I could not
understand at first Indanan's object in acting in that way, but
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Some Memories of a Soldier
concluded that he thought I intended to seize him, if he went
down alone, and carry him off to the ship a prisoner-a
suspicion which he himself confirmed a long time afterward.
He returned to Joló presently, delivered the girl, and said
that Biroa's father was too strong for him and his five hundred
men, and gave up the issue entirely.
The sultan then, moved by the fear of my watch, asked
Panglima Hassan, the ruler of the district of Look, and the
chief with the greatest power in Sulu, to effect the arrest—but
Hassan turned on him savagely, saying: "You shut up! We
Moro Chiefs are attending to this. Biroa has only killed a slave.
If a Moro chief cannot kill a slave, what can he do? Can he
drink water-can he breathe air-hasn't he any rights at
all?" And he went back to his district of Look in a great rage.
After all, the poor savage was right according to his lights,
for the matter was not at all the affair of the American
governor under the Bates Agreement.
About two weeks before this, eleven of Hassan's slaves had
run away from him and came into Joló for asylum, which had
never occurred before-showing that a glimmering was being
perceived, at last, of a source of power and justice for Moros
in Joló.
I sent a letter to Hassan, advising him of the occurrence and
directing him to come into Joló for a conference, to which
he replied by letter, "My desire to see my father, the governor,
is still small." This letter caused wild and hilarious joy in the
office. At the same time, however, it was recognized that
Hassan must not be allowed to get away with it lest he enter-
tain the erroneous opinion that he himself were the governor
and could do as he pleased in Sulu, as, in fact, he had been
doing but those days were now over.
He started soon after that with several followers to see the
sultan at Maibun, whereupon a cable was sent to General
Wood at Zamboanga, asking authority to cross the island
The Philippines
299
swiftly by night with a squadron of cavalry to intercept Hassan
on his return to Look and arrest him; in this manner it
could have been done away from his people and without
bloodshed. I intended taking him into Joló and keeping him
there until his ideas should become clarified as to who was
really the governor. But the cable parted before an answer
could be received, and the occasion passed without action.
I have always believed that if I might have taken Hassan
into Joló, and there restrained him gently and made a friend
of him a rôle he was well fitted to fill-he would be alive
to-day, and the history of Sulu would have been different.
After Hassan's visit with the sultan, he returned home most
dissatisfied, for some reason which I have never known. He
began to have conferences with the other chiefs in a plot to
take and loot Joló. They gathered an army of over four
thousand men (they said seven thousand), and, camping on a
little creek seven miles from Joló, agreed among themselves
that each chief should enter Joló with seventy-five armed men
apiece, ostensibly to trade. Once inside the walls a disturbance
was to occur outside, and when the sodiers rushed out to quell
it, the Moros would rise and loot and burn the town.
This fine little scheme was reported to me next morning,
they camped a mile and a half away at Schück's place, and
the following morning requested permission to come in to-
gether to trade, but were refused. Word was sent to Hassan
that he had been written to come in for a conference about
his slaves, and that if he did not come he would be forging
something dangerous for himself. He sent word back that
General Davis, the former governor of the Moro Province,
had promised to allow him to come into Joló with seventy-
five armed men; and Schück said this was true in a way,
but that the promise had been made during a friendly interval,
and did not mean the admission of armed men inside the
walls.
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Word went back then that General Davis's promise would be
respected, that Hassan might come in with seventy-five armed
men, but that Indanan, Ambutong, Dammang, and the others
might only come in singly, since General Davis had promised
them nothing, and if they did not like that, they could go over
and trade in Borneo.
The troops were arranged for defense when Hassan came in
with his men and grouped them in front of my office, but within
the sweep of a machine-gun that could have mowed down
every one; in case of treachery not one would ever have got
out of the gate.
Hassan entered the office with great affability. He was asked,
after the preliminary greetings, why he had written me such
a letter, saying his "desire to see my father, the governor, is
still small," when sent for by the governor. "I never allow
anybody to write me letters like that," I informed him, "and
I nearly went over to arrest you returning from Maibun."
He looked at me with all the stupefaction that would naturally
have been felt by the czar of all the Russias, had he been
threatened with arrest, when at the acme of his power, by a
little street gamin. But, after reflection, he said that he had
meant to write that his desire to see his father, the governor,
was still great, and that it had been the mistake of his clerk.
I told him he had better get another clerk who would not make
mistakes, which might get his master killed, for such a clerk
was too dangerous to keep.
I then brought up the subject of the eleven slaves who had
run away, and it developed that Hassan did not really care
what became of them; he would make me a present of them
if I wanted them; all he cared about was not to be mortified
by encountering them around anywhere.
He then requested transportation back to his camp, although
admitting that he had never ridden in a wagon and asked
whether I thought it would make him seasick; and when Cap-
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301
tain Charles ordered up the ambulance, our only vehicle, to
take him back to Schück's and find out if his were seagoing
legs, he said, "Now I have visited you; I think you ought to
come out and visit me." And thinking that this would be an
excellent opportunity to impress them all at one time, I got
into the ambulance with him and Schück, whose business it
was to take risks with me. I demurred at the wish of Captain
Charles and my Austrian stenographer to accompany us, for
deliberately courting danger was not a part of their duty,
but they begged not to be left behind, and I said nothing more,
but permitted them to go along.
We drove out through the main gate and were met and sur-
rounded by a hundred and fifty armed followers of Hassan,
waiting for him in the cocoanut grove. Hassan said to me, "You
are a brave man." "How so?" I asked him. "Coming out here
unarmed,” he said; "I am going to go without arms also,"
and handed his barong to a slave to carry for him. This was
quite a chivalrous idea, indeed, on the part of a savage, to put
himself on an equality of danger with me in that way, but we
would have been nearer an equality if he had not had those
hundred and fifty armed men within spear's length.
We kept a battalion of infantry then at an outpost made by
the Spanish a little stone fort called La Princesa de las
Austurias. Passing this outpost, the commander was struck
with horror and remonstrated against our going any further,
compromising by letting us go on condition that if we were
not back within an hour he would take the battalion and go
after us.
We passed three large groups of Moros camped along the
trail on the edge of the jungle, cooking rice at their little fires---
thousands of them in all-and soon reached Schück's house,
vacated by his family, which had gone in to Joló, although the
wife was a Moro.
We were followed into the house by a large number of
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Some Memories of a Soldier
Moro chiefs, desirous of seeing what we looked like; and they
soon filled the house to the bursting-point, occupying all the
windows and becoming jammed in so tightly that the principal
chiefs were crowded forward, almost to within arm's length
of us.
We sat there on Schück's chairs, looking at those arch
villains and murderers, Dammang, Ambutong, Indanan, and
the rest, until the hubbub subsided. Then I told them what
I thought of them, which was by no means complimentary,
revealing to them that I knew all about their secret plan to
loot Joló, and informing them that if they were not all away
from there by the next morning I would drive away all who
were able to walk, but that there would be many who would
never walk again. They said they would all like to go into
Joló together to trade, and were told that they would never
be allowed to trade a peso's worth in Joló if they came up in
armed crowds, with any such designs in their hearts, and that
if they felt they must trade they could go over to Borneo,
where they well knew the British would not stand any nonsense
from them. Then they were told to make a gangway to the
door, for I was going home now.
They said I "had made no visit and had better stay a while,"
and Schück said they were discussing among themselves keep-
ing us prisoners, Hassan, for some unaccountable reason, being
on our side. They urged us very politely to stay a while longer,
but I told them to get the gangway open, for I must go at once
or the troops would grow uneasy and come out after me, and
a great many people might be killed for nothing.
After some little conference among themselves, during which
we were wondering if we were going to be permitted to leave,
I ordered still more forcefully a gangway made to the door,
and they apparently decided to comply. But they were wedged
in so tightly that no one could move, until I told them to have
some one outside pull them out of the doorway one by one.
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Then we walked quietly out, down the steps, and into our
ambulance, glad enough to be able to get away.
That night was one of the most notable moonlit nights of
my life-perfectly clear and still, with the moon at its fullest.
Safe back behind our own walls, we were suddenly awakened
during the night by a pandemonium of shots, cries, and beating
on copper war-gongs. It was so very still that these gongs
sounded as if they were right in the room with me. My staff
came rushing in to get me out of bed to defend the town, which
they thought was being attacked.
I lay still, smiling up my sleeve at them and their excite-
ment, until they began to wonder if I was afraid to get up and
was going to allow myself to be killed in bed. I enjoyed their
bewilderment for a while, and finally told one of them to go
out and look at the moon and tell me what he saw. He came
back and reported that an eclipse was on, and I told them all
to go back to bed, for the attack would be over as soon as
the eclipse ended.
The eclipse had been predicted in the press for that night,
and I knew that most primitive peoples consider that eclipses
are caused by the attack of some evil monster threatening to
devour the sun or moon, which must be frightened away by a
pandemonium of noise. I had seen the Northern Cheyennes
save the sun in 1878 at Bear Butte in the Black Hills of
Dakota, and I knew that the Chinese follow the same custom.
And, sure enough, the Moro moon was soon saved too, and the
racket stopped without damage to anybody.
The next morning the Moros quarreled among themselves,
Hassan taking my part. The other chiefs said the governor
did not treat them well, not allowing them to go in an armed
body to trade in Joló as he did Hassan, whom he had treated
better than he did the sultan, for he had never taken the
sultan out in his carriage. And the fact that Hassan had in-
sisted the day before on our being allowed to go free, when
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Some Memories of a Soldier
Indanan, Dammang, Ambutong, and the others had wanted to
keep us prisoners, tended to arouse further suspicions.
After a while they all broke up in a row and went off to
their different homes, without firing a shot, after being well
scolded for shielding Biroa, who was said to have been in that
camp, but had had too much of an escort for me to have made
the demand for him when I was there, as I hoped to get him
without bloodshed. He was heard of later at different places,
now here, now there; never in one spot for any length of time.
The sultan had been nagged about Biroa now to the point of
desperation, and he was anxious to deliver him up but was
really unable to accomplish the feat. He came in one day at his
wit's end and was crowded to the wall until he broke out in
agony, "I can't get him!" After some further judicious crowd-
ing, he asked if I would not send and get Biroa for him—the
very goal I had been leading up to for a long while. I told the
sultan to write a letter asking me to get Biroa as his agent,
which he thankfully did, and was relieved of further pressure.
This agent business made pretty thin going in case of a battle
over the arrest, but it was the best that could be done to save
the prestige of the American Government, which was still in a
parlous state.
A Moro friend was sent over to Biroa's fort with instructions
to warn me as soon as the outlaw settled down there. The
matter was then put aside, awaiting notification, with Biroa
apparently forgotten so far as the Moros knew, and there was
a pleasant lull everywhere.
About two weeks after I had received the letter of the sultan,
my Moro friend came in to Joló late one afternoon and re-
ported that Biroa was in his fort. As soon as it was dark that
night four troops of cavalry and a battery of mountain artillery
left the main gate, the Southern Cross shining in front high
overhead; and after a rapid march of about thirty miles,
Biroa's mountain was surrounded before daylight, to shut in
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305
the people before they could escape, as was the custom on the
Plains of the West with the Indians; but the Moros had no
desire to escape, as we found out on many occasions.
I made a rapid ride around the mountain to select a place
for assault in case it should become necessary. The mountain
was a knife-edge with vertical sides and was five hundred feet
high, fortified all the way up-a most difficult place to take.
There were high rocks as big as a small house on top among
which the Moros could hide, secure from artillery fire. After
the troops were all placed I walked up toward the lowest fort
through an open glade, with Schück, followed by Captain
Charles, Dr. Lewis, and Lieutenant Jimmy Heidt, my adjutant,
and a voice came out saying in Moro, "Don't come any
nearer!"
We sat down on the ground to hold what we had gained and
turned our backs to the fort to assure them that we were not
going to make a rush, for I was more than usually anxious to
take Biroa without a fight on account of the Bates Agreement.
Then began a long series of messages that had to be taken up
to the top to Biroa's father, who had again gathered all his
people to protect Biroa from arrest.
A message asking the old man to come down was first sent.
It required a long time to deliver it and receive the answer,
which I did not relish very much when I did get it: "He says
he won't come down." Next an offer was made that if he was
afraid to come down, Schück and I would go up there without
any arms, to which the reply was: "He doesn't want to see
you." I retorted that I had been misinformed about the Moros,
for I had been told they were a brave people, but this showed
they were "afraid even of being scratched," for Schück and I
were armed only with our finger-nails. "The people at the other
end of Sulu are not afraid of anything like that," I challenged.
"It must be that Biroa's father is a Filipino, hiding like a rat
among the rocks; he can't be a Moro!" This went on all
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Some Memories of a Soldier
morning until the old man came down at 2:30 P.M., admitting
us into the entanglements, and we sat down inside with our
backs against the main fort. I asked for Biroa and was told he
was not there. I said I knew better, and was then told that he
did not want to see me, whereupon a number of insulting
messages were sent to Biroa himself.
The whole command had become very impatient by this
time, sweltering out in that tropical sun without any water
for either men or animals, after a rapid night march across
the island. Even my staff thought I was making no progress.
It was getting late, they said, and I should either attack or
come away. But I could see signs of progress that must be
pushed to the utmost before assaulting.
At half-past five Biroa came down, trembling with agitation.
At half-past six he surrendered with the single condition that
he be tried by Moros according to the Bates Agreement. This
was promised, and he was put on the gunboat in the offing and
was in the jail at Joló that night.
The next day he was tried by Moros, and in some way un-
known to me was fined twenty-five dollars gold for murder and
kidnapping. He paid his fine at once, and the following day he
was back in his fort, absolved of all crime.
The whole occurrence was reported to Washington, with a
request for the abrogation of the Bates Agreement on the
ground that the sultan was not a treaty-making power, being
entirely unable to carry out his agreements. The facts that the
navy had been fired on twice, the army engineers attacked, and
other crimes committed against foreigners, were brought out,
proving the violation of the treaty by Moros, which the sultan
could not control, and it was set forth that law and order could
not be maintained nor civil government established in any
country where a man could kill his enemy and kidnap a woman,
and get off with paying a fine of twenty-five dollars. Upon this
showing, President Roosevelt abrogated the agreement, thus
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307
opening the door to the beginning of civilization and the estab-
lishment of law and order in the Sulu Archipelago.
A new regiment of cavalry had arrived shortly before from
the United States to relieve the one I found there on arrival.
Among some of the more reckless and irresponsible young men
there was talk of "killing goo-goos" in a spirit which made me
fear that some overt act against the native might be committed
that would operate to cause the troops to be severely punished
before they could be made to understand my point of view.
While we were sitting near the fort, sending messages up to
Biroa's father, upon the memorable occasion of the outlaw's
arrest, a shot was heard on the opposite side of a near-by
ridge. Word was soon brought that a Moro had been killed; I
greatly feared that this was one of the very cases I had been
anticipating. I formed a board of the older officers at once to
investigate the circumstances and was overjoyed to find it a
legitimate case of self-defense. The Moro had charged a ser-
geant with spear and barong, although warned to desist several
times by Schück in his own language, and it was a question
of his life or the sergeant's.
This prompt investigation on the spot brought it home to
everybody that no idle killing of "goo-goos" would be tolerated,
and the lesson, impressed strongly on the whole command,
lasted until after my departure from the islands, and there were
no scandals about water cures or other outrages against the
natives ever heard of from Joló.
J
The forcing of Biroa to surrender and receive punishment
had a tremendous effect all over the archipelago, from which
many valuable by-products were obtained. The prestige of the
American government rose everywhere, and it became evident
to all that I could get anybody I went after, but would not kill
him unless he resisted arrest; furthermore that it was not
necessary for a man to fight in order to preserve his life, for
was not Biroa actually alive and free after surrendering? This
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Some Memories of a Soldier
impression, made on the Moros, helped to avoid many battles
to the death. Moreover no property was taken from Biroa's
fort, and no one was manhandled or abused. The Moros ac-
cepted the abrogation of the Bates Agreement without protest,
recognizing its justice.
In all successive conflicts, as in this, every possible effort
was made to keep the Moros alive, and yet vindicate the law.
There are times, of course, when the shedding of blood cannot
be avoided, if any government is to be maintained at all, and
my own life was risked many times to confine this bloodshed
to its narrowest limits. No blood was ever shed until after every
other method had been tried to no avail. More than ninety-nine
per cent of the crimes of the Moros were against their own
people, and where they would refrain from robbery and murder
I would never molest them. I was invariably successful in
carrying out the law, averting slaughter at the same time, if we
were not fired on first while approaching for a parley, for our
troops never fired first on any occasion. Every time we were
able to procure a parley the Moros were persuaded into sur-
rendering with all their arms and ammunition, and accepting
without a fight the punishment justly due them. But if they
fired on us while approaching, matters were very different,
and something desperate seemed to wake in them that made
them die like Kipling's Mohammedan Fuzzy-Wuzzy of the
Sudan, fighting to the bitter end; and we fought in the same
way except that efforts were always made during the fight to
bring about a surrender by causing our firing to cease three or
four times and sending all the available interpreters to promise
our opponents their lives. But all the answer we ever got was:
"You cowardly American pigs may know what it is to sur-
render, but we do not have words like that in our language!"
Then taking advantage of the cessation of our fire they would
stand up in plain sight above their wall the better to pot a
soldier, and the fight would have to go on for another period
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until a new hope of a surrender would arise, only to meet
failure time after time until the end. Either we would have to
go on fighting as long as opposition continued or else draw
off and leave victory to robbers and murderers of their own
people, which would not be in accordance with my orders to
establish a civil government-all this, of course, after the
abrogation of the Bates Agreement.
Had we been obliged to assault in the particular instance of
the Biroa siege, the loss of life not only among our adversaries
but in our own ranks would have been heavy, on account of
the character of the Moro stronghold, formidable enough from
the outside, but, as we found out later, with nature so greatly
supplemented by art inside as to render it practically im-
pregnable.
It was most fortunate that I was both governor and com-
mander in this battle, for no commander would ever have
allowed a governor to treat his men so, while in ignorance of
the progress that was being made; he would have compelled
the governor either to allow an assault, after bombardment by
artillery, or else to come away entirely. Although the men were
made to suffer from the heat and want of water, it was no more
than I had to suffer myself from the same causes, and such a
course was far better than getting many of them killed and
wounded in an assault.
The cottas of the Moros were small and hidden in the trees,
so that our guns could not be placed far enough away to drop
projectiles inside. The walls were too thick for our seventy-five-
millimeter guns, and so I asked for a consignment of bombs to
throw. I got no answer to my requisition save ridicule and the
information that the bomb was a medieval weapon long since
out of manufacture. I asked to have them made in the Manilla
arsenal but was refused. I then tried to make them at Joló with
a section of two-inch pipe with a cup screwed on both ends,
filled with dynamite, but my only means of exploding them was
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with mining fuse, which was too irregular in its action; if cut
too short it would explode in a man's hand; if cut too long
the Moros would throw it back.
After disappointment with the bombs, I attempted to use the
mountain-gun by sinking the trail and reducing the powder
charge, but this scheme failed also because of the condition of
the powder, which had been carried about so much in the
Boxer War in China that no dependence could be placed on it.
With the same reduced charge one shell would fly clear over
the cotta, while the next one would strike the ground half-way
to the target, so that we were forced to give up the idea.
Millions of bombs, however, were used in our last war for the
identical purpose for which I desired to use them in 1903, and
I could have saved lives by avoiding the direct assault if
our Ordnance Department had been pervious to outside
suggestions.
The morning after the capture of Biroa we went back to the
mountain with the specific intent of seeing from the inside, if
possible, just what we had been up against. All the people had
left for their homes the night before on account of the discom-
fort of living in those forts, and there was no one to oppose our
inspection. Nevertheless we found it very difficult to get
through the entanglements and to climb to the top, even though
there was no opposition. We found the place well supplied with
food and water, enough to sustain a long siege, which they had
evidently expected, and I was gratified to see from the inside
that the place I had selected for assault, had it been necessary,
was the only one that appeared to be at all practicable.
Before taking Biroa to the ship after his surrender the
previous evening, it had been noticed that his father's knee had
been crippled in some former fight, and it was also learned
that he was suffering from a severe case of bladder trouble.
He was told that he was too old and miserable for me to
punish for a first offense, but that if he attempted to war
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against the United States again he would certainly be killed.
On reaching the citadel on top of the mountain that morning,
we were admitted through a gate of hard wood, eight inches
thick, and found the old man sitting on a rock, amusing himself
by knocking sparrows out of a tree with a blow-gun.
We had all heard of blow-guns before but had never seen
one, and we examined it with great interest, trying in vain to
use it. A card was stuck up on a tree thirty feet away and the
old man would put one of his little poisoned bamboo arrows
through it every time. The arrows were poisoned with the sap
of the upas tree of Borneo, and if one should draw blood from
the tip of the ear, death would follow within half an hour. The
bore of the gun was as true as that of one of our own shot-
guns. After we had satisfied our curiosity, we handed back
the gun, and took our leave of the old man and started back
for Joló.
About two months later the old man died of his bladder
trouble and on his death-bed sent for all his children. He told
them that he knew them well and that they were hard people
to deal with; and he did not want them to quarrel over his
property after he was gone, as he knew they would if left to
divide it among themselves. That governor, he said, was a just
man, and he wanted them to take the property to him and ask
him to divide it; and as the governor had taken a great interest
in his blow-gun, he desired them to take it to the governor as
a present from him.
The will was probated at Joló. I gathered the children with
the friends of the family, interrogating them all separately-
swearing them on the Koran-as to the old man's wishes re-
garding the disposition of the property. The settlement must
have been satisfactory, for it was never questioned and never
heard of again.
Whenever the daughters wished to change from one place
to another, they came to seek permission from the governor,
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although none was required, for they were perfectly free to go
where they pleased. They always brought some little gift for
me, such as a dozen eggs in a colored basket. And what is best
of all, we never had to fight in that district as long as I re-
mained at Joló. I have the blow-gun still, with its little bamboo
quiver of poisoned arrows, and consider it one of my most
sacred possessions.
JURAMENTADOS
After becoming somewhat acquainted with the conditions in
the archipelago by travel among the islands, by visiting the
Moros in their homes, and by daily contact with many natives
in Joló, the whole situation began to clarify.
The most important matter standing directly athwart the
path of progress had been successfully disposed of. Noting
with satisfaction the rewards reaped as a result of the settle-
ment of the Biroa problem, I realized the more that I could
never have expected to get anything accomplished toward
gaining the interest and later the confidence and affection of the
Moro people as long as the white man's government was looked
upon with contempt by all, and while the Bates Agreement
prevented the establishment of law and order.
There was one great obstacle, however, barring the way of
law enforcement among the Moros, and that was their utter
disregard of death. For not only in battle was this apparent,
but at all times. Our laws have behind them, in the last resort,
the fear of punishment; the state says in effect that "if you
murder, you will be hanged." But if you are totally indifferent
to being hanged, what possible sanction can there be in the law?
To be sure, it would not be so difficult to sweep the islands
from stem to stern with fire and sword, but it has always
seemed to me a poor diplomacy that seeks to civilize a country
by killing everybody in it, to say nothing of the iniquity of
destroying such a proud, brave, virile, and intelligent people as
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the Moros. To me the Moros were the most promising element,
under proper guidance, to be found in the entire Philippine
Islands, and I so much wanted to live myself for so many
reasons, that I had a vast respect for a race so bold, tenacious,
and fearless of death. Moreover it was most important to
preserve the pride of the Moros and safeguard it from attack
from any quarter. One of the greatest mistakes made by our
missionaries in our Indian country is their opposition to every-
thing native-the notion that everything peculiar to the Indian
must be broken down and destroyed, and their pride in the
achievements of their ancestors must be preached against,
derided, and wiped out.
The missionary would be scandalized were the situation re-
versed; should the Chinese, for instance, come over here and
say to him: "Your religion is no good, you have got to take
mine; your ancestors were nothing but dirty savages; every-
thing you do is wrong. Here, let me show you how to act!"
Then indeed would he be amazed at his own tactlessness in
the mouth of a native.
It is not possible to raise up any people who are destitute of
pride; and pride once lost is one of the things most difficult
to restore; it lies at the root of all formation of character; its
possession is a priceless gift; and no effort should be spared to
save it. Nor should any attack be permitted on the religion or
customs of races except where those factors bring them in
conflict with the law, as did the murder, slavery, and theft
which were daily events in the Sulu of that time.
The word most frequently heard in Joló in those days was
juramentado. This is the past participle of the Spanish verb
juramentar, to swear an oath, and signifies one who has sworn
an oath. As used in Joló it signifies a Moro who has taken an
oath to kill a Christian; as expressed in our language, a Moro
who runs amuck. In early Spanish times this frightful act was
participated in by large numbers at a time as a protest against
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the foreign invaders. They would shave their eyebrows, tie up
their arteries so that they would not bleed to death if wounded
before getting their Christian, dress in a white garment, go
before a Moro priest to take their oath and go to Joló to fulfil
it. On one occasion in Spanish times four hundred juramentados
attacked the town together and were all killed in the ditch
while attempting to storm the wall. Nowadays however all this
ceremony must be dispensed with for the publicity gained
during the preparations tends to thwart the gruesome plot and
they hide their purpose often for days while watching their
opportunity.
The underlying idea in their minds is that if a follower of
the Prophet kills a Christian he will go at once to the paradise
of Mohammed "on a white horse with a green mane" and will
there be washed, fed and waited upon by fifteen or twenty
women forever. When therefore he is overtaken by misfortune
or any disappointment in his life on earth the Moro is apt to
say to himself: "Why should I live around here like a rat in
the jungle? I will go to Joló and kill a Christian and go straight
to paradise." He cares no more what Christian he kills than
you care which one of a bunch of railway tickets you receive,
any one of which will take you to your destination and he has
no more animosity against the Christian than you have against
the ticket; he is simply a means to an end.
This belief in immediate translation to paradise is at the
bottom of most of the troubles of Sulu and the Mohammedan
Asiatic islands as it can readily be seen to be largely responsible
for the contempt of death especially in dealing with the white
man and for the scorn of the white man's penal laws. Even
regarding battle, the Sultan of Sulu has said to me many times:
"It will not frighten my people if I tell them, "The Americans
will fight you if you rob and murder.' They will reply: 'Well,
what of that? If a man dies to-day he won't have the trouble
of dying to-morrow.""
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315
Governor Frank Swettenham of the Malay States considered
that it is insanity that causes a Malay to run amuck, but it
cannot be that four hundred Moros could all go insane at once.
And as a further disproof of the theory, women go insane
among us, but Moro women never go juramentado.
It is my own opinion that it is merely the natural effect of the
religion of Islam on the Malay race and that it will disappear
finally through education. It happens yet occasionally at long
intervals in the Straits Settlements, where the English have
governed for fifty years. It happens at longer intervals in
Java, which has been controlled by the Dutch for more than a
hundred years.
Although going juramentado singly is not according to the
true doctrine of Islam, Sulu is a long way from Mecca, and
even tradition becomes distorted when subjected to the vicissi-
tudes of time and distance. The true doctrine of Islam sets
forth the rite to the extent of the perpetration of a holy war in
defense of the faith, and the whole nation is called out en
masse by its rulers, and unbelievers are slaughtered wholesale.
The individual cases of unauthorized killing are cases only of
simple murder, but the ignorant and untraveled Moro does not
look at it in that way. The moro name for the juramentado is
macsabil, which means "to die for the faith."
The modern juramentado of Sulu usually came alone to Joló
to effect his purpose, and was very secretive and sly about it
until the moment of attack. He was up to every device to
smuggle his arms inside the wall, hiding his barong in food
packages, in his trouser-leg, or in other garments that might
deceive the guard at the gate. One man pushed his barong
under the wall from the outside into the mouth of a little
sewer, then, entering the gate unarmed, climbed down into the
sewer, drew back his barong, hid it in his clothes, and then
came out and sat down waiting for a Christian to come along.
When two soldiers came by he flashed his barong and made a
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rush at them. They ran into a billiard saloon, and around and
around the table, chased by the juramentado, unable to use
their pistols until they dashed outside again and finished him
with four bullets without injury to any Christian.
The Moro appears to have a nervous system differing from
that of a white man, for he carries lead like a grizzly bear and
keeps coming on after being shot again and again. The only
weapon that seems adequate to melt him immediately in his
tracks is a pump-gun loaded with buck-shot. One Moro of
Joló was shot through the body by seven army revolver bul-
lets, yet kept coming on with enough vitality and force to shear
off the leg of an engineer soldier, more smoothly than it could
have been taken off by a surgeon.
My first juramentado came within a month of my taking
over the governorship. The gruesome results of the pacifist
policy had got on the nerves of some of the poor rookies of the
garrison, bewildering them and undermining their courage for
they were not even allowed to take care of themselves, as the
case of Indanan, some months before our arrival, will presently
show.
The gate leading into the barrack yard was kept open during
the day, under guard, and the sentinel paced back and forth
at the entrance. A Moro had hidden his spear and barong in
the grass and was pretending to be at some work there until
the time seemed ripe, when suddenly he seized his arms and
made a rush at the sentinel, who threw down his gun in a panic
and ran away. This left the way clear for the Moro, who
pranced proudly through the barrack yard, singing his cere-
monial songs and dancing his ceremonial dance, brandishing his
spear and barong, and cutting two huge chunks out of two men
so that their hearts could be seen beating through the hole in
their backs. By that time the troops had turned out and began
firing on him, and in the excitement one of our own trumpeters
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317
was killed; bullets went through houses, one striking the war-
vessel in the harbor, and general pandemonium ensued.
I was sitting at my desk in the Moro Civil Office when the
first shot was fired, and before I could take hold of my hat,
which was within reach, the doors had been slammed and
barred. I managed to get them open and ran up the street
looking for the juramentado and wondering what I could do
without arms if I should meet him. He was found lying on his
face unconscious, with two bullets through his head and two
through his chest, convulsively dying. When a Moro called
Tulawi arrived, I asked the name of the juramentado. Tulawi
took him by the wrist to turn him over to see his face, and as
the dying Moro did not lend himself to this effort, Tulawi
jerked his arm and kicked him over before I could remonstrate,
and was quite surprised at my reproof.
I cite this instance for the purpose of pointing out the gen-
eral feeling of one Moro for another, similar to the feeling
displayed by two cows for each other, when they meet in the
road; to show the contempt inherent not alone for death but
for the dead. There is no pity east of Suez, unless it is found
among Christians. Pity is not taught in the Koran or by the
followers of Buddha.
When investigating a complaint over the ownership of a
buffalo, it would sometimes happen that the witness would be
asked to give the approximate date of an occurrence, and
would fix it, for example, as the same date that Abdul was
killed. This would be a new detail; no mention would have been
made of Abdul before; who killed Abdul? But this would not
be a matter of importance to anybody but this meticulous gov-
ernor, who for some unknown reason would have to be in-
formed about Abdul. The important matter was the ownership
of the buffalo; nobody was interested in Abdul. Why should
they be; who cares anything about a dead man?
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Some Memories of a Soldier
There have been many gruesome sights in Joló to chill the
blood of the bravest. On one occasion three juramentados got
into the market and chopped up three Filipinos, who are con-
sidered good for entrance to paradise as inferior Christians,
but only to be used for want of a better. After this they charged
a troop of cavalry passing on the way to revolver practice. The
troopers scattered out of their way and began to shoot, killing
them only after one had carried his lead long enough to cut a
stirrup. Then a wagon-load of brown heads, arms, legs, and
torsos was brought into Joló for burial.
In Spanish times an armed Moro got inside the wall, nobody
knew how, and chopped five Spaniards. The others fired at him
so carelessly as to kill twelve of their own people, and the
Moro got away over the wall in the dusk, leaving behind him
seventeen dead Spaniards quite a haul for one man. Escape
is rare, for they usually expect and want to be killed and come
in expressly for that purpose.
Whenever a shot is heard in Joló every door is instantly
slammed shut and barred, lest a juramentado enter. A lieuten-
ant-colonel of the Spanish army, who formerly occupied the
next house to mine, was sitting at home reading a newspaper,
when a juramentado rushed in. He threw up his hands to pro-
tect his head and both arms were lopped off at one stroke.
The wife of one of our former governors started down the
street in Joló on a shopping errand, when she was suddenly
seized by two Chinese and dragged into a store, where the door
was shut and barred. She thought she had been kidnapped, but
the Chinese, with the best intentions in the world, were saving
her from a juramentado running amuck in the street.
One day while we were camped in the interior some shots
were heard at one of the outposts, and inquiry revealed that a
Moro had come in to sell eggs and fruit, and while some of the
men were chattering over the produce, he suddenly drew his
barong to kill a soldier, but was forestalled and shot by some
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319
one who had been slyly watching him. Just how far he got on
his way to paradise without killing his Christian remains
unknown.
Sometimes the act is entered into on the spur of the moment
without premeditation. My friend, Janarin, who controlled the
little barrio of Buzbuz just outside the wall of Joló, came into
my drawing-room leading a Moro whose hands were tied be-
hind his back, and said, "Here he is!" Inquiry developed the
fact that the Moro was a member of Janarin's household and
that in the midst of an altercation with his wife he had jumped
up suddenly, drawn his barong, and started to run to Joló.
Janarin saw this and shouted to some of his people to head
him off from his intention to kill somebody, and they seized
him. I asked him whom he was going to kill. He said, "Any-
body." I asked if he had any quarrel with anybody in Joló.
He said, "No." "Have you got any quarrel with the govern-
ment?" "No." "With me?" "No." "Then what is the matter
with you?" I demanded. He replied that he had had a quarrel
with his wife and didn't want to live any longer and had come
over to kill somebody. I told him he was too dangerous a char-
acter to be allowed to run loose around Joló-too much like a
mad dog-and I would have to put him somewhere where he
couldn't hurt anybody until he learned better. He was kept in
jail for six months, when he was asked if he still wanted to kill
anybody. He answered, no, that he had put that idea all away,
and thought he could behave himself. He was paroled for a
month, and then released under his pledge, which he kept as
long as I knew him.
This throws a flood of light on the springs of action of some
juramentados, for there was not the slightest trace of insanity
about this one.
Two things about juramentados were never explained, prob-
ably because they were never really investigated. One might
have the intention of doing something in Joló, but before it was
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Some Memories of a Soldier
accomplished something blood-curdling would usually occur to
divert the mind from it. First, it is said that no woman has ever
been killed in Joló by a juramentado, and second, that no jura-
mentado has ever entered Joló by way of the undefended
waterfront. A possible explanation of the first mystery is that
woman is held to be an inferior creature in Islam, and it may
be that her death could not be influential in helping one to
paradise. As to the second, a juramentado, coming in through
the water on the unfortified front, would be killed in a wet and
bedraggled condition, and be in no fit state to present himself
before the Gate of Paradise, no matter how white his horse or
how green its mane.
NEW TACTICS
Since the Moros had no fear of death, the usual sanction of
the law was non-existent, but there remained another sort of
government to be considered, based partly on respect and
affection for the governor, and partly on fear of restraint in
jail. There is no prospect of reaching paradise by way of the
prison, and the wild, free Moro hates it. As for the method of
obtaining the respect of the Moro people, this was based upon
firmness and justice. Firmness is essential in dealing with all
inferior races, and they must have perfect confidence in your
word. I might make a promise which circumstances afterward
would not allow me to fulfil, which I could explain to you but
not to an Indian or a Moro. The only answer forthcoming
would be, "You promised to do it, and you didn't do it"; and
the only way certainly to protect one's word is not to make any
promises, but if possible to be always better than one's word—
do for them what one is able with sympathy and kindness, but
without promises.
The method used for obtaining their affection was based
upon reciprocity, which made it necessary to carefully investi-
gate all of their little troubles, justly settling them with

HADJI ABDULA, MORO, 1904
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321
promptitude. I soon found the Moro responding to this treat-
ment, and when I wanted anything of him in my turn I would
get it in abundant measure, together with his trust and confi-
dence, and often with genuine affection. It took time and
infinite patience to listen to complaints over the ownership of
a buffalo long enough to arrive at a just decision. Sitting in an
office crowded with natives in that moist, tropical atmosphere
not far from the equator, the testimony over what in reality
was a trifling matter, interpreted back and forth between two
languages, droning along interminably in the heat, all day, day
in and day out, year after year, seemed at times to be without
purpose and without result. But the results in the end were
prodigious; nothing less than the trust, confidence, and affec-
tion of the huge majority of the Moro people, who were being
rapidly led upward toward the light. It was not long before I
had firm friends on every island, and a bird could scarcely fly
over one of them without my knowledge. News was brought me
unsolicited from as far away as Borneo, giving me a knowledge
of affairs that were all-embracing, of which the case of Pala
was a notable example.
Word was brought one day by natives that Pala and his
crew had had a disagreement with an English judge in Lahud
Datto, British North Borneo, whereupon they had all gone
juramentado in the streets, chopping off the head of every one
they met, and had killed or wounded twenty-nine people,
escaping afterward in their boats, and installing themselves in
an old cotta in the great swamp east of Maibun, where they
had been established less than twenty-four hours.
The names of every one of them were given, but I knew well
that if I went to arrest them there was certain to be bloodshed,
and I wanted more than the hearsay of Moros to justify me in
taking any action at all. I sent down to the lower islands,
through which they must have come, for further information,
but nothing was known of them down there, and it was learned
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afterward that they had come through the lower islands at
night without stopping or being seen. The affair was reported
to General Wood with the statement that the facts had not
yet been proved to my satisfaction, and that I would in all
events await a complaint from the English authorities at Sand-
akan before acting.
A month passed without the arrival of any complaint, and
Lieutenant Fisher of the Fourteenth Cavalry was sent to
Sandakan by ship to verify the report. He returned with the
news that it was all true and that the British complaint had
been forwarded through London.
An attempt was made to arrest Pala, which failed on account
of the noise made by the oars of the naval contingent, per-
mitting his escape into the jungle before daylight. Somewhat
later they were all caught out on solid ground, resisted arrest,
and were killed in the fight, before one of them would sur-
render. But the fact to be noted here is that I was informed of
the crime by natives within twenty-four hours of the arrival of
Pala and his crew on the island of Sulu, with the names of the
individuals and their location stated before a single question
was asked; in fact, their report formed my first knowledge of
the occurrence.
Some of my successors ruined all that coöperation by failing
to continue the reciprocity. They did not want to be bothered
with the "dirty natives" and would not listen to their little
complaints, with the result that in the day of their need of help
it was not forthcoming, and their administrations were a failure
in Joló.¹
The course laid out for fulfilment, after the abatement of
Biroa, was the establishment of schools, the sanitation of the
people with prevention of epidemic, the encouragement of agri-
culture, the construction of roads, the institution of law, with
an American judge, the disarmament of the Moro, insensibly,
Compare letter of Eddie Schück, p. 401.
1
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323
by purchase of his munitions, and the organization of a civil
government by division of the archipelago into districts, along
natural lines, each district to be governed by its natural ruler
(with a council), reporting directly to the governor at Joló;
also the enactment by the Philippine Commission of a law
forbidding slavery, with its gradual abolishment, by purchase,
throughout the archipelago. The Mohammedan religion was to
be left entirely alone. All efforts were to be directed toward
these specific activities, and the accomplishment of all of them
was effected save the building of roads and the purchase of the
munitions of war.
Requisition was made on Zamboanga, before taking over the
governorship, for a rock-crusher and road-roller for Joló, and
I was informed that it had been ordered for me from the
United States. It took six months for it to arrive, whereupon it
was diverted to the road from Overton to Lake Lanao in Min-
danao. Twice afterward I was notified that others were ordered
for me, but they too were diverted to other regions, and,
although I had been the first to ask for the machine, I never
got one.
Although Joló was the third revenue-producing port in the
Philippines, the greater part of its revenue was spent else-
where, leaving but little for its own use, and the district was
drained of its resources to the benefit of other places. Just as
I was leaving, fifteen thousand pesos of its own earnings were
allotted to Joló for roads, and arrangements were made for
their construction, but I heard after I left that the allotment
was withdrawn and the money spent elsewhere as before. This
tended greatly to hold back the development of the archipelago,
in favor of districts producing less revenue, a matter that was
out of my power to remedy. The lack of resources was felt
mostly in the shortness of funds for schools and roads.
The matter of intemperance among my own troops gave me
much concern, mainly on account of the Moros, who lived in
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Some Memories of a Soldier
their imperfect way according to the doctrines of the Koran,
which prohibited the use of intoxicating liquor, and the Moros
knew nothing about it. What a blot it would be on our civiliza-
tion if contact with Americans should result in causing the
Moros to become a nation of drunkards!
Prohibition was ordered for the archipelago to prevent this,
and it was enforced for a while, until drunken soldiers were
again seen about, and investigation showed that there was a
law of the Philippine Commission permitting the importation
and sale of liquor by the bottle or box in original packages,
and the importation into Sulu could not legally be prevented.
The policy was then changed, and licenses were priced so high
that their loss would be a matter of much consequence to their
owner. Three licenses were permitted in order to get competi-
tion in price, each to cost three thousand dollars. For allowing
men, already drunk, to have liquor, or for a disturbance on
the premises, a heavy fine was imposed. The sale to a native
would carry with it, in addition, a term of imprisonment. A
third conviction would antomatically revoke the license, with
the prohibition of ever attaining another. Only one of the
licensees had to be fined three times, and no case was known
of a native obtaining liquor during my incumbency.
All were convinced that the punishment or conviction would
be as swift and sure as the rising of the sun to-morrow, with
no hope of remission, as inescapable as the lightning, and atten-
tion was paid to the law which made "high license" operative
and satisfactory so far as the results were concerned in the
archipelago. The revenue from licenses and fines paid the
expense of the town government of Joló.
WAR-GONGS
In spite of the apparently satisfactory trend of affairs in the
capital, it very soon became evident that the situation was not
quite so tranquil beyond the city walls.
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325
After leaving Joló, Panglima Hassan had gone back to
his home in Look, to all appearances in a good humor; but
it presently developed that he had not disbanded his force, as I
had expected, but was building it up, evidently with the inten-
tion of doing some mischief; and sure enough, it was not long
before one of our surveying parties was fired upon.
When remonstrated with, Hassan said that the engineers
had made a mistake; it was not bullets they had heard flying
over them, but a swarm of bees. He began to dig intrenchments
then on a large scale and to depredate on his neighbors. What
actuated him in this course I never knew. But the firing on
our engineers, together with the firing on the landing-parties of
the navy, seemed to justify the arrest of Hassan, as they were
crimes against a foreigner, a violation of the Bates Agreement.
The people of Taclibi, along the north coast next to Hassan's
district of Look, began to join Hassan in depredating and
fortifying, and carried their property into strongholds in the
mountains, anticipating that I would go after them. They
assembled to hide in the jungle on both sides of the trail, keep-
ing very quiet, and the orders given were: "Everybody must
reserve his fire until he sees the governor coming. Allow every-
body to pass until a big red horse ridden by the governor comes
by, then everybody shoot at once so as to be sure to get him;
if you cut off the head, the arms and legs cannot work."
It is good strategy to do what your adversary does not
expect, and instead of going by the trail I was expected to
travel, I planned to take them from the rear, but I never got
the chance.
When the depredations were reported to General Wood, he
came down from Zamboanga, bringing the Twenty-eighth In-
fantry, with Colonels Sweet and Bullard from Mindanao. These
were disembarked at Siet Lake in Hassan's district of Look,
and I was ordered to wait at Joló for their ship to be unloaded
and sent back for me. I could have made the journey overland
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Some Memories of a Soldier
on horseback to Siet Lake in a quarter of the time, reaching
there in a far better organized condition than resulted from
loading and unloading everything on the ship, which is very
disorganizing, especially when there are no landing facilities on
a savage coast, for everything gets mixed up and must be
reassorted.
The ship was not intended for carrying animals; these were
tied all over it, even to the ladder reaching up to the bridge,
right in front of the captain's cabin. The ship was Spanish-
owned, under contract to the United States government, the
most inefficient kind of transport the government can get, be-
cause the interests of the government and those of the con-
tractor are usually diverse, and there is lack of control. There
was no ballast on board, and the weight of the animals on the
upper deck made the ship top-heavy and liable to overturn in
a slight wind. It was most fortunate that the journey was short
and the weather calm; nevertheless I watched the heavy roll
of the ship with great anxiety for the safety of my men.
We reached Siet Lake in the middle of the night, and I had
to make my way up to the camp in the interior through swamp
and jungle with Captain Charles in order to obtain some in-
structions. I was told to unload and take my place on the
front line on General Wood's left, as early as practicable in the
morning. Bullard was to have the right. Soon after landing he
was said to have taken a cotta and killed forty Moros. This
seemed to have been a good beginning.
On reaching the landing-place two wounded Moros were
pointed out lying on the ground, tied hand and foot. It was
said that three juramentados had attacked Bullard's landing
party with spear and barong, one having been killed and the
other two wounded. I had the two wounded men untied, had
their wounds treated by our surgeon, and sent them home with
their relatives.
The ship had to lie some distance out, and the only landing
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327
facility was a heavy, square-ended barge with oars. Although
we had been working all day, we kept on all through the night,
getting rations, ammunition, and artillery ashore. We had to
throw our horses and mules overboard, allowing them to swim
in, and they landed at different places all up and down the
coast; there was a gay old time getting them all tied up in
camp, but we got every one at last. The loading and unloading
without facilities was slow and tedious in the extreme, and
transferring the property on that heavy barge was exhausting,
but we kept right on without getting breakfast, fearful that
General Wood would get impatient and pull out without us,
which he did do, for all our efforts, just why I did not know,
for Hassan had no thought of running away, and we might
have waited a week to attack him. At any rate, the general sent
word about eight o'clock that he couldn't wait any more and
that I should follow and take my place on the left of his line.
We put a guard on the property and started out as fast as
our infantry could march, with their advance-guard in front.
Every now and then we were fired on from the jungle, and the
advance-guard would deploy and drive out the Moros, and
instead of waiting for the advance-guard to reform and take
its place in front, a new advance-guard would be put out; then
the old one would be reassembled and would form a new rear-
guard without halting the column. The infantry was hurried
in a way that was not good for it, but we caught up at last on
the left of the line, where we heard that Bullard had driven
Hassan's men out of their trenches, after which they had dis-
appeared in the jungle, no one knew where.
We made camp that night at Hassan's house, a large dwell-
ing, roofed with the leaves of the nipa palm, as dry as tinder,
and fearing that some careless person would throw down a
lighted cigarette butt, I had all the moveable property taken
into the yard out of harm's way, including a huge carved
hard-wood bed, twenty feet square. General Wood came to my
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Some Memories of a Soldier
hut that night and asked if I knew where Hassan had gone.
We had been too short a time in the country then to know
very much about such things, but I thought it possible that he
had gone to the island of Pata offshore, where I knew he had
relatives, but even Schück was at a loss about it. General Wood
asked if I would be afraid to go out and search for him with a
troop of cavalry. When I had assured him that I would not be
afraid, he told me to start early. His aides McCoy and Dorey,
hearing that I was going, asked to go along, in the expectation
that there might be something doing. The escort was com-
manded by Lieutenant McKinley, Fourteenth Cavalry.
We discussed with Schück the best direction to take, but the
discussion got nowhere for lack of facts; I used my best guess,
and after traveling a few miles a Moro was seen bathing in a
pool. A cavalry cordon was quickly thrown around him to
prevent his escape, and Schück told him to come out and put
on his clothes. When he was asked if he knew where Hassan
he denied all knowledge of Hassan. I then took a hand
myself and told him to get on that horse and take me to Hassan,
and he took us straight to Hassan, some distance away, on the
edge of the jungle with some few followers who could be seen,
but there may have been thousands unseen in the jungle.
was,
The cavalry dismounted in line to await the outcome of a
parley, which resulted in Hassan's obeying an order to come
out and approach us. He had about twenty men with him.
They stopped about thirty yards away and were told to lay
down their arms. This was a very hard thing to ask, and as
they hesitated to comply, Schück shouted "Look out," expect-
ing them to charge with their barongs. McCoy moved back a
little in order to get full scope for his pump-gun loaded with
buck-shot, and every one braced himself for a Fuzzy-Wuzzy
charge, but seeing everything ready to welcome them they put
their arms down on the ground. Hassan was then told that he
The Philippines
329
would have to go with me to General Wood, and the others
were allowed to return.
While on the return to camp a big black smoke was seen, and
we surmised that it was Hassan's house on fire. This seemed to
depress the Moro chief greatly, and we all sympathized with
him in his loss, for it was probably the largest and best native
house on the island of Sulu, one in which he had taken great
pride of ownership.
Hassan was delivered to General Wood, who was found
sitting in one of Hassan's Austrian bent-wood rocking-chairs,
out in the jungle, far away from any place you would expect
to find any such furniture, the chair having been saved with
the other furniture I had had removed from the house the night
before in anticipation of just such a catastrophe. It was never
known how the fire started, but it was supposed that some
careless person had thrown down a cigarette. General Wood
told me to go with the cavalry troop and take Hassan down to
the ship and send him into Joló in the morning.
On the way to the ship he begged to be taken a little off the
course to get his wife and family to take with him to Joló,
saying that some powerful chief would enslave them during his
absence and he would never get them back, all of which we
knew to be true, and we started to go get them to take along
with us.
When we arrived at a very boggy stream, difficult for horses,
Hassan pointed to a little distance across semi-open country
and said that his family was close by. Fearing that if we took
the horses across they might be driven back into the mud, I
dismounted the troop, without crossing it over, and told Has-
san to start out, showing him the revolver in my hand with
the admonition that if he started to run he would be shot in
the back without any words. I followed Hassan, with Schück
some paces behind me, followed in his turn by Captain Charles.
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Some Memories of a Soldier
We rounded a little point of brush in a rather open glade,
where a bamboo had fallen across the trail; Hassan stooped
under the bamboo, and when I straightened up on the other
side I saw him begin to run, and raised my revolver to keep
my promise to him. Before the cartridge exploded, however, a
bullet from the side knocked the gun out of my hand, throwing
it some distance away, and when I stooped down to pick it up
I found some fingers cut off and hanging, preventing the hand
from taking hold. I tried my left hand quickly, but to my great
surprise I discovered that it had received three bullets and
likewise refused to function. The reaction was quite inde-
scribable. My hands had always done what I wanted them to,
and now they had suddenly struck, and I could hardly under-
stand it.
While stooping down trying to get hold of the revolver, Has-
san escaped, and a volley of more than fifty bullets went over
my head from the side, which would have caught me about the
chest had I been standing. Failing after repeated efforts to get
hold of the revolver, and recovering my wits at last, I called
to Schück to go back, as this was no place for us, and leaving
the pistol on the ground, I started back myself, followed by
some Moros with spears. When I turned the point and Schück
saw the condition of my hands, bleeding profusely, he realized
that something serious had happened, and drawing his re-
volver he drove back the Moros. I was nearly unconscious from
loss of blood when we reached the horses and had soon lost a
quart. They carried me seven miles down to the sea, un-
conscious, and put me on the Borneo, and I was in the hospital
at Joló that night.
It was thought by some that Hassan had laid an ambush for
me, but this I never believed, for he had not spoken to a Moro
while with us, having been continually under guard. I believe
that he was going after his wife in good faith and happened to
run into a band of Moros on the way, who had heard us com-
The Philippines
331
ing and hidden in an abandoned cotta overrun with jungle so
thick that no one could see it eight feet away, even after a
thousand people had passed by within ten feet of it. Other
Moros from Look have told me the same thing: that Hassan
did not know the other Moros were there; that, in fact, they
had just arrived on the spot as we ourselves approached, and
it all happened without Hassan's collusion.
Major Lewis, the surgeon, told me that he had not the means
to treat me properly and that I would have to go at once to
Manila to avoid losing both hands, which became badly in-
fected, swelling to such proportions that I could not lift them,
and blood-poisoning was expected to ensue.
General Wood came in from the field in a few days, leaving
Hassan still at large. He took his troops back to Mindanao,
without any decisive result in Look, and asked me what I was
going to do, saying that if I left, the government of the whole
archipelago would collapse; and I told him that if he did not
want me to go to Manila I would not go. I asked him what
disposition was to be made of Hassan if he should be taken,
and he told me to do as I pleased about that.
I had it in mind to offer the outlaw chief his life if he would
come in and surrender, but could not do that without General
Wood's authority, lest his wishes conflict, and any promise by
me be vitiated. I intended to keep Hassan down on one of the
lower islands until his sense of proportion returned, then put
him back in charge of his own people after he had become
attached to me through kindnesses.
I believe in putting natural leaders in control, even if you
have to fight and capture them for the purpose. You cannot
get any desirable result by trying to govern through weaklings,
and if you once get the natural leaders on your side, they will
fight for you just as strongly as they formerly fought against
you, and they really govern, while no weakling can ever be any-
thing but a snare and a delusion.
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Some Memories of a Soldier
I sent many messages to Hassan, offering him his life, but
we had been there too short a time for the Moros to have confi-
dence in us. He knew very well what he would do to me if the
conditions were reversed, and he never surrendered, much to
my sorrow, for I admired him as a savage and liked him as a
man, and would have given much to save him and put him back
among his people.
My hands were in a perilous state; for four months I never
used them for anything and had to be fed and have my face
washed like that of a little boy by two hospital attendants,
both of whom offered to give me pieces of their skin to graft
on my hands, but that radical measure was not necessary in the
end. I became very weak and thin lying in bed in the tropical
atmosphere for two months, fully expecting to lose both hands,
and unable even to read. I gave up commanding the troops
but retained the civil governorship, and laid down the begin-
nings of a civil government while still flat on my back, inter-
viewing Moros in the hospital and getting back, one at a time,
through moral suasion, all of the government rifles that had
been stolen since the beginning of our occupation, except the
one in the possession of Hassan himself.
Datto Attick, the Sultan's brother, was very disobedient, and
he was brought up to the hospital to be reprimanded. I had
not finished reading him the riot act when I was visited by the
surgeon, and Attick was told to come back at ten o'clock next
morning. That afternoon the Hadjis came up and wanted to
know what I had been saying to the Sultan's brother, and when
their reasons were asked, replied that Attick was very angry,
and was saying that he was the descendant of a line of sultans
for 400 years, and nobody had ever dared to talk to him before
in that manner. "All the time you were talking to him," they
told me, "he had a revolver hidden in his armpit, looking at you
wondering when he was going to use it, and if he should be
spoken to in the same way to-morrow he will surely use it."
The Philippines
333
Captain Charles frisked him the next morning when he came
to the office to be brought to the hospital, and, sure enough, he
did have a gun hidden under his armpit. Charles took it away
from him and brought him up, where he heard many things he
had never heard before and was allowed to go.
A year after that he became disobedient again, and, coming
in of his own motion without being sent for, stood at the right
of my desk with his back to that of the adjutant, a few feet
away. I told him he had disobeyed me once too often and
would have to go to jail until he learned better. He became very
much excited, the perspiration popping from every pore-in
the frame of mind when a Moro is liable to do almost anything.
I told him that as he had come in of his own accord I would
not seize him treacherously; the gate was wide open for him
to go out if he wanted to, but in that case I would have to go
after him. I reminded him that I was always easier on a man
who gave himself up than on those I had to go after. "You will
remember I had to go after Usap," I said. "He is dead. Paruka
Utig and he is dead. You wouldn't like that, and I advise
you, as a friend, to give yourself up." After reflecting a while,
he said he would give himself up, and he was told to put his
barong on my desk.
This was a hard thing to ask, and for a while it seemed as
though it was going to be too hard, for he drew the blade half
out, obviously with the idea of cutting me as I sat at my desk,
and I heard the adjutant pull out his drawer and saw him, out
of the corner of my eye, point a revolver at Attick's back-of
which movement Attick, of course, was entirely ignorant-
waiting for Attick to raise his arm before shooting him. Attick
looked me in the eye for a moment fiercely; then his courage
oozed, and he slowly put back the blade and laid the barong
on the desk-while I heard the adjutant close his drawer.
Attick was told to go down and give himself up to the sergeant
of the guard to be locked up.
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Some Memories of a Soldier
The news of his imprisonment flew all around like lightning.
The sultan and the Raja Muda were in the barrio of Tulai, and
when the news arrived the Raja Muda jumped up, drew his
barong, and danced about in great excitement, saying, “This is
the first time since Saripul Hassim [about 1400 A.D.] that a
member of our family has ever been put in jail!" and he threat-
ened to kill all the Americans in the world.
When the excitement had died down a little, some one said
to the sultan, who was lying on his back silently smoking a
cigarette, and by whom in the end the matter would be decided,
"What do you think about that?" The sultan slowly took his
cigarette out of his mouth and said, "Yes, this is the first time
since Saripul Hassim that a member of our family has got
what he deserves." And the whole affair fell flat at once, as all
action depended upon him.
Of course, I heard this within fifteen minutes, and, the atti-
tude of the sultan softening my flinty heart, I became con-
science-stricken for having put a man of such distinguished
ancestry in jail, and I sent for Attick again, telling him that it
made me feel very badly to have to put a member of such an
eminent family in jail; it "hurt me inside"; and I informed
him that I had decided to let him out on bail; and he skir-
mished around for the sum, which was put in the custody of
the quartermaster for six months-two hundred Mexican dol-
lars and a ton of brassware and guns.
After the lapse of six months, he came in once more and
stood in the same place near my desk, and I said, "Attick, I
am proud of the way you have been behaving; I am going to
return your bail and fully release you." I never had any more
trouble with Attick; but he never knew how near Mohammed's
paradise he had been that day, standing between the adjutant's
desk and mine.
Alas for these degenerate times! I might sit around here at
home for forty years and never see a tense little drama such
The Philippines
335
as that-unless in the movies, which sadly lack the thrill of
reality.
THE RETURN OF THE PROPHET
While still lying in bed, too weak to walk, a Moro friend
came in saying that his chief was besieged on the island of Pata
for not joining a Moro, who called himself Mohammed come
again, in going over to Sulu with Hassan to fight me.
This fellow had terrorized the people of the archipelago a
little while before by telling them that he was Mohammed
come again, and that he needed only to stamp his foot to sink
a war-ship and was going to get a war-ship for his wife to play
with. A number of Moros had left Joló when he announced
that he was going to sink the capital under the sea. He had
made the sultan come into his presence on his hands and knees.
If any one wanted to see his dead relative, he stated it would
only be necessary to give him-"Mohammed"—a gold ring
and a bolt of white material. And he was going to so arrange it
the guns of the soldiers would not kill.
It is remarkable how this same delusion crops up so fre-
quently in different parts of the world, and is implicitly be-
lieved and acted upon by primitive peoples. Time and again it
has occurred among our Indians, and their belief makes it very
dangerous because they take action upon it that gets them
killed. This was really at the bottom of the slaughter of Sioux
at Wounded Knee, Dakota, in 1890, when a medicine-man had
convinced them the soldiers' guns could not kill, and they acted
on this belief. He was proved wrong by the death of 103 In-
dians, including himself-too late, however, to do them any
good.
This Mohammed person had bulldozed the island of Pata
completely, and had besieged my friend Harriman, one of the
minor chiefs, because he would not go with him over to Sulu
to fight me. Harriman's fort was right on the sea, where he was
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Some Memories of a Soldier
beleaguered and one of his men had been killed. His messenger
escaped by night in a little boat, walked across the island
of Sulu, and was asking for aid to raise the siege before they
were all killed. I told him he had come to the right place for
help; friendship had two handles to it, and he would find that
I would hold fast to mine.
While I was casting about in my mind for means to transport
troops over to Pata, the naval cruiser Annapolis, sister ship
to the Princeton, arrived in port, and Captain Hutchinson, her
commander, came up into the hospital and found me still lying
in bed, unable to walk. He said, "I hear you want to go to
war. Permit me to offer you my ship." I accepted this offer
gratefully, put two companies of infantry on board, seized a
revenue cutter in the port and a quartermaster's launch, loaded
them with men and munitions, had myself helped aboard the
cruiser with my two nurses, and set sail around the opposite
end of Sulu with my little fleet, the two smaller vessels to take
opposite sides of Pata to prevent Mohammed's escape by boat
from the island.
Mohammed and his people had lifted the siege on learning
of the escape of the messenger from Harriman's fort, and had
gone back seven miles to their stronghold on the highest point
on the island. The leader would look all around the horizon at
sundown, and if he saw the smoke of any vessels his followers
would all sleep in their fort, expecting my attack, but if there
were no smoke to be seen, they slept in their houses, since the
forts were most uncomfortable. For this reason we put the
island of Sulu between us until dark, when, with all lights out,
we made straight for Pata and landed two companies of in-
fantry, which, with Harriman as guide, occupied Mohammed's
fort before daylight, surrounded his house before he could sum-
mon help, and brought him down to the cruiser without firing
a shot.
While we were lying off Pata, a Moro came out with a flag,
The Philippines
337
calling himself the King of the Alligators. He was allowed on
board, pretending to be crazy, and I took him for a spy of
Hassan's. He presented me with a pair of blue cranes that gave
us un gran susto in Joló later. They emit a most blood-curdling
cry at night which we did not know about, and we were awak-
ened one night, thinking that some one had been murdered and
was dying in the yard. We all rushed out barefooted to the
rescue, but soon found that the cries were made by the cranes
of the King of the Alligators.
I sat in a chair placed near the top of the ladder, when he
was brought up to the main deck, surrounded by naval officers,
marines, and jackies, my most faithful friend of all, Hadji
Abdula, standing behind my chair, armed as always to the
teeth. Mohammed came off the ladder and sat down before me
on the deck, placing his barong within reach; I do not know
why it had not been taken from him, but there it was. He
worked himself up into a tremendous state of excitement, beat-
ing himself on the breast and shouting at the top of his voice-
those sailors had never seen anything like that before. I felt
something moving between my feet and, looking down, per-
ceived that it was Hadji Abdula creeping under my chair. He
fished back Mohammed's barong without his knowledge, while
Mohammed's attention was fixed, looking up at me; and when
the frenzied "prophet" had reached the point where he wanted
to use it, he reached out with his hand and it was not there, to
his blank amazement. Hadji Abdula had divined, possibly from
his actions, possibly from something he said, that he was
planning to cut me suddenly and dive overboard, but the Hadji
was too smart for him.
We took Mohammed in to Joló and put him in jail. This was
the first time I had ever met my friend, General Barnett, after-
ward commandant of the Marine Corps in Washington, then
a junior officer of marines.
The Moros could not believe that Mohammed was in jail
338
Some Memories of a Soldier
until they were taken to look at him through the bars. They
were still in terror of his sinking Joló under the sea, and be-
lieved that he flew back to Pata every night through the air.
His friends came up in a large delegation, asking for his
release, and were told that he had proved that he did not know
how to govern, that Harriman was going to govern Pata now,
and that I would not even begin to think about releasing
Mohammed until after they had all submitted to Harriman.
They came up in a month and announced that they had all
done so. I told them I would have to talk to Harriman about
that, who said it was not true, and they went back to Pata
abashed. In about four months, Harriman reported that they
had all submitted, and there was peace again on the island.
When Mohammed had been six months in jail, he was asked
if he thought he could cut out all the Mohammed business and
behave himself, if I should let him go home. He thought he
could, and I said to him: "I forbid you to govern in Pata any
more and to deceive your people about Mohammed. You must
subject yourself completely to Harriman or I will go again to
get you, and you will never go back." All the Mohammed
business, he said, was caused by his "hearing voices in his
beard," but I cautioned him that henceforth he was to hear no
voices but mine. He was paroled for a day, for a week, for a
month, for six months, and as he appeared regularly on the
day set for his return, he was finally allowed to go free.
A year thereafter, an outlaw went to Pata for asylum,
and a large company of infantry was sent after him. He ran
to Mohammed, who told the captain that he had the outlaw
with him, and that if the captain wanted him he would have to
come and get him, because the outlaw was under his-Mo-
hammed's-protection.
Mohammed was with his troops, sixty-eight armed men, and
he refused to give the outlaw up. Both sides were drawn up in
line opposite each other, about fifty yards apart. Mohammed
The Philippines
339
had assured his followers that they were bullet-proof, which
they believed, as I have no doubt Mohammed did himself.
His plan was gradually to approach the troops by degrees
until they were close enough to rush in and chop them up with
barongs before they could use their rifles. He would move up
a few short, shuffling steps at a time, beating himself on the
breast and shouting at the top of his lungs, to draw attention
to himself and away from his approach. He told his men to
rush in with barongs when he said "Bismillah" the seventh
time. He was warned by Schück not to come any nearer, but
made his few steps each time followed by his men. He had said
"Bismillah" five times, and got within twenty feet of the Amer-
ican line with the Moros working around the flanks, when the
captain warned him that if he took another step forward he and
his army would be melted down. He took the fatal step, al-
though fully warned, and sixty-eight of them were killed in
their tracks, including Mohammed. They say the look of
surprise on his face when he found he had been penetrated by
a bullet was remarkable. One man only broke through the line
and was killed by Schück.
ON THE MARCH AGAIN
I found on return to Joló that my condition had retrograded
because of my activities in Pata, and it took a long time to
repair the damage.
During all that time the commander of the troops had been
making forays in search of Hassan, always missing him and
always stirring up great trouble in the countryside, until it
looked as if the whole country was going to rise against us.
The sultan came in one day, announcing that he had sent one
Pala to assassinate Hassan, so as to get some peace, promising
Pala five hundred pesos. He wanted to know if I would reim-
burse him. I told him he had better get Pala back in a hurry
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Some Memories of a Soldier
before he had earned his money, else he, the sultan, would
surely lose it. "We Americans will fight you to the end if you
rob and murder," I said, "but we will never assassinate you or
do you any treachery." He sent out at once and withdrew Pala
in time to save his pesos.
At length, as affairs grew more and more complicated, I felt
it necessary to resume the command of the troops myself
and clean up the situation. Hassan was the main cause of the
trouble, and there would be no peace or quiet until he was
captured or killed, since he positively refused to surrender, and
his depredations, now outrageous in extent, kept everybody in
a constant state of excitement.
I borrowed Schück's pony to ride, since it was easier to lift
me upon a pony than a horse. Both hands had to be carried in
a sling, and I was led through the country by a rope like an
Italian dancing bear for twenty-seven days and some nights,
over mountains and through jungles, accompanied by an irate
surgeon, threatening me with the loss of both hands, and wash-
ing his own of all responsibility because I would not go home.
I promised, however, to go home as soon as Hassan was caught.
Gentle pressure on the sultan, to cause him to obtain assist-
ance from Indanan and other chiefs, culminated now in his
turning out more than two thousand Moros to take part in the
search of the jungles and the patrolling of the shores to pre-
vent the outlaw's escape to the other islands. Since this force
was unorganized and without commissariat, it could not be
expected to remain in the field for more than a week, and I
thought I would do well to keep it that long.
Before striking for Hassan's fort on the south coast, I deter-
mined to attempt the capture of Orang Kaya Tallu, an outlaw
inherited from the former administration, in the territory of
the two brothers, Jokanain and Calbi, on the north coast.
Jokanain had the district of Paticol near Joló, while Calbi con-
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341
trolled the district of Tando, the most northern on the island
of Sulu.
These brothers were rather shy about coming into Joló.
Though they had both declared their allegiance, they had done
nothing to back up their words; nobody knew their real senti-
ments, and it was possible that they might attack us at any
moment.
By a swift night march we struck Orang Kaya Tallu's camp
in Paticol just at dawn. He had become uneasy and had slipped
off into the jungle by himself, about two o'clock in the morning.
We took his camp, killing eight of his men.
I then wrote to Jokanain and Calbi that they had been gen-
erous with their words about loyalty, but parsimonious with
their deeds, and that here was an opportunity to prove their
allegiance. I had no time to search for Orang Kaya Tallu but
must fight Hassan on the other side of the island before he
destroyed everything, and I wanted them to get Orang Kaya
Tallu for me right away. I then went on to Cotta Pang Pang,
which Hassan had recently built for his defense, and in the
meantime Jokanain turned out seven hundred men to capture
Orang Kaya Tallu, who became alarmed and went to sea with
a few followers, and was cast on Calbi's country in Tando.
Hassan had taken great pains in the construction of Cotta
Pang Pang for his own refuge. I was anxious to secure
Hassan's surrender without conflict if possible, but was pre-
pared to fight if necessary.
I had spent much time interrogating various Moros on con-
ditions about Pang Pang; and I had a number of drawings of
the fort made by different people and a plan constructed of
those elements on which they agreed, which proved in the end
to be quite accurate.
As we approached the neighborhood of the fort, a detach-
ment of our allies passed by, two hundred strong. We felt very
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Some Memories of a Soldier
dubious about them, not knowing that they might not turn
on us, and all precautions were taken with this possibility in
view.
Some time before we arrived near the fort itself, we were
fired on from the jungle, fortunately without effect. Then the
firing-party retired into the fort, and the battle was on. No
one would respond to our desire for a parley. The cotta was a
rectangular wall about five feet high, of volcanic niggerhead
boulders laid in clay, which had many projections and air-
holes that locked them together. The fort was surrounded
within four feet of the wall by a stout bamboo fence with
posts of hard wood, eight inches in diameter, set deep in the
ground, so that should the assailant attempt to climb it he
would expose himself to being impaled on a spear in a de-
fenseless position. The trees had been cut down all around to
afford a clear field of fire, and the fort itself was entirely
invisible behind the screen of the fence.
Despairing finally of a parley, we pounded the wall a large
part of the day with four mountain-guns, but we might as well
have thrown rotten apples for all the effect our firing had on
that wall. We had no idea what was going on behind the
fence; all we knew was that there were bullets coming out.
Some of the trunks of the large trees were still lying on the
ground, some parallel, some at an oblique angle to the fort,
behind which we could shelter our men and get within forty
yards of the wall.
Lieutenant Eugene West of the artillery ran his guns rather
close to the wall out of the dense jungle to get a view of his
target, and passing near I heard a bullet strike him. When
I turned he was lying on his back, driving his men, who had
run to pick him up, back to their guns. As both my hands
were in slings I could not help him myself and called Captain
Charles to look after him while I got the surgeon over. It was
found that the bullet had broken his thigh-bone. After a long
The Philippines
343
convalescence he recovered, with a shortened leg; and a fine
young officer with brilliant prospects was compelled to go on
the retired list.
Four times we stopped our firing, urging surrender with
promise of their lives, but they replied as always: "You
cowardly American pigs may know what it is to surrender, but
we Moros don't even have such a word in our language!"
My hands incapacitated for the use of weapons, I spent my
time on the different sides as the situation required, arrang-
ing the fire of the troops so as to keep them from shooting each
other—a feat somewhat difficult under the dircumstances, and
made more so by the small open space around the fort. Shortly
åfter West was wounded, Captain Drake, Lieutenants Kerr,
Riggs, and Ronald Fisher, with their First Sergeant Elmer
with part of their troop, swarmed over the fence and took the
cotta in gallant style.
It was dark by that time, and we had to bivouac at the
nearest water. Before daylight we went back to the cotta and
discovered that relatives had taken away all the wounded, and
we found no trace of Hassan himself. So search was begun for
him in the jungle.
While all did well, the bravery of Captain Drake, Lieu-
tenants Fisher, Kerr, and Riggs and their First Sergeant Elmer
was very conspicuous in this assault and made a profound im-
pression on the Moros.
A report of the fight was sent to General Wood, who came
down with McCoy and a company of infantry, landing on the
beach and coming up some five miles on foot to our camp to
find out how it happened.
I had just been lifted on my pony to break camp, when I
saw the muzzles of the rifles of the infantry above the brush,
and soon General Wood and McCoy arrived for a conference.
I must have been a curious sight, not having been able to
shave myself for some months, sitting on that pony with both
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Some Memories of a Soldier
hands in slings, my keeper ready to lead me out, while all
around me were grouped Abdulas and the like-all the char-
acters of "The Arabian Nights." Writing home afterward,
McCoy said he had never seen such a wild spectacle since he
had viewed the entrance of the Holy Carpet into Cairo.
A Moro captured in the fight had told us that Hassan had
gone to Tando, where we also went.
Calbi met us at his border with two hundred men, and I
asked where Hassan was. He said he did not know. I told him
I had been informed that Hassan was in Tando, and I had
come after him. He replied that Hassan had never been in
Tando, and that he himself had a wild lot of men who would
not understand my search there, and we would be liable to have
a bloody clash, and he asked me not to search his country.
I asked him to promise me that if Hassan should enter his
territory he would catch him, or kill him if he could not catch
him, and he promised. I then assured him that I would not
search his district, and started to look elsewhere for Hassan.
At the end of three days one of Calbi's men brought me
a letter from his chief of which the following is a translation:
This letter from your son, Paduxa Datto Muhamad Dahiatul
Calbi, to my father, the governor of Sulu, Major Scott, and my
younger brother, Tuan Sali [Charles Schück, interpreter].
I want to inform you that at seven o'clock in the morning of
Saturday we had a fight with Tallu. I have taken his head, but if
you will allow it, I will bury it, if my father will let me do that,
because he is an Islam [Mohammedan], and I would otherwise
commit an offense. Those that are dead were Sadalani, Namala,
Muhamad and Salui. Beyond that I have not investigated.
With greetings to my father and my younger brother, I beg you,
my younger brother [Schück], to let me bury the head, for it
frightens my wife to see it in the house, if my father [the governor],
does not feel bad about it. If your father [the governor] should not
believe that the head is there, come to our house and see yourself,
so as to be sure. I would not soil the faith my father has in me.
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345
To close, I herewith send the creese of Orang Kaya Tallu. The end
of the pen.
JULIUS SCHÜCK,
Official Interpreter and Translator.
Received at Camp Lambaga, February 23, 1904.
That expression, "I would not soil the faith my father has
in me," has compensated me for many long hard days and hot
nights, and fully confirms the verse carved in marble on the
front of the great Union Station in Washington:
Be noble, and the nobility that lies in other men
Sleeping though never dead,
Will rise in majesty
To meet thine own.
Calbi never did soil the faith his father had in him. This
loyal savage was of royal blood, and more nearly deserved the
title of prince than any person I have ever seen. He governed
mainly through his lofty port and compelling eye. Whenever
he came to my office he would look neither to the right nor
the left, but would enter with haughty stride and everybody
would get out of his way.
Calbi complained to me once about his teeth hurting him,
and I took him severely to task for filing and blacking them,
according to the Moro custom. I asked: "Why do you do it
when it ruins your teeth and gives you such pain? There is
nothing in the Koran telling you to do that." He replied that
if you don't blacken your teeth the girls will not marry you;
they say: "What? Marry that fellow? Never! He has white
teeth like a dog!"
We started out then on a systematic search of the large
jungles for Hassen, assisted after a fashion by our Moro allies,
although just how faithful their coöperation actually was we
had no means of knowing. They were out there, however,
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Some Memories of a Soldier
longer than I thought it possible to keep them without a com-
missary, operating against one of their own people.
The Raja Muda came in one day worn out. "Look at me,"
he said, "the descendant of sultans who never had to walk on
the ground! I haven't had anything to eat since day before
yesterday! My clothes are in rags! I have been down in the
jungle the companion of snakes! I have got to go home!"
I pointed out the fact that he was better off than I was,
with both hands tied up, and encouraged him to go on, which
he did cheerfully for a week, and then came in again very
near his limit. After exhorting him to renewed effort, I said,
"Raja Muda, do you remember that bad boil you had once?"
He said he did. "Well, Raja Muda," I told him, “you have
been doing so well lately that I had forgotten about that boil."
He burst out quickly, "So have I," and started out once more
on the search.
We had to comb each jungle thoroughly to assure ourselves
that we were not passing Hassan in hiding. This took a long
while, and we had to get information of his direction, which
also required time; Hassan was generally about a day ahead
of us. He would slip from one jungle to another at night, but
we would have to continue our combing after he had left, to
make sure. This seemed interminable, and both troops and
allies were very nearly exhausted.
At last we got news of Hassan's definite whereabouts, and
approached his camp one morning-a little too early, as we
could not time our approach for lack of exact information of
its location. Hassan heard us coming and ran off into the
darkness with some of his people. His whole family was cap-
tured, his eldest son shot through the ankle, and seven men
killed; but Hassan himself, with reduced following, got away.
By this time men and horses were so tired that to rest the
command I changed my plan and remained stationary, send-
ing a Moro friend to stay in the house of Hassan's father-in-
The Philippines
347
law at the foot of Mount Bagsak, where I felt confident that
my quarry would soon go for asylum. In a few days my friend
returned with the information that Hassan with two men was
in a little nipa hut in the crater on top of Bagsak, which was
in full view twenty miles away.
Captain Charles made a mud model of the mountain, show-
ing the hut in the crater and the approaches on each side, and
the officers and first sergeants were brought in, and shown upon
the model-which they could compare with the peak in view
-their respective approaches and positions, so that each would
know exactly what he had to do when the time came. My Moro
friend was then sent back to arrange to have guides for each
element meet us, and we started out just as the moon rose.
When within a few miles of the mountain, the battery was
left to wait for further orders, lest Hassan hear a mule bray.
No Moro ever owned a mule, and the sound would be sufficient
notice for Hassan to plunge into the jungle for another long
chase. Being still very weak I retained my pony, but all the
horses were left with the battery.
It was one of those clear, breezeless, moonlit nights, nearly
as bright as day. Fearing lest Hassan should be sitting on the
lip of the crater, looking out over the world, and should catch
the moonlight's reflection upon steel, all arms were wrapped
up. The ground was hollow, and every step my pony took
sounded like a gong; I had to send him back to the artillery
at length, and make my way afoot through the tall cogon
grass as best I could, falling down every now and then, break-
ing my fall on my elbows to protect my face.
It took some time for the guides to arrive, and we sat down
near the foot of the mountain to wait for them. The dew was
very cold, and I rolled myself in my cloak and went to sleep.
I was awakened suddenly by a pandemonium, and, rushing
with Schück to the rear of the troops, found that more than
one thousand of our allies had run into our column, having
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Some Memories of a Soldier
heard of Hassan's location that afternoon and, without notify-
ing me, were proceeding on their way to capture him. The
moonlight flashing everywhere from their arms, their lighted
cigarettes shining, and the steady roar of their voices were
enough to warn a dozen Hassans. How we had managed to run
into each other in the middle of the night without a clash
seemed miraculous, especially as the soldier does not know an
ally from any other native. I had feared to tell the Moros of
Hassan's location when I first learned of it, lest they send him
warning; but here they were, and how they were to be side-
tracked was a knotty question.
The chiefs were all sent for and told that we knew where
Hassan was and that they must stop that racket and wrap
their arms at once. They were ordered to surround the foot of
the mountain on every side, while I went up after Hassan; for
if they went up, I explained, my men would not recognize
them from Hassan and his men when they came down, and
some might be killed, whereas they would know Hassan if he
broke through my line, and could catch him below. This
seemed to satisfy them, and on the arrival of the guides each
element started for the top, with instructions to be careful
about noise, and to allow Hassan to take the initiative, lest
we take it too soon and he get into the jungle again as he
had done before.
Then began a long hard climb, during which I had to be
alternately pushed and pulled up the steep side of the moun-
tain, through the coarse, thick cogon grass. Schück had orders
to call out to Hassan if he started to make a break and to tell
him that he was surrounded on every side, with no possibility
of escape, and that if he would lay down his arms and sur-
render with his men, their lives would all be spared.
The crater was about four hundred yards across, and by the
time I got up, pretty well tuckered out, the troops were all in
position. It was a most dramatic situation; four hundred men
The Philippines
349
crouched around the lip of that crater in the moonlight, with-
out a sound. When the first tinge of morning appeared in the
east, a light was lit in the hut in the middle of the crater
and some one was heard singing below. Then the light went
out and was lit again, the singing very audible in the still clear
air. Not a sound was heard around the rim of the crater, save
the chattering of teeth from the cold.
At the true break of dawn, three men were seen to leave the
hut below, and to come my way with their arms. They were
allowed to walk up the inside of the crater until the foremost
paused a moment on the lip, looking out and about to start
down out of sight. Then a single shot rang out, and he
plunged head first six hundred feet down the steep incline,
his momentum carrying him fifty yards into the jungle before
he stopped. The second man was killed in his tracks, and the
third and last was Hassan, who rolled into a ravine wounded,
shooting his Krag rifle at everybody he could see, getting a
cavalry soldier through the pelvis and causing narrow escapes
for Major Lewis, the surgeon, Captain Smedburg, and others.
He was shot at from every direction, the bullets having such
a plunging action that our own people, although looking on
from every side, were not endangered.
The crater was split on one side, a ravine carrying the water
down to the plain below. This ravine was bordered by a narrow
strip of brush and trees, and was cut off by different small
groups of soldiers at different altitudes to prevent escape.
A sergeant worked his way through this to the vicinity of
Hassan, who seeing his approach pulled down on him with
his Krag. Before he could shoot, however, a bullet from
another direction broke the bolt, and, throwing his gun down,
Hassan drew his barong and charged the sergeant, who put a
bullet from a Colt 45 through both of the chief's ears, and the
fight ended then and there, a great cry of joy rising from
every side.
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Some Memories of a Soldier
We all gathered on the rim then, watching the sun come up,
illuminating a glorious view over land and sea. We found we
were overlooking the greater part of Sulu, with the Celebes
Sea on one side and the Sulu Sea on the other, the white coral
beaches beaten by the surf.
I sent Schück down to see if it was actually Hassan and if
the surgeon could do anything for him. They wanted me to go
down and see him, but I felt too badly over his death to want
to go. They came back and said that it was Hassan beyond
a doubt, and that he had thirty-two Krag balls through him
and was only stopped by the Colt 45-the thirty-third bullet.
I sent out announcements everywhere saying that Hassan
was dead and the war was over, and that everybody should
return home and, after resting, go on cultivating the soil in
peace.
While resting on the rim, looking out over that marvelous
view, I said, "Well, the war is over now, unless Janarin [who
was sitting there] wants to go and fight Datto Calbi." This
was one of my heavy jokes, for Calbi was Janarin's foster
brother. Nevertheless Janarin answered, "I will fight anybody
with you."
We sent for the artillery to come up with the horses, and,
putting our wounded man on a litter, started down for the
sea, where a transport was waiting, and the wounded man and
I were in the hospital at Joló that night. We had been short of
transportation all the time, and the only hot water the surgeon
had been able to get to dress my wounded hands had been
taken from the soup-kettle, with grease floating on top, since
we had nothing else, and it was a great relief to get into a real
bed and not have to get out to struggle through jungles again
until my strength returned.
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351
SCHOOLS, VACCINATION, AND MORE ADVENTURES
Four months after being wounded, I used my hands a little
and began to toughen them up. After a while my strength
began to return, and the routine of office work, hearing cases
and the like, began again.
I was very anxious to start a school, but the Moros would
not hear of it, saying it would destroy their religion. A promise
that religion would not be mentioned changed their opposition
not a whit. The Spanish Jesuits had maintained a mission at
Joló for many years without ever getting a single Moro con-
vert or scholar; they had given it up finally, going away and
maintaining only a visita for the Catholic Filipinos in the town
once every few months. When the Jesuits giye up a mission,
things must be in a hopeless state indeed.
While talking to Hadji Butu and other principal men about
schools, they listened politely, as they always did, but not
even a dent was made on them. The Asiatic is always polite;
he may be evolving in his mind a plot to lop your head off,
but he is never rude.
Upon the occasion of one of these conferences, I sent out to
catch an Arab that I had seen pass by, and asked him if he
had ever been in Java. Yes, he said, he had lived in Batavia.
I asked where he had lived in Batavia. He replied in some
heat, "You know very well where I lived; I lived in the Arab
quarter, and wasn't allowed to live anywhere else." "What
would happen to you if you were to say good morning to a
Dutchman in Dutch?" I inquired. "They would fine me twenty
pesos," he replied.
"There, listen to that," I said, turning to the Moros; "that's
the way you are treated in Java. They won't even let you
learn their language or read their books, afraid you will learn
something and get to be rulers, while here I am trying to teach
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Some Memories of a Soldier
your children the literature of all the world that makes the
white man ruler wherever he goes. You don't want your
children to be rulers; you say you love your children, but
you can't love them if you won't let me teach them to be
rulers; don't try to put that over on me, for you can't do it!"
After a while Hadji Butu came over and said, "I am going
to make you a present of my son, Hadji Gulam," twelve years
old. I said: "I don't want your son. I have sons of my own
learning to be rulers. I don't want an ignorant lout like your
son hanging around me." "But I give him to you," he said.
"He is yours to do what you want with him." "Very well,
then," I replied, "I will take him and put him in school."
The school was started with one teacher and one boy, Hadji
Gulam, in a nipa house. As he was a high-born boy, others
came in soon; and since the subject of religion was taboo, it
was not long before the school was full, and we soon had all
the boys that we had the facilities to take care of.
This was an excellent example of moral suasion, without the
mailed fist of the soldier. We had another example when
the news came that there was smallpox on the island of Negros
in the Philippine group, where some of our native sailing-
vessels touched. We issued a quarantine against Negros and
sent for a quantity of virus to vaccinate all the non-immunes.
The suggestion was rejected with scorn by the Moros, saying,
"It is not according to the custom of our ancestors," meaning,
"There is nothing in the Koran about that, and I will have
none of it"; from all of which it may be seen what a cold hand
the religion of Islam puts upon progress: it can see nothing
of value that has arisen since the death of Mohammed, some
six hundred years ago; it prohibits the making of pictures and
so is a strangler of art. It is amusing to see a Moro take a
picture and turn it around and around several times like a
monkey in the effort to understand it, but finally to put it away
when tired of it; whereas an Indian can understand a picture

GENERAL SCOTT WITH THE SULTAN OF SULU AND HIS SUITE IN THE OFFICE OF THE COMMANDING
GENERAL, MANILA, P. I.
The Philippines
353
at a glance and can often make a good one himself; he is
sometimes quite ingenious in making a picture tell a whole
story.
The principal Moros were told of the quarantine on Negros
and told to keep away from there and to report at once any-
body coming from it. They were scandalized, however, at the
idea of having their children vaccinated.
There had been a great loss of life from smallpox during the
previous epidemic about six years before, and all the children
born since then needed vaccination.
I said, "I am sorry to find out that you Moros don't love
your children." They replied indignantly, "Of course we love
our children just as much as you white men love yours." "No,"
I said, "you talk that way with your mouth, but you don't talk
that way with your hearts; you don't act that way with your
hearts. I look around at your faces and see that most of you
are pockmarked. I know you have had an epidemic. Didn't you
have somebody die of it in your family? You don't love your
children as we do ours, for we take care of them; we don't let
them die of smallpox. I will give you a peso for every pock-
mark on a white man you can find in this room."
"We take care of our children," I went on, "because we
love them. You let yours die because you don't love them
enough to let me save them. Don't try to deceive me on that
point, for I know better."
They all went off and conferred for a while and came back,
looking very shame faced. When they were seated I turned on
them sharply, asking, "What are you going to do about it?"
They replied, "We are going to let you vaccinate them." And
we soon had a thousand children vaccinated and kept on until
all our virus was used up and we had to send for more.
Of all the Moros of Mindanao and Sulu, Hadji Butu was
the wittiest, wisest, best informed, and most progressive. He
was the only one of the older Moros who set himself to learn
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Some Memories of a Soldier
English, and by this time he must speak English well. He
always wanted it understood that he was not a fighter but a
counselor, and kept out of the field. He was as strong in the
council-room, however, as a dozen warriors on the battle-front,
and always used his influence over the sultan in favor of the
government, invariably supporting my policies. He was the
first Moro to be appointed as a senator to Manila from the
Moro Province, he and his ancestors having been prime minis-
ters of the sultans of Sulu for four hundred years. Hadji Butu
kept the archives running back through the same four cen-
turies, about which he was well informed and was able to
answer many historical questions offhand. I got the Moro
permission to copy these, and sent a request to the Bureau
of Ethnology in Washington to be furnished with an inter-
preter and typewriter to copy them, but was told that appro-
priations were not available outside of the United States, and
I have not since been able to interest any private person of
means. If they catch fire a vast amount of history will go up
in smoke. It should be a matter of interest to the Philippine
government to preserve them, but the Filipino does not care
much for the Moro and doubtless feels that the less said about
his history the better.
Hadji Butu had the most sane views of any of the Moros
regarding the juramentados. When he heard that Hassan had
died a macsabil "for the faith"-he said, "If any one will
repeat that in my presence I will slap his mouth!" adding
that Hassan was only a murderer.
The Arabian word hadj means a pilgrimage, and hadji in
Sulu is a title of very great respect, indicating that the bearer
has made the pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, as all do
who can afford the journey. One returns from Mecca always
a very holy person, and the pilgrimage enables one to get a
traveled outlook on the world, a more sophisticated mind, and a
broader view of life.
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355
Hadji Abdula, another friend, attached himself to me unin-
vited soon after my arrival and constituted himself my guar-
dian, working under his own orders, and no grandmother
could have been more solicitous for my welfare. He always
found out when I was going out with the troops, and even if
it were in the middle of the night, there would be Hadji
Abdula with his horse and arms.
He had formerly been the head soldier of Jokanain in his
wars against the sultan and against the Spaniards, of whom he
admitted having killed fourteen, besides Filipinos and China-
men uncounted as beneath his notice. Just how I acquired his
allegiance I never knew, but I had it in the fullest measure.
He and I-see-o of the Kiowas were two men who really be-
lieved in me, and I might have committed many crimes and
they would have thought them quite proper if I had.
I found it necessary once, during a visit to Zamboanga, to
send Captain Reeves to search a cave that was said to contain
a large quantity of rice and brassware belonging to a band of
outlaws. The captain reported upon my return that he had
captured the rice and divided it among our allies, but had seen
no brassware. Two weeks afterwards Hadji Abdula appeared
with a large brass vase, and announced that it belonged to me.
I told him I had never seen it before and asked where it came
from. He replied that it had come out of the cave. I said the
captain had reported that there had been no brass there. "Oh,
yes, I know, I know," he said. "You would never have got
it if he had seen it, but I wrapped it up in my turban and
threw it out into the jungle. I have just been back to get it,
and it belongs to you." After a fight he would usually bring in
a fine spear with the announcement that Laksa Mana Usap,
Paruka Utig, or some other chief had put his finest spear on
the parapet with the admonition that it was not to be used
for anything except to stick the governor; and that now that
the chief was dead, it belonged to me.
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Some Memories of a Soldier
The Hadji was one of the sights of Joló-with his blackened
teeth, his skin-tight silk trousers like a frog skin, his bare feet,
his velvet jacket, and his huge yellow turban. He was never
seen without his Krag rifle, given him by Governor Taft, his
white-handled revolver that I brought him from the United
States, and his long wavy-edged Malay creese, from which our
modern bread-knives must have been pirated-with which
arsenal he probably slept.
The Hadji had been in the entourage of Datto Jokanain on
his journey to Mecca, and when some Arab had insulted the
Datto in Singapore the Hadji had grabbed him by the beard,
twisted his neck until he fell to the ground, had then jumped on
him and beaten him insensible. From which it might be in-
ferred that it were better to be a friend of the Hadji than an
enemy.
When at Singapore he had seen the rich Chinese driving on
the Bund, with a coachman and two footmen in the carriage,
and the forerunner, preceding the team with a long wand to
tap the natives on the shins, warning them to clear the way
for his master. Whenever I would leave the office for lunch,
the Hadji would appear from somewhere with a cane, and woe
to the native who chanced to obstruct the passage of his
"gubnor."
When the Taft Commission came ashore at Joló in a long
procession of ladies, senators, congressmen, and so on, with
band and military escort, it was quite a sight to see the Hadji
acting as forerunner for the secretary of war. Nobody dared
get in the way of that procession, but more of that visit later.
I am confident that I shall never see anybody like the Hadji
again, for his like does not exist. Whenever I had dealings
with strange Moros, the Hadji, with his arms loosened and
ready, never left me for a moment; and he was prompted only
by his own wish, for certainly nobody ever told him to
guard me.
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One morning I went into the office and found it full of
armed men. I was told that Ambutong was coming in to-day
and had announced that he was going to cut me. The office was
arranged with two lines of chairs facing each other, in front
of my desk, with a passageway between. I had a large paper-
weight on the desk with which I intended to knock Ambutong
on the head if he came over my desk. Ambutong came in and
sat down, and the Hadji placed himself with another Moro
in full panoply in front of Ambutong, and two others were on
each side of him and two more behind, all this taking place
without a word said. Ambutong looked first at the Hadji and
his companions in front, then at the two at his sides, and then
at those at his rear, and if he had ever had the intention of
doing violence, he concluded that the present moment was not
a good one, and went away without so much as lifting a
finger.
On another occasion at Look I lay off seven miles from a
fort I had to take, while for ten days I was getting women and
children out of the fort. One neutral friend got eighty women
and children out for me. During the period of waiting, some of
the people in the fort would come out and mingle with the
other Moros in our camp. I sat under a tent-fly one day talk-
ing to about two hundred Moros when some one came up
behind me and whispered, "There is a juramentado in the
crowd who is going to cut you." I looked around but did not
see anybody who appeared to have that intention, and went
on with my remarks. Feeling something touching me behind,
I looked around and found that twenty of my Moros had lined
up behind me with their arms, while the Hadji stood up on a
box at one side with his Krag rifle ready, and his revolver and
creese loosened, peering down into the faces in front, wonder-
ing which one he was going to have to shoot for trying to cut
his "gubnor." If anybody had come there with that intention
he abandoned his purpose.
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Some Memories of a Soldier
Without a hint from any one, those Moros would catch a
slight whiff of danger in the air, and they took better care of
me than my mother could have. If we happened to be in camp,
the first I would know of danger imminent would be through
finding them sleeping on the ground in front and on both
sides of my tent.
Sitting on a huge log in Look with Panglima Opau one day,
while lying off that fort, I gave a ten-cent piece to a Moro
child. Opau said to Schück, "How did the governor know that
child was an orphan?" Schück answered that "the governor
knows a whole lot more than you think he does." Opau said,
"Why, then, doesn't he give me a real too, for I am an orphan?"
Whereupon I presented him with ten cents, which amused him
immensely for he was very rich in stock and land, and was a
very powerful man with a hundred or more relatives. When-
ever he came in to Joló after that I always inquired after
the health of the "poor orphan," until one day he replied that
he was an orphan no longer, for I was his father and his
mother both.
On the occasion of his first visit to Joló (it was not the
custom to visit Joló in Spanish times, and many had never
been there who had grown up within eight miles of the town),
I gave him a piece of ice, which he had never seen or heard of
before, and he thought I burnt him, and dropped it like a
hot coal. Opau was covered with scars of great slashes re-
ceived both back and front, and he had been left for dead once,
but he recovered, putting mud in his wounds, which he covered
with banana leaves.
In lying off that fort, I was endeavoring, through Opau
and his son-in-law, to keep the district of Look neutral, and
I made a particular effort at the son-in-law as having a great
influence with Opau. He said one day, "I will stand by you
even if there isn't another man in Look to do it." Not long
after that he started to leave camp, and as he passed us on
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his horse while we were at lunch I invited him to alight and
eat with us. He looked at me with horror and said, "If I were
to eat that food I would die." This shows one of the great
barriers that must be surmounted in controlling Moros, since
they are horrified at the very idea of eating our food.
While in this same camp, men from the hostile fort would
come over and ask pointed questions of the Moros living in
the house that overlooked the camp. One day five came in at
different times and asked the same question: "In which one of
those tents does the governor sleep?" They had a very pleas-
ant way of creeping into camp through the darkness, cutting
a tent-rope, letting the tent fall, and when you stood up
under it, your head pressing up the canvas would indicate the
place to cut. Or they might throw a spear through the canvas
to strike your head in bed.
The number and sameness of those questions gave me food
for reflection, and I thought I would circumvent the spearmen
by changing around so as to put my feet where my head
usually was, and I examined my revolver, which was kept in
a wall-pocket where I could seize it in one movement. I felt
a little dubious about my very excitable Austrian stenographer
who was sleeping on the other side of the tent with a barong.
Not long after the poor fellow was shot through the back and
killed one night close to Joló.
Some time after I left Joló, two officers were sleeping in
one of a line of tents, in a camp in the district of Look, one on
a cot with his head toward the front of the open door, and
the other on the ground in the rear. A juramentado ran down
the line in the dark and with one stroke cut off the head of
the officer on the cot, wounding the other with a spear, and
cutting one of our men through the muscles of one side of
the neck, just missing the jugular. As it was no longer held
upright by the severed muscles, the soldier's head fell over
to the other side, and righting his head with one hand, he
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killed the Moro with the pistol in the other. The muscles
were sewed together, and the man recovered and is probably
walking around somewhere now, none the worse for the
incident.
Later on, so many Moros got to creeping into the camp
during the darkness that the troops in the field, when sta-
tionary for a time, took to building a barbed wire fence around
the camp, to which tin cans, filled with pebbles, were tied to
give warning of approaching danger. Notwithstanding all these
causes for wakefulness, I do not believe I sleep as soundly now
as I did then. Custom soon dulls all fear of danger, as is
exemplified by the carelessness of men accustomed to handling
dynamite. I certainly lost all trace of fear in the Indian country
in my youth, when one knew constantly that death might be
waiting just over the next hill. Nobody can keep himself
scared for long at a time, for danger soon gets to be "old stuff."
The Spanish garrisons of Joló never had any mounted troops,
and the Moros were dumfounded at first at the swiftness with
which I would cross the island with cavalry and arrest some
recalcitrant chief before dawn while he was out of reach of his
people. They got very uneasy, not knowing when it was going
to happen. They said, "The governor strikes like the lightning,
and no man knows where or when."
Those captured were invariably made to serve a term in
prison, with no chance for the attainment of paradise, which
they disliked exceedingly. Their arrest would usually take
place, as in the case of Ambutong, when they thought they
had been forgotten and slept away from their cottas, and
would wake up at home to find their cotta taken before day-
light, when no one was in it to resist. This saved a vast amount
of bloodshed and was infinitely more effective in its results
on the people due to their constant sense of insecurity.
In 1904 another bit of bloodshed was averted upon occasion
when some of Calbi's people ran away to escape punishment
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for looting some of their neighbors. They fortified a moun-
tain in Tando and were intrenched inside of its crater. General
Wood was on Sulu with twelve hundred men, just after the
taking of Paruka Utig's cotta, and we all started out for
Tando.
Three naval destroyers, under Commanders Irwin, Berry,
and Knox, came into the port of Joló, and, hearing that we
were at war, came right out in search of us, asking to be
allowed to get into the game. They were there hunting for
the Russian and Japanese fleets, to prevent them from fight-
ing in the Sulu Sea, which was considered American territory.
I wondered how those three little peanut-shells were going to
prevent two big fleets from fighting if they chose to.
The crater in which the enemy was located had a great
cleft on the side of the Celebes Sea, and the destroyers were
sent around to that side to shell through the cleft. When the
firing began, General Wood started across the island with
twelve hundred men to take the cotta. While marching through
Tando at the head of the troops, we ran into an old Moro,
whom his friends had apparently not thought worth taking
with them. I told General Wood I wanted to take him along
with us. He said, "What do you want that old ruin for?” I
replied that I "need him in my business."
When we reached the base of the mountain, the troops were
deployed for the assault, but I asked General Wood to let me
try my old Moro as a messenger to get them to surrender
before he gave the order for the assault. I was told to "go
ahead, but be quick about it." After getting his instructions,
the old man went slowly up the side of the mountain, weaving
in and out of the entanglements, climbing over and around
stone walls, up and up until he seemed the size of a fly, dis-
appearing at last among some trees on the rim of the crater.
After a long wait the fly could be seen starting down again,
and when at last he reached the bottom and came back to us
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he said, "He won't come down." I sent him right back with
an insulting message to deliver, and again we watched his long
climb up the side of the mountain.
The troops were getting impatient by this time for some-
thing to be done, and were suffering in the tropical sun with-
out water. I became afraid that General Wood would lose
patience, despairing of my success with the old Moro, and
would order the assault. I took Schück some distance to the
front, away from his vicinity, and we sat in the shade of a tall
rock. When the old Moro arrived the second time he brought
the same message.
I sent him back a third time, knowing very well that it
was my last chance. Much was my delight when this time he
brought down the head chief, to whom I gave a good wigging,
ordering him to get his people down out of that crater before
they were all killed, and to have them lay down their arms on
a designated spot and go home where they belonged.
He said he would, and he did. They all descended, laid
down their arms where they were told to, and departed. Their
arms were loaded on our pack-mules, taken into Joló, and
sent up to the ordnance depot at Manila, as were all the cap-
tured and surrendered rifles. The Krag rifle Hassan had when
he was killed I wanted to keep as a souvenir, but I concluded
to send it up with the other arms. The bolt had been broken
by a bullet, and I was called down severely from Manila for
sending up a rifle in that condition; I wished then that I had
not sent it; it is probably in the Manila arsenal yet.
When Calbi's people had left the crater, a company of in-
fantry was sent up to occupy it, with instructions to signal
down to the destroyers that the war was over and that they
were free to continue their search for the Russian and Japanese
fleets. Every now and then I meet some of those fellows, who
abuse me yet for spoiling a perfectly good chance for a fight.
When the destroyers first came out they sent a natty young
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naval officer ashore with a message. He went back horrified
at seeing me ragged, dirty, and unshaven, sitting on a log in
the jungle, eating some hard bread and bacon, which I offered
to share with him. He told them on board with horror how
he had seen a colonel in there eating a lunch of nothing but a
little piece of bacon and hard bread—“a colonel, mind you!"
-though I happened then to be only a major. Later I went
aboard a destroyer to have a jacky sew my clothes so they
would stay on until I got home. I must say I hardly pitied the
hardships of those poor naval fellows; when they finished a
fight they took a warm bath, put on clean white clothes, and
sat down to eat real food.
Coming out of the jungle with clothes in rags and so little
to eat, I was perhaps somewhat envious of the lot of the navy;
but since seeing one of our ships, during the World War, met
off the coast of Ireland by a fleet of American destroyers in a
heavy sea to be escorted through the Irish Channel, I have felt
differently. Those poor fellows were drenched in cold sea-
water, and buffeted about like dice in a box, their little boats
standing first on one end and then on the other, with most of
the crew sick, and I realized that they were cheerfully living
a life which I could not have endured. As a lesser evil I would
far rather go back to the jungle and the horse, with the chance
of eating whatever I could find.
We went once to rescue a damsel in distress, as we had
done in the previous instance when we had been on the trail
of Biroa. General Wood cabled me that a Moro and his crew
had kidnapped a girl near Zamboanga, and had gone to the
island of Pata to sell her. Seizing a revenue cutter then in port,
I started for Pata, taking some of the officers to afford them a
change from the routine of the post.
Hadji Butu went also. Sitting out on deck one evening he
said, "I like to travel with you." "How so?" I asked. "Well,"
he answered, "when the people see a big elephant go past,
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Some Memories of a Soldier
followed by the kid of a goat, they say, 'Look there! That
must be the elephant's child; that is a young elephant!'" The
Hadji always had something to make us all laugh in the office.
Captain Charles took to recording his sayings and compiled
quite a list.
At Pata nobody seemed to know anything about the Moro
with the stolen girl. The officers all said, "They are lying to
you and are keeping them hidden from you," but I abandoned
further search in Pata at once and began to cruise for a clue.
We got the clue at Calbi's place in Tando and 125 miles south
near Borneo we captured man and crew and delivered them all,
with the girl, to General Wood at Zamboanga.
The methods of the thief were severely criticized by one
Tulawi, who said: "That fellow was a fool to let you catch
him that quickly. You would never have caught me that way.
I used to be a pirate myself and nobody ever caught me. I
used to see a Moro fishing in his boat and would draw up
alongside and offer to trade rifles, and when his was handed
over for examination I would shoot him through the belly
with his own gun, and after that it was just the same as if you
were picking up your own property. No, you would never have
caught me that way."
While sitting reading one evening on my veranda, I heard a
noise outside the walls in Tulai. I thought the children playing
outside were making more noise than usual, and went on read-
ing. Not long afterward, a man came up through the gate and
reported that three of my men had been sitting on a spar near
the Chinese pier when some one had come up behind them
silently and chopped off the head of one of them, cut a gash a
foot long in the back of another, knocked the other down with
the flat of his weapon without cutting him-his barong prob-
ably turning in his hand—and ran away.
It was almost dusk, and people of different races were going
about the streets, including soldiers, who wore their side-arms
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365
everywhere for protection. I asked some of them why they did
not shoot the juramentado running away, and they said they
could not tell who it was because everybody was running.
The hadjis were summoned for information, but denied any
knowledge of the occurrence. They said, "We do not know;
this is like a child that is inside of a woman, which is bound
to come out, and when it does we will let you know." In a
few days they reported that the damage had been done by
Asanol, who was now on the island of Pangutarang, forty miles
west of Sulu. Janarin was then sent for, who came from that
island originally. He was asked if he knew Asanol and his
present location. He said he knew him and that he was on the
island of Pangutarang. I then asked if he could get him for
me. He said he could if I would lend him ten Krag rifles.
I told him to take them, and was severely criticized for lending
Krag rifles to a native, who would never bring them back
unless to shoot at soldiers.
Janarin, however, returned with them at the end of seven
days, bringing in Asanol with his hands tied behind his back.
He said, "Here he is; and I want you to know that if I am
assassinated it will have been done by Asanol's friends for
making this arrest."
A number of my Moros had been assassinated for carrying
out orders in this way-usually while sitting on the floors of
their houses, at night with a light. An enemy would creep
through the hemp and banana plants in the darkness, shoot the
man sitting in the light, and no one would ever be the wiser.
To avoid this, I put Janarin in an old Spanish blockhouse,
where he could live upstairs on the second floor with his family,
unseen from below.
Asanol was tried and acquitted by Judge Powell of Georgia
while I was in the United States on leave. He had been prose-
cuted by Captain Reeves of the cavalry, and Judge Powell
told me that he had been convinced of his guilt; then Reeves
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Some Memories of a Soldier
strangely took his defense, which threw a sufficient doubt in
the mind of the judge to cause his acquittal. But everybody
considered it a miscarriage of justice.
After my return from leave, on my first day in the office,
Asanol came smirking in, much to my surprise, as I had not
heard of the acquittal. I said, “Asanol, what are you doing
here?" He replied with as much pride as a person just over a
major operation, "I was tried and acquitted." I said, “Asanol,
you know yourself that you are guilty," to which he assented,
and I continued: "I want you to look at Janarin over there.
I value Janarin extremely, and if anything happens to Janarin
I will know that it will have been caused by you and your
friends, and my first act will be to kill you right away without
any court or any words about it, so you had better take care
that nothing happens to Janarin."
Some time after, when I had forgotten about Asanol,
Janarin invited Captain Reeves and me (Reeves was then
alcalde of Joló; he is now chief of the Military Information
Division of the General Staff in Washington) to a christening
up in his blockhouse, where he had a table and table-cloth,
knives and forks, china, and all the Christian tools especially
for us. While sitting at the table, the trap-door in the floor
raised up and to my great surprise Asanol's head appeared in
the opening, and I asked him, "What are you doing here,
Asanol?" He replied, "You told me to take care of Janarin,
and I am doing it." He hardly allowed Janarin out of his sight,
for they believed what they were told in Joló in those days.
Poor Janarin, who had been brought up as a foster brother
of Calbi, had suffered a horrible disfigurement at the hands of
his foster father. The old datto awoke one night and wanted
to be massaged, and ordered Janarin brought for the purpose.
Janarin was roused from his bed and came in grumbling and
rubbing his eyes, half asleep, and the old man had two slaves
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367
catch him by the arms and hold him while he drew his barong,
put the point of it in Janarin's mouth, and slit first his right
cheek out to his ear and then the left one, saying, "I will teach
your mouth not to say bad words to me." The corners of
Janarin's mouth are now close under his ears, and he is never
seen without a muffler to cover it. I got him interested several
times in allowing the surgeon to sew it up, but he never quite
came to the point, for all primitive people have a great horror
of a surgical operation.
If there is any dog in America that is more faithful to his
master than were Janarin or Hadji Abdula to their "gubnor"
I would like to see him.
The campaigns recounted and mentioned so far were but a
small part of the adventures which my three years in Sulu
afforded me.
Some months before our arrival at Joló-in April, 1903, to
be more exact-Indanan had stolen a bunch of cattle from
Tulai, just outside the walls of Joló. The governor of that day
sent a squadron of cavalry to Indanan's place, with orders not
to allow a clash with the natives under any circumstances.
Just what he expected to accomplish by sending out troops
with such orders it is hard to imagine, since such an expedition
could only result in having them insulted. Indanan beat on his
war-gong and brought in five hundred armed men in a short
time, telling the commander that if he would wait a little while
he would see fifteen hundred, and that if he attempted to arrest
anybody he would have a real fight on his hands. Matters be-
came very threatening, and the commander did the only thing
he could under his orders; he withdrew his squadron and
returned to Joló, followed by a howling mob of Moros, spitting
on the soldiers, throwing stones, and shaking spears in their
faces. The men were all infuriated by this action, and that
night they formed a conspiracy in the barracks to take the
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commander out and hang him secretly. Some of the wiser heads
got a copy of his orders from the sergeant-major, and it was
seen that the officer had no alternative under his instructions.
Just a year afterward complaint was lodged again that
Indanan had stolen another bunch of cattle valued at twenty-
five hundred pesos. Indanan was sent for and came into Joló
in a hurry, where he was informed of the charge against him.
He denied it indignantly, but I told him I did not intend to
discuss that phase of the matter; he knew himself whether he
was guilty-I did not; I only wanted to inform him of what
was going to happen, for I was not only the governor and
commander of troops, but the sheriff of the court, and if the
court sent me a subpoena I was going to serve it on him if it
took every soldier in the Philippine Islands. There were three
courses open to him. If he were not guilty I would advise him
to give himself up, and I would guarantee him a fair trial. Or
he might go into his cotta for a fight. He had looked down
into Cotta Pang Pang, Hassan's fort, after the battle was over,
and I had asked him how he would like to have his cotta look-
ing like that, and he replied with fervor, "Please don't let such
thoughts as that even come into your head."
Thirdly, I said, I would advise him as I would advise my
own son under similar circumstances, if he were guilty, to go
to that cattle-owner and pay him enough to satisfy him, so
that he would not swear out the warrant. "I am not going to
talk to you again about it," I told him. "I am going to sit here
and wait for the warrant, and when it comes I will surely serve
it on you; that is all.”
Indanan had learned something of a military lesson at Cotta
Pang Pang, and I heard in a few days that he was building
traverses in his fort, to prevent the shrapnel from flying about
too freely, and was digging bomb-proofs as well.
He came in at once when sent for-at nine o'clock at night
-although he was not expected until morning, because the
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369
gates were locked at 6 P.M., and this was the first case known
to the oldest inhabitants, of a Moro's coming in at night. But it
seemed he could not get in soon enough.
I said: "Indanan, a little bird flew over your cotta the other
day and told me you were building walls in it. What is that
for?" He replied that the walls were to keep his cattle from
breaking out. I then asked: "How is it that your bamboo
fences have kept your cattle in well enough in the past? I
suppose those bomb-proof holes are to keep in your cattle
too." He laughed a little sheepishly at being caught in a lie,
and I said, "Indanan, I want you to tear down those traverses
and fill up those holes." He asked, "Do you want me to tear
down my whole fort?" "No," I said, "that fort doesn't dis-
turb me. You cannot build a fort I cannot take if I want to.
What I object to is your building extra defenses after that talk
you and I had the other day; it is just like pointing a gun at
me. I don't allow anybody to point a gun at me, and I want
you to tear down those new walls and fill up those holes. What
are you going to do about it?" "How long will you give me?"
he asked. "How long do you want?" I inquired. He said his
son was getting married, and he would like ten days, which
were agreed to.
I asked him what the girl thought about the wedding. The
idea that the wishes of the girl should have anything to do
with it amused him greatly. In ten days he had torn down the
traverses, filled up the bomb-proofs, and paid twenty-five hun-
dred pesos for the cattle, and the subpoena never came to me.
This case marked the progress made during my first nine
months in Joló-or 1904 as compared with 1903.
Panglima Ambutong lifted his war horn once more against
the government, and took his people into their fort, prepared
for battle. I forgot about them ostensibly until they tired of
living in the uncomfortable fort and went home at night. When
news of this was received I made a sudden night march across
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the island, and surrounded Ambutong's house so he could not
communicate with any one. Schück went up and knocked at
the door, and when Ambutong came to see who was there
he was told, "The governor is out here, and wants to see you."
He saw that he was helpless and came out, and I told him
to get on a horse and go to Joló with me, taking his barong
away from him, a beautiful weapon with a gold and ivory
handle a real work of art. After six months in jail he was
sent for to come to my office, where his barong was lying on my
desk. I asked him if he had ever seen that barong before. He
said, "It used to be mine," showing that he had given it up for
lost. I told him to take it then and go home and behave himself.
The same thing happened twice to Dammang, who also had
a fine gold and ivory handled barong, all of which made a
profound impression on the people.
My old friend, Mr. E. E. Ayer of Chicago, sent me some
money to purchase arms for the Field Museum. I offered
Indanan a hundred dollars for his gold and ivory handled
barong. He said, "I will give it to you, but I will not sell it to
you." Later I had Schück send Moros from a distance to try
to buy the barong, offering up to a hundred and fifty dollars,
but he would never sell it.
BAD LAWS
There were several laws emanating from Manila, against
which I protested in vain, that caused a vast amount of trouble
and even bloodshed in Sulu. One was the confiscation of the
pearl-beds by the government without compensation to the
owners. Those pearl-beds had been owned by families for
more than a hundred years, and were as much personal prop-
erty as the oyster-beds of New Jersey or Virginia. This brought
on the war of Jikiri that culminated after I left.
Another law which I was unable to prevent was that which
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reduced the income that the sultan received yearly from his
subjects from sixty thousand to about twelve thousand pesos,
and likewise reduced the income of many of his influential
subjects. This was accepted far more quietly than I would have
accepted it in their place. Some of the rights appeared to us
as illegitimate, but they were vested rights nevertheless among
the Moros and had come down through their families for
hundreds of years, and were rights that ought to have been
bought outright from them, which could easily have been done
with satisfaction to everybody. The English in India always
make adequate provision for their native rulers in land and
income when their rights are taken over by the government,
and this should have been done in Sulu. I felt outraged at
the injustice myself; those high-born men had been accus-
tomed to being carried around on the backs of slaves all their
lives, and now with their income gone, and their slaves freed
without compensation, they were totally unable to make a
living unless they should take to robbery and murder, which
none of them did. I do not know how they got enough food
from day to day.
Desiring to represent this properly to the Philippine Com-
mission, I arranged for the use of the Borneo and invited the
sultan and his suite to go with me to Manila, but the sultan
declined to go, on the advice of some of his friends, who told
him I only wanted to get him away from his people and put
him in jail in Manila, as the Spaniards had done to Sultan
Alimudin in 1758, keeping him locked up for four years in
Manila and making him adjure his religion. The English found
him when they took Manila in 1762 and sent him back to
Sulu, and no sultan of Sulu had ever been in Manila since
that time.
I told the sultan he need not go if he did not want to; I had
invited him for his own sake, not mine, and had not ordered
him to go, and we would say no more about it. He came back
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Some Memories of a Soldier
in ten days saying, "I am going to put my life in your hands."
I asked what had happened now, and he said, “I am going
to Manila with you." So when the Borneo arrived, we all
boarded her, accompanied by Major Barber, an ex-officer of
the Spanish War, once of the White Wings of Santiago de
Cuba and now a civil officer in Zamboanga.
At breakfast late one morning, I found them nearly through
the meal. I sat at the head of the table with Major Barber on
my right; and as I took my place, he told me that I would
find the pork chops excellent, and to my horror I found them
all eating pork chops. I gave the major a kick under the table
that he must have felt the rest of his life. Fortunately none
of the Moros understood English, and relying on our courtesy
and honesty never imagined that we would give them pork to
eat, and as they had never seen it cooked, they were calmly
eating it without knowing what it was. If they had found it
out, there were natives there capable of sinking the ship in
return for such an outrage against living men.
They cared nothing about the defilement of the dead, how-
ever. One of my predecessors conceived the idea that he could
stop juramentados from coming into Joló by burying some of
them with pigs in their graves, for "pig" is the worst name
you can be called by a follower of Mohammed. Mrs. Scott sent
me from the States a large bunch of newspaper clippings, de-
nouncing the governor for his action; many of our good people
here at home threw a fit over it. But all their indignation was
totally misplaced, for the Moros did not care enough about it
even to discuss it among themselves.
Approaching Manila the sultan asked if I thought they
would give him a salute on arrival, saying that the English
always gave him a salute at Singapore, and he thought his own
government ought to do as well by him as the English. This
was a sore point since the abrogation of the Bates Agree-
ment; the sultan's status had never since been defined, and I
The Philippines
373
knew well that all dealings with royalty had gone by the board.
I advised him not to count on it; I knew they would not give
me one, a major of cavalry, and he could hardly expect it if
his governor did not get one, which explanation seemed to
satisfy him completely, for he was usually a docile little
fellow.
The next morning we all assembled on deck, dressed up to
call on the governor-general and the Philippine Commission.
I had rather expected that they would be dressed in their
native costumes, but instead they appeared in the heavy black
broadcloth frock-coats that constituted the civilian uniform of
the Orient, wearing a fez in place of a topper, and no necktie.
The sultan wore his collar buttoned upside down, possibly
because of unfamiliarity with such devices of infidels, but I
always felt that if a sultan wanted to wear his collar upside
down, or wrong end to, or any other way, who was I to inter-
fere with him?
I pleaded the sultan's case before the commission, which
graciously awarded him a regular stipend of five thousand
pesos and each of his suite fifteen hundred. The commission
also gave me five thousand pesos to purchase presents for
them on its behalf. I wanted to get something notable in canes
-a regular high-flyer-so that the sultan might retire the one
given him by the Spaniards, who use the cane as a badge of
office. I searched the Escolta from end to end, finding at last,
at one store, a stick of solid ivory without a head, and at
another a gold head studded with sapphires, and had them
assembled. The gifts were presented by the Commission with
appropriate words, and the sultan was immensely pleased with
his cane, confiding to me that he would now put the sultan of
Johore (near Singapore) completely in the shade. His pleasure
was enhanced when I told him that not even President Roose-
velt had a cane like that, tactfully refraining from adding
that it was far too flashy for the president.
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Some Memories of a Soldier
We went to see the great Bilibid Prison, and while waiting
for the main door to open the doorkeeper came out and started
to shove the sultan rudely out of the way. I caught the turnkey
by the arm and spun him roughly up against the door and told
him to keep his hands off the sultan; it pleased them all greatly
that I should be willing to manhandle a white man in defense
of the sultan.
When we had stepped inside, the heavy iron door closed be-
hind us with a clang, locking with a loud noise; then door
after door locked behind us until we got up into the citadel,
where the military eye of Hadji Abdula took in the machine-
gun emplacements with pleasure. Here I suddenly remembered
that I had an engagement with the governor-general, and leav-
ing the Moros with Captain Dorey, I excused myself and left.
They looked at each other with anguish, thinking, "He is going
to leave us in prison with all those doors locked behind us!"
I accused them of it later, but they were far too polite to
acknowledge that they ever suspected me of unfair dealing.
We drove about the Walled City, where Hadji Butu made
a wise remark for a man brought up out of contact with civil-
ization. Noticing the great number of churches in Manila, he
said, "If the Spaniards had built school-houses instead of some
of these churches, they might be governing here yet."
I had given Hadji Abdula a pair of shoes, which he wore in
my honor, but he confided to me that they hurt him dreadfully
and asked if I would mind if he took them off, and he shed
them then and there.
When we stopped alongside the Luneta to listen to the
music, according to the custom of all Manila, the Hadji drew
his barong, and went out to dance his war-dance on the
parade, carrying it out with great spirit, and remarking with
an air of the greatest satisfaction upon his return to us, "It
is a long time since any Moro has done that here." The Fili-
pinos did not know what to make of such a man and it was
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375
only my presence as a guarantee of peace that kept them from
fleeing out of sight. They would cross over the street rather
than meet and pass him, and walk around him at a distance.
They had never seen such a creature; neither had I for that
matter, and I never expect to see another.
I thought it probable that there were splinters of lead or
copper imbedded in my hands and wanted to have them
X-rayed at the Letterman General Hospital. While on the way
I told the Moros that I was going to show them their own
bones through the flesh, through a closed box. I saw them look
at each other as if to say: "Our governor must be losing his
mind! Look at one's bones through a closed box indeed!"
When we got out I asked if they had all seen their bones.
They said, "Yes, as you said; through a closed box." "Well,
friends," I said, "you didn't believe me when I told you about
that." But they were far too polite to admit their disbelief.
"You Moros don't know everything there is to know. You do
know, however, that I've never told you anything that was
not true, and many things may happen at Joló that you may
not understand, and if you are ever inclined not to believe what
I tell you, I want you to remember about these bones."
The good treatment accorded the sultan rebounded to the
great credit of the commission. In their minds all the returning
hadjis were more loyal and devoted to the government than
ever. They had asked to have some of the commission's money
expended for textiles for their women and children; and coming
home laden with presents, after having escaped the fate of
Sultan Alimudin, they cast ridicule on those who had been
afraid to go and who were now filled with envy of those who
had. The sultan flaunted himself bravely as the first sultan of
Sulu who had dared to go to Manila since 1762.
Another law against which I protested strongly provided for
the collection of a head-tax of one peso from every adult male;
I pointed out that the Moros had gone to war with the Span-
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Some Memories of a Soldier
iards for a similar attempt to collect a tax of one real (five
cents in gold) from the Moros. For some reason the attempt
to collect the tax was regarded by the Moros as an attack upon
Islam, but although I pleaded vehemently against the tax, my
arguments went unheeded.
If the object of the Commission was to obtain a revenue
from the Moro people, I might, if given an opportunity, have
devised a plan to collect it in some other way that would not
have conflicted with their religion. Their scruples may have
been ridiculous, but they were a condition that we had to con-
tend with; and any one who tries to govern one hundred
thousand primitive people, especially followers of the Prophet,
solely by his own will, without respect to native beliefs, even
though he may consider them silly, will surely have to pay in
one way or another.
Jamalul Kiram, the sultan, was a boy when the Spanish at-
tempt to impose a poll-tax was made. Datto Harun promised
to collect the tax on condition that he be recognized as sultan;
and the Spanish government attempted to thrust him upon the
Moro people, who rose in revolt, causing both projects to end
in failure. The Spanish were not able to carry out their inten-
tions; and after a good deal of fighting Jamalul Kiram offered
them a way out, promising likewise to collect the tax if the
Spaniards would recognize him as sultan. It happened that the
great bulk of the Moros desired Jamalul Kiram as their leader,
and the Spaniards joyfully accepted his offer as a settlement
of both questions. Thereupon the sultan tried to collect the
tax and failed; and as he was well aware that if he persisted
he would be killed by his own people, he paid the amount of
the tax to the Spaniards out of his own pocket.
Thus what really happened was in effect that Jamalul Kiram
bought the sultanship from the government of Spain, and the
tax was never collected from the Moro people, all effort to that
end being abandoned until 1905.
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377
The attempt to collect revenue was most ill advised at this
stage of progress, and it was a costly experiment in the end.
I might have promulgated the law and let it go at that without
any real attempt to carry it out, but that is not my idea
of duty. I tried to enforce all the laws in the easiest manner,
whether I liked them or not, for anarchy is invited when we
attempt to choose which laws we will obey and which we will
not.
I did not promulgate the law openly for some time, utilizing
the delay in secret conferences with the heads of districts,
individually and separately, to try to get them to promise
to collect the tax, each in his own section. They all demurred
at this. While desirous of pleasing me, they knew the danger
and were most reluctant to promise, and for a long while I
despaired of success; every one of them, including the sultan,
feared he would be murdered by his own people, for it did not
take much to get one's self killed in those days. This was the
occasion when the sultan asked me not to pull my watch on
him, as before related. They had very good reason to fear
assassination, for Maharaja Jagi of Talipau was shot and badly
wounded by his people at his first attempt to collect, and
efforts against others were frustrated only with difficulty.
They all promised me secretly and separately to do their
best, and I did not call a convention for public ratification
until these separate promises were all received. Then a coun-
cil of all the chiefs was called with great anxiety on my part,
for it was one thing to promise me secretly and something else
to come out publicly before all the people, with no opportunity
to draw back. Would the sultan stand by his word, when in
this case it was such a difficult and dangerous thing for him
to do? The attempt at tax collection had once brought on war
with all the Moros; why not again? I went to the meeting with
many misgivings.
All the chiefs attended, and I explained the dangerous nature
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Some Memories of a Soldier
of the subject from my point of view; they were well aware
of its danger from theirs. They were all seated in the office
about a large table in the order of their rank. The sultan, when
asked what action he was going to take, requested he be
allowed to pay the first peso and take out the first receipt, and
he paid it then and there and got his receipt No. 1.
Jokanain and Calbi demurred somewhat in a last effort to
get me to relent, but they finally paid, as did Bandahalla and
the others, leaving Indanan, who was then the most powerful
chief in Sulu (since the death of Hassan) to the last. We all
watched Indanan with apprehension; he had the power to ruin
the whole thing. He was considered the arch-villain of Sulu,
and former governors had left it in the records that there
would be no peace or order in Sulu as long as Indanan was
alive. Surely peace or war with Sulu depended upon his attitude
in this issue, for if he stood out against the tax, all the other
rebels would flock to him, and the tumult would be everywhere
instead of being confined as heretofore within the very narrow
limits of a part of a district at a time. All eyes were upon him
as I put my question to him in his turn and he stood up to
answer.
I think he sensed the dramatic element in the situation
himself, as he slowly rose to his feet and answered, “If any
man in my district refuses to pay the tax I will twist his neck!"
So far had we progressed from April, 1903, when the same
man had stoned and spit on a squadron of cavalry!
Indanan paid his tax and got his receipt, and so all the chiefs
were committed to the success of the project, but it remained
to be seen whether they would be able to collect from their
people. Each one was given a bundle of blank receipts, and
they started out to their districts with dire misgivings.
When Maharaja Jagi was wounded I sent out and brought
him into the hospital for treatment and told the surgeon to
give him at my expense everything he wanted to eat permitted
The Philippines
379
by his condition, and to see to it that his food was cooked free
from any defilement with pork. On one of my visits to him I
asked if he was getting everything he wanted to eat, and
enjoying all those things that come in glass and tin from
Spain and the United States. He answered, "My father, if you
wish to know what I really want to eat, I would like you to
get some Moro boy to boil me some mountain rice and dried
fish." This food would be absolutely tasteless to you or me, but
his taste had never been vitiated by spice or other condiments.
I used to think that rice was just rice, but I have learned that
there are three hundred and fifty varieties, of which he pre-
ferred the mountain rice; and he got it.
The Moros always boil their rice, and the boiling is a
measure of time. To the question, "How long will it take to
accomplish something?" the answer may be "Just as long as it
takes to cook a pot of rice"; in other words, about half an
hour.
After some days the chiefs began to bring in money; one
hundred, two hundred, and five hundred pesos at a time. Calbi
brought in more than two thousand, Indanan over three thou-
sand, and others in proportion until approximately fifteen thou-
sand pesos had been obtained. This seemed all very well until it
was learned that a large band, mainly of Jokanain's and
Indanan's followers to the number of two hundred, had run
off with their families and goods to the top of Bud Daho, the
highest mountain in Sulu, with a crater containing abundant
water, and had proceeded to fortify themselves up there and
plant a crop in the crater, joined by malcontents from other
districts. Bud Daho was a very difficult nut to crack, and I did
not want to be obliged to assault it. The Moros had discovered
that I could take any of their forts, and if I should fail here
it would be a perpetual stronghold for insurgents within five
miles of Joló, and I did not want them to learn how difficult
it really was, and have to contend with it more than once.
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Some Memories of a Soldier
It was plain that many good Americans would have to die
before it could be taken, and, after all, what would they be
dying for? In order to collect a tax of less than a thousand
dollars from savages! Obviously the thing to do was to get the
rebels down off that mountain peacefully before it became
necessary to make an assault.
The different chiefs were sent up the mountain to try to
induce their people to come down, and the matter was treated
quite as though this were just like any other fort. Jokanain,
Calbi, and Indanan made a number of visits to the top-each
quite a task in itself in that tropical climate-and in the course
of time, with the delivery to me of fifty rifles and a quantity
of ammunition, worked them all off and back to their homes
below, with the exception of twelve men and their families.
These twelve asked permission to stay until their crops were
harvested, promising to come down then.
While I gave no orders to cease collecting the tax, and the
chiefs kept on bringing in a peso or two every now and then,
I forbore from pressing the matter lest those who still failed to
pay be frightened into running away again, preferring to rely
upon the chiefs themselves for ultimate total payment.
The situation continued very tranquil all autumn until I
went up to Zamboanga for three days at Thanksgiving, when
upon returning I found that some unknown trouble-maker had
told the Moros as soon as I had left that I was going to attack
them for failure to pay, and they had run off again and were
beating their war-gongs on top of Bud Daho in expectation
of immediate attack, and the work of getting them down had
to be started all over again.
The chiefs were sent up the mountain again and again with
more or less success each time. But one of Jokanain's men
declared that he would not come down for Jokanain, for Calbi,
for the governor, or for anybody else, and would die before
he would pay the tax.
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381
Somebody told me that this person was very anxious to get
a dog; dogs were scarce in Sulu, and he had never had one of
his own. I was a long time finding one, since they do not thrive
in that tropical climate, but at length I told Jokanain to bring
him in under safe-conduct, and gave him the dog, with which
he was delighted, carrying it all the way home in his arms on
his horse. Telling Jokanain that the governor was not such a
bad man after all, he not only paid his tax but brought down
his family and all his following to settle below. He was sixty
years old and had lived all his life within eight miles of Joló
without ever having seen the town before. It had not been fash-
ionable to visit the Spaniards except as juramentados in their
times.
Only eight men remained on top of Bud Daho with their
families by Christmas-time, and these were very peaceable and
could be brought down one or two at a time if gently handled;
once their tax was paid they would have no incentive to run
away again. This was the condition when I left for a four
month's leave in the United States in January, 1906, with
peace everywhere else in the archipelago.
A while before all the excitement created by the poll-tax and
during an unwontedly quiet interlude, the party headed by
William H. Taft, secretary of war, came through on one of
the interisland transports, enlivening us for a time. The admiral
came with the group on his flagship, the Rainbow, from Cavite,
and in the party were Senators Francis Warren, Nathan B.
Scott, and Charles Curtis, Nicholas Longworth and Mr. Arthur
Woods, later to become the famous head of the New York
police.
Senator Scott insisted on taking Mrs. Scott into the interior
alone in an ambulance; he had seized the ambulance of the
secretary before anybody noticed him. The chances were too
good for their being brought back in sections, as has happened
on that road before and since, and so I headed them off and
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Some Memories of a Soldier
brought them back, uttering growls of resentment because
they were not to go where they wanted.
Before my arrival, a poor Moro of Joló had had his little
boat, loaded with all his goods, run down in the middle of the
night and sunk by a vessel of the Quartermaster Department,
in the Sulu Sea. No one would listen to his claim for reimburse-
ment. I showed the claim to Senator Warren on his visit at
this time, who took it home with him and secured payment,
much to the joy of the people of Joló. This was a great object-
lesson in convincing the natives of the justice of the American
people. Spanish rule, as well as that of the Moros themselves,
had been, "Take all you can from everybody you can."
A VISIT HOME
My squadron of the Fourteenth Cavalry was almost due to
return to the United States, and when the Taft party arrived
we were looking forward joyfully to rejoining our families in
the United States. This was changed for me, however, by
Secretary Taft, who asked me to stay another year, and I
saw my friends and squadron depart without me.
I had never felt really at home in Joló, for I had spent so
much of my life on the open plains of the West that I could
not reconcile myself to the work in the jungle. I had expected
to remain in the Philippines for one year only, for when we
came out of Cuba President Roosevelt had said to me: "You
will be the next superintendent at West Point. I want to keep
Mills there another year." He kept him there four years, how-
ever, and I thought his promise had been forgotten.
When Mrs. Scott was allowed by her physician to come out
she brought with her our grown daughter, Anna, and our
youngest, Houston, then four years old, leaving the other
children in school. I had had no opportunity to make Hous-
ton's acquaintance since she was old enough to know me and
The Philippines
383
the look she gave me the first time I dared to correct her was
very revealing; she did not propose to be corrected by a strange
man.
She soon became a great favorite with the Moro men and
women that came to the house. A dozen of those blood-stained
murderous old warriors, covered with the scars of conflict, came
up one morning before I was dressed, and as they sat in our
drawing-room, chewing their betel-nuts with their black teeth,
and chattering in their strange dialect, Houston went in with
her flaring little white starched skirts and received them with
all the grace of a lady of the haute monde and charmed them
all. They had never seen anybody like her before and always
inquired for her thereafter.
I found her one day in the park in the charge of her nurse
playing London Bridge with a little group composed of a
Filipino, a Chinese, a Japanese, and a Moro girl all of the
same age brought for exercise to the park-all beautifully
dressed, making a charming international or rather interracial
group, and with them was Charley Schück's little girl, part
German and part Moro, who is now a graduate of the Uni-
versity of Manila and an important person in Joló.
In January, 1905, I began to suffer from a pain in the head.
The doctor could not fully diagnose the trouble and advised
me to go home before I got a brain lesion which I could never
get over. Generals Corbin and Wood urged me to take a leave,
but I was having difficulty then with Paruka Utig, who was
depredating in Indanan's country. I had had him settled once,
but something had thrown him off again, and I knew that we
were going to fight sooner or later, and told them I could not
go until that fight was over.
Mrs. Scott was sailing for home and wanted me to go as
far as Japan with her, but I felt that I could not leave until
Paruka Utig was settled one way or another, and so she left
without me. The fight culminated in June, and I told General
1
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Some Memories of a Soldier
Wood that I was now ready to go, but the general had to go
at once to the United States himself, and said that it would
be impossible for us both to be away at the same time, and
so I agreed to wait until his return. About the time he returned
to Manila, General Corbin was taken ill and went to Australia
to recuperate, keeping General Wood in Manila until his
return, which resulted in my not getting leave until January
5, 1905, just a year after I was first taken ill.
I found the sea voyage cleared away my head trouble com-
pletely, and I was convinced that I had had a form of malaria
from which I had suffered in one form or another since 1882
in South Dakota. It has come back at longer intervals until
I believe I am entirely over it now.
Arriving in New York, I went over to call on General Wade,
commanding at Governor's Island, and while talking to him
in his office his aide, Colonel Glasgow, came in and announced
the news of a big battle with the Moros at Joló in which fifty
soldiers and six hundred Moros had been killed, with many
more wounded. The hallway downstairs was full of newspaper
correspondents seeking some one who could tell them anything
about Joló. I bade the general good-by and, being in civilian
clothes, slipped unnoticed through the crowd of reporters and
bought a paper on Broadway, giving an account of the fight.
I saw at once that New York was no place for me, and that
the newspaper men would rout me out at once if I went home;
so I told a friend in Yonkers that I had come to stay with him
until the clouds rolled by, and I could not be found for ten
days, until Secretary Taft wanted to see me in Washington,
where he questioned me on Joló. I told him I had left every-
body at peace there in December, and I did not know what
had happened in the meantime but supposed that the Moros
had got excited again over the payment of the head-tax and
had gone up on Bud Daho for the third time, and that the
fight had probably occurred in getting them down. He told me
The Philippines
385
to get what I had told him typewritten, to be taken over to
the cabinet meeting at eleven o'clock; I got two stenographers
at work on it and handed it to him just in time. I had talked
rather freely to him as secretary of war, far more freely than
if I had been talking to the press. He handed it out, however,
to the correspondents at the White House, and it was put in
the "Congressional Record."
When I was visiting the War Department, General Barry,
then the assistant chief of staff, told me I was slated to be the
next superintendent of West Point, and when asked for his
authority replied that he had seen a statement in the press
that General Mills was to be relieved soon, either by General
Carter, General Barry, or General Bliss; and Barry had shown
it to President Roosevelt, saying that if it was coming to him
he would like to have it. The President said, "It is not coming
to any of you; it is coming to Scott," all of which sounded
quite encouraging.
So when it became time for me to start back to the Philip-
pines, I thought I would go to see President Roosevelt and let
him look at me as a reminder and if he intended to make a
change at West Point he could stop me from making the un-
necessary and long journey to the Philippines. I went to the
White House, where he looked at me and I looked at him, but
neither of us mentioned West Point, although I gave him
plenty of opportunity. Finally I asked him if he had any mes-
sage for General Wood in Manila, and took my leave, under
the impression that he was not going to make the change that
year, or had made up his mind to appoint some one else. He
volunteered the information that he was considering whether
to give the next vacancy as a brigadier-general to me or to
Pershing, but when he made the award it was to neither of us
but to Colonel Bubb of the infantry.
When I had been back in Joló about a month, I was cabled
to go to West Point. If the President had stopped me from
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Some Memories of a Soldier
going at the time of my interview with him, it would have
saved me twenty-two thousand miles of unnecessary travel.
But the one month back in Joló was not without its interests.
I spent one day in San Francisco on my way back to the
Philippines, staying at the Palace Hotel, the army caravansary
of that day; it was destroyed three days afterward. We were
horrified to hear, on arrival at Honolulu, of the earthquake in
San Francisco and the burning of a large part of the city.
I bought some young aguacate trees at Honolulu to take back
to Joló, to give the Sulu Archipelago a new fruit. I tended and
watered them all the way to Manila and eight hundred miles
south to Sulu, with the greatest care, but my labors were all
in vain.
I made a short visit to my son, Hunter, and his wife at a
little post in the neighborhood of Manila, and sailed for Joló
on the first ship.
I found General Buchannan at Zamboanga, an old friend
for many years, in charge of the Moro Province. He invited
Colonel Maus, Captains Finley and McCoy, and me to go
with him on the Borneo to the island of Celebes, one of the
Dutch possessions. The short trip was exceedingly interesting,
and we gathered nutmegs, scarlet and green parrots, skins of
the birds of paradise, and other treasures at the various islands
we visited.
Arriving back at Joló, I found Jokanain, Calbi, and Indanan
much displeased over the Bud Daho fight. They all said "that
fight would never have happened if you had been here," but
I am not so sure. I am sure, however, that the loss of life
would have been much less, for the place I had indicated for
the assault, if it should be necessary, was taken by one com-
pany without casualty, but was not held for lack of support;
whereas the main assault took place on the other side of the
mountain where it was most difficult, and where many men
were killed and wounded.
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387
I was very proud of the conduct of the pack-train, which
never took off its aparejos for forty-eight hours, working night
and day without escort, carrying food and ammunition up on
the mountain, taking water and ice to the wounded, and bring-
ing down the dead and injured. When I first got that pack-
train it had been allowed to deteriorate, the packers, who had
nothing to occupy them, spending most of their time drinking
and gambling. I put them all to work, making them travel at
least twelve miles a day, five times a week, with dummy loads
to harden the mules and keep everything in shape. They be-
came much displeased at that and began to resign. The pack-
master thought that he was indispensable and brought in his
resignation one day, expecting that it would not be accepted,
but I told him to clear out and leave Joló; I could do every-
thing myself that he could do in a pack-train, and he was not
at all necessary to me. The train was soon reorganized with
new men, who were not allowed to drink and gamble, but
worked every day while in garrison and were hard and ready
when we took the field. I infused pride into them by showing
them off to all the distinguished visitors that came to Joló-the
commanding generals and the admirals of the navy-continu-
ally training them until they could start with the rigging on the
ground, put it securely on the mule, and lash a load of two
hundred pounds in forty seconds. When the Bud Daho fight
happened, the train was at a high pitch of efficiency and esprit.
When we fought Laksamana Usap, I wanted to make a
breach in his wall for which my one .75 and four mountain-
guns were inadequate, but Captain Walker of the navy came
into port with his gunboat, from whom I borrowed one of his
naval guns-mounted on a sort of steel skirt bolted to the
deck-that would fire armor-piercing projectiles. He put the
gun and its mount on the beach, and I got some wagon harness
from the quartermaster, and hitched up four pack-mules to the
.75 on its carriage, lashing the naval gun on top. But how
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Some Memories of a Soldier
could we carry the naval gun mount weighing 540 pounds?
I had once sat by the fire of an old man camped on the Red
Water in the Black Hills of Dakota in 1884; he had been one
of Tom Moore's packers when they used to pack castings up
into the mines in the Salmon River Mountains in Idaho, and
he told me how they did it. I selected the best mule in the
train, put the gun mount on him, and had him led up to the
firing-line, with the load prevented from swaying by jackies
on each side. We had no deck to bolt the mount to, and when
we fired the first shot the gun turned upside down. The jackies
then lashed the muzzle down to some heavy stakes driven into
the ground, but it jerked out the stakes and upset again. I
do not know where those projectiles went. We were then at a
loss how to hold down the gun, when suddenly I had an
inspiration and ordered a palm tree cut down, and the gun
was lashed to the stump which was held steady by the roots,
and we cracked those huge volcanic boulders of lava and
breached the wall, afterward lashing the mount on the same
mule, and turning gun and mount over to the navy again on
the beach.
In this battle the present chief signal officer of the army,
General Saltzman, and I, with Major Lewis of the Medical
Corps, were hiding behind a tall weed that was by no means
bullet-proof, within fifty feet of the breach, when a soldier
came up from behind on a little trail and, struck by a bullet,
pitched head forward down to the ground. Major Lewis
jumped right out and took his head in his lap, in full view of
the breach through which the bullet had come. I could see
that the man was dead and that nothing could be done for him,
so I pulled Lewis out of sight again behind our weed. When
at last we had to assault, Lieutenant Ashurst raised his head
above the wall, and a spear struck him in the eye and put it
out. The nine Moros alive in the fort ran up a white flag, and
my men, knowing my feelings on such matters, ceased firing at
The Philippines
389
once without orders from me, and Schück told the Moros to
put down their weapons and come out. Two of them tried to
kill Schück and a sergeant, but were both shot before they
could effect their purpose. The other seven laid down their
arms and came out, one carrying a little boy with a bullet
through his hand, a most pitiful sight. Some of the men had
bullet-wounds also, which were all cared for by the surgeon.
I asked them afterward what they were doing there; had
they any grievance against the government, against me or any
white man? They all said they had not. "What are you doing
here then?" I asked. "We are poor people," they replied;
"we are not chiefs; our chief told us to come here and fight.
We didn't want to come, but if we had not he would have cut
our heads off."
Those seven men were all that we were ever able to save alive
in a fight in that cotta, and I think we were able to save them
only because they had no proud chief left alive with them,
who would rather die than surrender. The head chief here,
Laksamana Usap, had bought some charms from an Arab,
which, buried on each corner of the fort, were supposed to stop
the soldier's bullets and permit him to catch cannon-balls in
his hands. The poor wretch tried to do it and is buried in his
fort.
The Arab who sold him the charms was captured, with seven
hundred pesos derived from the sale of similar frauds, and the
money was taken away from him; a ticket to Singapore on the
next ship was bought him with some of it. The ticket and
remainder of the money was given to the captain with instruc-
tions to keep him from landing at Borneo, and he was told
he would be killed if he ever came back to Sulu. The princi-
pal Arab in Sulu complained of this treatment of a fellow
Arab. I said to him: "All you Arabs take advantage of your
coming from Mecca to make trouble wherever you go. You
know very well the Spaniards never allowed you here at all.
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Some Memories of a Soldier
Now you go away and tell all your people that if I ever hear
of them selling any charms to get these poor Moros into
trouble, you will go to Singapore too-and you will never come
back."
On another occasion there were many Moros outside the
fort firing from the jungle on our rear and flanks, and Captain
Dorey, while fighting to the front, got a bullet through his
shoulder from the rear. I managed to catch the two chiefs
involved, and before putting them on the ship to send them
into Joló I carefully explained to them that they were going to
be put in jail in Joló, but that their lives would be spared if
they would not try to escape or do any damage to anybody,
and they both promised to obey. They were taken off the ship
at Joló and, arriving at the jail door, one of them seized a
Krag rifle from a guard but was knocked down by a bullet
before he could fire it. He was taken at once to the hospital
and put on the operating-table, and when the surgeon bent
over to examine him, he took a heavy brass betel-nut box he
carried in the sash around his waist, rose up, and threw it at
the surgeon with all his might, and fell back dead from the
effort. The only damage he did was to smash a lot of empty
bottles.
His companion quietly allowed himself to be locked up, as
he had promised, and behaved himself well for six months and
was allowed to go back home to Look. He used frequently
to visit me in Joló afterward in the most friendly way.
Another Moro with whom I was quite chummy was badly
wounded in a fort and lay unconscious for a long while under
a pile of dead. He gained consciousness in the middle of the
night when relatives came and took their dead off of him for
burial. I asked him what he was thinking about while lying
there. He said he was looking about for his white horse with a
green mane that ought to have been there to take him to
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paradise, and thought some one had taken it, and he had been
victimized. I asked whether he had been there fighting because
of any grievance against anybody. He said, no, he had no
grievance against anybody; he was only there because he had
been told to come, and he bore no hard feeling for having
been wounded. He often came to see me at Joló, and we
were the best of friends. None of them ever seemed to feel
any rancor toward me. I thought after our first fight in Look
that the relatives of the dead would never forget it, and that
I would never be able to go back to Look in a friendly way,
but it was all apparently forgotten on my next visit, within
a few months.
I was always exceptionally fortunate in keeping the people
in the fort isolated, and those of the neighboring districts neu-
tral and often helpful, especially in getting women and chil-
dren out of the fort before our approach.
We were long in anxiety over Lieutenant Ashurst lest the
point of the spear had penetrated his brain, or blood-poison
set in, but he recovered fully with the loss of one eye.
Poor Jewell-lieutenant, Fourteenth Cavalry-was shot
through the body with a big lead slug in a previous fight, and
when I reached him he was lying calmly on the ground with
his head on a blanket. I told him of my sorrow at his wound,
and he replied, "Don't feel that way, colonel; it's only the
fortune of war." He had been in the medical department and
knew that the wound was fatal and that he had but a short
time to live, but he did not seem to mind it in the least.
I have seen others die-in full health one minute, struck down
the next. I think there may be some chemical change in the
blood when death is near that renders one indifferent to death's
approach; or it may be the result of a realization of the
inevitable.
Jewell died the next day in the hospital at Joló.
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RARITIES OF SULU
From Hadji Butu, oracle of wisdom and knowledge, I
learned much about the island, and in fact about the entire
archipelago.
I once asked him if the big spotted deer, running wild on
the island of Sulu (of which we had seven at one time running
loose in the streets of Joló inside the wall), were indigenous.
He said, no, they were not; there had been a wedding in the
family of a sultan of Sulu about two hundred years ago, at
which ten of these deer were demanded in the dowry. They
were brought from somewhere on the other side of Borneo
and turned loose on the island of Sulu, and they were the
ancestors of these we now see. They are very different from
those that run wild on the other islands and resemble those in
the park of the governor-general of Java at Buitenzorg, where
we saw about seventy-five. I understand that they are called
axis-deer.
I also asked Hadji Butu if there had ever been any elephants
in Sulu. He replied, "Yes, the ancestor of that man [pointing
at Datto Calbi] ten generations ago killed the last one because
they destroyed our crops." "Were they indigenous to Sulu?"
I inquired. He replied, "No, the first ones were brought here
as a present from the sultan of Java to the sultan of Sulu."
To the same question regarding the elephants of Borneo he
answered that the first ones had been brought to Borneo as
presents to the sultan of Brunai from the sultan of Java.
Brunai has since become an English crown colony.
He was asked upon another occasion how it was that there
were mangosteens on the island of Sulu and not elsewhere in
the Philippines. He answered that there had been a trading
party from Sulu in the Malay Peninsula about two hundred
and fifty years ago which had brought back articles for trade
The Philippines
393
to Sulu, and that one man in the party had been too poor to
bring back any goods, so he brought mangosteen seeds to Sulu
and started them growing.
The mangosteen is said to be the most delicious fruit in the
world, but it does not lend itself to transportation, and in
consequence few of our people know it. It grows in India,
Java, the Spice Islands, Celebes, and the Moluccas, and I
saw a very few in Borneo. Queen Victoria had heard of it and
was said to have offered a hundred pounds for one fruit, but
was never able to get one. They cannot be carried any farther
than Manila, where they are sometimes seen in the markets.
There is an abundance of them in Sulu. They taste like a com-
bination of peaches and strawberries; the acid in them will
roughen the teeth if too many are eaten.
The mangosteen season came on before the arrival of Mrs.
Scott at Joló and fearing that she might never see one I had
some frozen in a block of ice and others put in a refrigerator
to allow her to see what they were like, but they all molded
inside of the outer cover before her arrival. The trees were
gallant enough, however, to provide a second crop for her
benefit.
Desirous of spreading such a delicious fruit around the
world, I had many packets of the seed done up and sent by
mail to the governors of California, New Mexico, Mississippi,
Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, of all the provinces of Cuba,
of the Windward and Leeward islands, of the West Indies, of
Brazil, as well as of Central America; in fact, wherever I
thought they would grow in the Western Hemisphere. I got
many letters of thanks, but have never heard of a single tree
resulting. It takes eight years for the mangosteen to fruit,
however, and there is ample time in eight years to have for-
gotten the source of the seeds.
Wishing to encourage the raising of the mangosteen on the
other islands of the archipelago, I made it a custom in the
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Some Memories of a Soldier
mangosteen season to ask visitors from the other islands if
they liked mangosteens and had any on their island, knowing
well that they had not. I would then ask why not, and would
always be told that it was because their ancestors did not
plant them. I would next ask if it was because their ancestors
were too lazy to plant them, to which they would reluctantly
assent. They would then be asked if they wanted those who
came after to say the same things about them, that they had
been too lazy to plant. They always repudiated such a desire,
and, when asked what they were going to do about it, invari-
ably replied that they were going to take some seeds home and
plant them; and while I have heard nothing about the result,
I have hopes that the mangosteen is growing all over the
southern islands.
They have a very good mango in Sulu; not so large as that
of Cebu, but I prefer its taste. The largest and finest mangos
I have ever eaten were in Bombay. The mango is very full of a
sweet juice, and it has been often said that the only place to
eat it is in the bath-tub.
The only oranges we got at Joló came from Brunai; a little
orange, somewhat larger than a tennis-ball, but very sweet and
heavy with juice.
I do not remember seeing a pineapple in the Philippines, or
a fig. This seems strange, for they should flourish.
The cocoanuts of Sulu are the largest in the world. We often
bought them for the troops on the march, where there was
no water. The agua de coco was always cool and delicious.
The cocoanut trees themselves are far larger and straighter
than those of Cuba and Hawaii, resembling the royal palm of
Cuba, especially when their roots grow in salt water. One
growing outside my quarters in Joló was two and a half feet
in diameter at the base, straight and tall as a royal palm, and
the nuts each contained more than a quart of water.
My yard contained a number of pomelo (grapefruit) trees,
The Philippines
395
planted by the Spanish governor. Their fruit was very bitter
to the taste, and it took me two years to learn to eat them.
There were chocolate and coffee trees growing there, with
the scarlet hibiscus and tall ylang-ylang trees with their de-
licious perfume. The breadfruit and durian thrive in Sulu, but
I was not intended by nature for them. The Moros eat them
with much gusto, and their cottas are unspeakable in the durian
season. Some white men say they like them; McCoy tried to
make me believe that he was partial to them, but I could never
hold my nose long enough to try again. I well remember the
first one we tried on the Borneo on our entry into Joló. After
cutting it open we threw it overboard as quickly as we could,
agreeing "never again" to cut another. Just then General Wood
came out of his cabin, sniffed once or twice, and remarked
that he thought the ship's plumbing must be out of order.
The lichee grows wild in the woods and may be eaten, if you
have nothing else. The Chinese are very fond of it and dry it
for the sake of the seed.
The papaya is very much esteemed and is eaten at break-
fast with sugar, or at lunch as a salad. It is the same fruit that
they call fruta de bomba in Havana.
The mangosteen, mango, and papaya are real fruits. All the
others that have come to my knowledge in the tropics would
not be liked in the United States, with our abundance of
superior fruits.
The Orient seems to do something to fruits that causes them
to deteriorate inside, while the outside may still be beautiful.
I saw some delicious looking pears in Canton and threw myself
upon them with a cry of joy-"just like something from home."
But when I bit into one, I found it much as if I had bitten
into a sawdust doll, and I threw them all away.
The island of Tawi Tawi is especially noted for its hard-
wood trees-blood narra, ipil wood, and so on. The island of
Sulu has some teak forests, and ebony grows on certain of the
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Some Memories of a Soldier
near-by islands, as well as wild rubber, of which the only use
that is made is to put rubber heads on the drumsticks.
Some of the islands of the archipelago are of coral forma-
tion, others of volcanic origin; and among them the tides sweep
back and forth in currents of great velocity, the waters alive
with tropical fish.
The soil of the island of Java is composed mainly of volcanic
ash, which is said to be the most fertile in the world; but the
soil of Sulu is composed of the same substance and is fully
as fertile. The rapid growth of its plants reminds me of the
story of Jack and the Beanstalk. Almost every hill and moun-
tain in Sulu is an extinct volcano, with craters on top of the
mountains often filled with lakes of the finest water.
The domestic animals are three: a cow that has a high
hump whose ancestors probably originated in India; a pony
that may have come from Sandalwood Island; and the water
buffalo that pulls a wooden plow. This last animal has a grudge
against the white race, whose members do better to have no
dispute with him, for he does not know when enough is enough.
He is a good work animal, provided he gets water frequently
enough, and can be managed by a little Moro boy of the size
of your thumb astride his neck, but white men very properly
pass by on the other side, giving him a wide berth.
THE FRUITS OF THREE YEARS
As I have said, it was not long after my return from leave
that I received the cable offering me the command of West
Point. General Tasker Bliss, who had relieved General Buchan-
nan at Zamboanga, forwarded me the message accompanied
by a letter of his own advising me not to accept. He said that
I had already accomplished far more toward the civilization
of the Moros than anybody in the Orient ever thought possi-
ble, but that I had not finished my work; besides, he said, I
The Philippines
397
would be nothing but a constructing quartermaster for the new
buildings at West Point, and I would much better remain at
Joló. However, since I had already been a year over my time
at Joló at Secretary Taft's request, and knew that work at
Joló could never be completed in my lifetime, while I had
succeeded in laying the foundation for some one else to build
on, and that I would never be offered another opportunity like
West Point, which had been the command of a general officer
since the Spanish War, I cabled my acceptance.
The fact of my approaching departure soon became known
to everybody, and the sultan and hadjis came up in great in-
dignation, saying that General Wood and the president had
no right to take me away just when everything was going so
well, and especially without giving them time to get ready to
go with me a far cry from their reluctance to go to Manila!
I told them that the United States was a vast country and
I did not have money enough to go around over it myself, much
less take them about with me. They conferred together a while
and asked if ten thousand dollars would do it. I told them it
would do part of it. "All right then," they said: "we will come
afterward."
I made an inspection of the agricultural situation in Sulu
and was surprised to find what a season of peace had really
done for it. When we had first arrived one could ride straight
through the country without disturbing the crops, which had
been few and scattered, but now one could not ride in a
straight line anywhere, finding it necessary to turn corners
around the crops, which seemed to cover the whole country.
Prosperity had indeed come to the Moros.
The Chinese, of whom there were some three thousand in the
Sulu archipelago, seemed to feel my departure too. Our rela-
tions had been very close ever since the great typhoon that
had destroyed their pier, wrecking our own, and blowing down
some of the largest and finest trees in Joló. I had slept all
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Some Memories of a Soldier
through the disturbance, but had been awakened at daylight
and hurried down to the Chinese pier to prevent loss of life.
The Chinese pier was a platform built up on bamboo piles
with little one-room board stores alongside, where a Moro
could bring his jungle products, tie up his boat to the piling,
and trade. The pier was built out along a bar over which the
surf, at the time of the typhoon, was dashing twenty feet in
the air. All the houses and property of the Chinese were float-
ing in the bay.
The poor owners, wet and shivering with fear and cold, stood
on the shore watching their belongings being carried away by
the Samals, afraid to remonstrate lest they lose their heads as
well as their goods.
The Samals are sea gipsies-Moros of a later migration from
the Malay Peninsula than the Sulu Moros. They are born, live,
and die in their little dugout canoes called vintas, fitted with
sails and a bamboo outrigger, in which they do not hesitate to
go out of sight of land, cooking their rice in a charcoal brazier.
They shift about all over the archipelago, earning their liveli-
hood by catching fish, part of which they eat and part dispose
of, fresh or dried, in the shore markets in exchange for textiles,
salt, rice, and munitions of war; for other than these they have
no need. You may look out over an empty bay as you go to
bed at night, to find a hundred Samal boats there in the morn-
ing; and they leave as silently as they come.
There were a hundred of these Samal boats held in by the
surf over the bar so that they could not get out. I saw at a
glance that they were robbing the Chinese and sent Captain
Charles up to the barracks to turn out seven hundred men
quickly to surround the Samals on three sides and compel
them to disgorge their plunder. Their boats were searched
under the guns of the soldiers, and they were made to bring
back the brassware of the Chinese, which they had hidden in
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399
the swamps, and to give up the hemp, pearl-shells, copra, bolts
of calico, and other textiles half unrolled and soaked with
sea-water; a huge tangled mass that was turned over to the
Captain Chinaman for delivery to the owners, and the leading
Samals were put in jail.
This prompt action in their defense delivered the Chinese
colony into my hand, bag and baggage, and all our relations
were most cordial thereafter. Anything I might want, from a
cook to a criminal, I had only to mention to Tiana, the Captain
Chinaman, and it was straightway forthcoming if it was in their
power to secure it. I found the Chinese an excellent people
to deal with, honest and peaceable, their worst faults, opium
smoking and gambling, hurting them more than anybody else.
Now that I was going away and no longer could do them
any good or evil, sixty of their principal men invited me to
a real old-fashioned Chinese dinner, the sentiment of which I
appreciated far more than the food, although the latter was
ne plus ultra from their standpoint. The birds'-nest soup could
have been duplicated-minus the feathers-by a twenty-five-
cent box of gelatin and would have tasted just the same. My
idea of an edible bird's-nest had always been like that of the
rest of us—a robin's nest, all twigs and grass. But this Chinese
tidbit is far different; it is a little transparent gelatin pocket
of the size of a case for a small watch, built by a little swallow
on the wall of a dark cave on an island near Borneo. The
material looks like gelatin, with now and then a feather in it,
which the Chinese wash out. The Spaniards say that this gela-
tin is the baba-the saliva of the swallow. Anyway, it comes
out of the mouth of the bird and may come from seaweed.
The bird is robbed of two sets of nests and is then left un-
molested to raise its young. Most of the Sulu nests are exported
to China, for I know of no other people that use them for food,
and it brings twenty dollars a pound.
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Some Memories of a Soldier
At this dinner I managed to eat some of the birds'-nest soup,
some of the sharks' fins, and drink some of the warm cham-
pagne, but the bêche de mer—the long sea caterpillar, cut into
lengths and dried in the sun-and the little black eggs, said
to be a hundred years old, were a taste which my foreign devil
stomach had not yet acquired, and I had to pass those courses
by.
My last days at Joló were full of sadness. While I was glad
to take my family to West Point and to leave the life that was
often shut up in a tropical jungle, I felt sorry to leave the
Moros, with whom many strong ties of mutual regard had been
knit. I felt as does one who leads a child by the hand through
the woods, then suddenly pulls his hand away, leaving the
child to wander alone. But it could not be expected that I
would stay all my life with the Moros. I was not a missionary
but a soldier, who must follow his career wherever it took him;
though if any little good can be accomplished for others on
the way, it adds much to the satisfaction of such a life, and I
look back to Joló with pleasure.
But one will ask what had been the result of the expenditure
of so much blood and effort? What had come out of those
three years of toil and danger?
It is given to no man to civilize a wild people overnight, as
so many of our good citizens seem to expect. Neither may it
be done in a generation, and often many generations are re-
quired. The best that any man can hope to do is to lay a solid
foundation for others to build upon after him, and such was
the foundation I sought to lay during those three years in
Joló. It remained for the Moros to be carried along on the
same lines, with firmness, kindness, and justice, to raise them,
in time, high in the ranks of civilization; a proud, intelligent,
and forceful people.
Here a letter received from Eddy Schück, three years later,
may be of interest:

GENERAL FRANK R. MC COY, A.D.C. TO PRESIDENT WILSON
The Philippines
401
Joló, P. I.,
6th Feb. 1909.
Colonel H. L. Scott,
Superintendent,
Sir:
West Point.
Many thanks for your kind wishes for the season and in return
let me wish you long life and happiness.
You are the only one who has not forgotten Joló and its people,
and I can assure you that you are not forgotten by them. If it is
true that a man's ear will ring when others talk about him, yours
must be ringing very often.
The only thing we all have against you is, you left us too soon;
your work was not finished; most people say 6 months longer would
have done it; but alas it could not be.
You are mentioned too often to do us good. I will not say who,
but people are jealous of you; yes, if it had been Governor Scott,
he would have done it so and so; well, people do not like to hear
that. I am sure there are many people as clever as you are, but
they don't understand; some lose their temper whilst talking with
the Moros, a thing you never did. Some threaten and do not follow
it out, a thing you always did. These two points will make or ruin
any native country. When you were here and sent word to a chief
to come, he would be there at the appointed hour, but now 5 letters
would not bring him in, not because they want to fight but just
because they know that they can do it without being punished.
There is a pirate now at large; he and his gang have killed three
white men and more than thirty Chinos, Filipinos and Moros; they
have destroyed more than one hundred thousand pesos' worth of
property; they have been at it for over 18 months. Their gang started
with four men and numbers now twenty-three. They are at it still
and the Government seems powerless.
Oh, for Colonel Scott, just for another year. You would not need
to move from your chair; you have the following here; you have
the confidence; everybody knows that what you promise you will
keep, good or bad; once said there is no turning back for you;
everybody knows what he has got to expect if he opposes an order
from you.
Cattle stealing, the root of all evil in Joló, is flourishing, worse
than it ever has been, for the last 30 years; 6 months more and you
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Some Memories of a Soldier
would have settled it for ever; everybody says so and it must be
true. Shall I go on, writing you about the state of affairs here in
Joló. No, I will not pull down what you build up. I will wait; some
time the day may come, when a strong reign will be built on the
foundation you laid. One day I mentioned in the office that I was
going to write you a letter and everybody present asked me to
mention him. I will not write their names, but we all liked you and
we all respected you; we wish you back again, if only for one year.
Charlie is in Manila just now in charge of the Joló Moros for the
carnival; so is Hadji Butu, Hadji Tahil and Panglima Jaji of
Anuling, your truest followers who every one would put their life
down for you; but they are not the only ones; even if you should not
come back to Joló, you will live in the Moro songs for many years
to come, and if the blessings of a people can do a man any good,
surely you will be rewarded for the good you did in Joló.
Very respectfully,
EDDY SCHÜCK.
[This outlaw was Jakiri who paralyzed the Sailing Commerce of
Joló for two years until he was killed. The natives would not tell of
his whereabouts. This case may be compared with that of Pala, whose
location was reported within twenty-four hours. See p. 322.]
When it became time to turn over the command and civil
governorship to my successor, I sent for all the head men of
the islands, presented them to the new governor, and told them
I wanted each one of them to put his hand in the hand of the
new official and promise me to support him as strongly as
though they were supporting me, and they all pledged them-
selves to me and to him. Only Indanan was a little dubious,
but he ended by following suit, after asking what sort of a man
the new governor was.
Returning to my quarters late one night, I heard some one
stirring in the shadows of my drawing-room. It behooves one
to look into such matters carefully in Joló lest a juramentado
be waiting for him in the dark, so I struck a light to see who
it was, ready to hit him with the lamp. It turned out to be
Hadji Abdula, the only Moro allowed inside the walls after
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403
dark. He had brought in his bedding and put it on the floor in
the drawing-room and asked me, now that I was about to go
away and he would probably never see me again, if he might
not sleep there every night until my departure. When I went to
bed he came and asked if he could not put his bed underneath
mine a Filipino bed of bamboo, high off the floor-and he
slept there every night for ten nights. I was asked by different
people if I was not afraid to have him in the room with me
with his arms while I was asleep, but one might as well have
been afraid of one's grandmother.
The officers of the post, in their hospitable way, invited me
somewhere every night to dine, and invariably the hadji would
be found, no matter how late, sitting on the steps, waiting in
the darkness for us to go home together. How he always knew
where to find me was an unsolved puzzle.
My Chinese butler used to look after my room and clothes
while I was away at the office, as well as waiting on the table,
and I would sometimes not see him for a month except at
mealtime. But as soon as he heard the news of my departure
he began to invent reasons to come in ten times a day, and
each time he would break down and go out weeping. I had
never seen this side of a Chinese before, and had always con-
sidered the race about as easily affected as a wooden post, but
I know now that they are full of feeling for any one they trust.
When the inter-island transport made its monthly visit, my
adjutant used to go on board to see whom I would want to
invite to dinner, after which I would send for the Chinese
cook and tell him that we would have ten or twenty additional
guests for dinner. He would answer "All li," and return to
his kitchen; and it would have been just the same if I told him
to prepare for a hundred. The Chinese are honest and trust-
worthy to a remarkable degree, and not afraid of work. I wish
I had two or three of them now.
I had often talked to Hadji Butu and the others about their
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Some Memories of a Soldier
history, religion, and literature. They came up shortly before
my departure with a present of an ancient book, a commentary
on the Koran, that was said to have been brought from Mecca
to Sulu by the first sultan of Sulu, Saripul Hassim, about the
year 1400, and fully looked its age. It was written in Arabic in
red and black ink, the colors of which were as distinct as the
day it was written, and with it was the following letter, writ-
ten in Joloano with Arabian script, and translated by Charley
Schück:
This letter from your son, Haji Mohammed Panglina Ymam
Mualam, to my father, Major Scott, Governor of Sulu.
I beg to inform you that there is a book called "Hadis," "The
Word of all the Prophets." He who brought this book to Joló was
Said Abu Bakal, about 500 years ago. He became afterward Sultan
Saripul Hassim [First Sultan of Sulu, about A.D. 1400]. As my father
has use for the Kitabs [Commentaries on the Koran] of our fore-
fathers, we wish to present our father with the original, as we still
retain copies. Because our father, the governor of Sulu, Major Scott,
is very wise and very good to the Moros. He always gives his
children, the Moro people, good advice, and he had their interest
at heart. We have followed his advice, and we are very thankful
to him, as we see that his advice has always been for our benefit.
We became great, not small; we became wise, not stupid. Other
Moros, who did not take his advice and would not obey his orders,
they are dead; they died like beasts; as for us, we are still alive.
The Moros are loving their father now and wish to be near him;
they are following his advice to plant hemp, cocoanuts, and cultivate
the ground. It is our wish that our father let our names be known
to all the American people, big and small, and tell them about us;
how we have supported the government.
We trust that our father comes back again and pays us a visit,
the same as Governor Taft has done, who came to Joló twice.
May God prolong the life of our father, and may God make him
great. May our father become greater every year, and may he be
happy and contented for ever and ever.
Greetings and best wishes to my father. May he forgive us if
we have ever given him a moment of displeasure.
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405
Written on Thursday, the thirteenth day of Jemad Alawal, in the
year 1324.
HADJI MOHAMMED PANGLIMA MUALLAM.
Charles Schück, Official Interpreter.
July 5, 1906.
When we had first come to Joló they had insisted upon
offering us all sorts of gifts, particularly of valuable pearls,
of which I could have accumulated a hatful. They soon gave up
the effort, however, for we never took anything from them.
The sultan had come in after he had heard of my running up
the street after our first juramentado without arms, and seemed
quite concerned. His slave carried his two-handled execution
knife, which he presented to me, saying that I would be cut
to pieces if I did not have something with which to defend
myself. When I accepted it with thanks, he gave a sigh of
relief, saying, "I was afraid you wouldn't take it."
The poor little man had come to me in great distress one
day because the customs people were holding up a gorgeous
uniform, covered with gold lace, which he had had made in
Singapore, for payment of a duty of fifteen hundred pesos.
This seemed a bit steep to me, especially since it did not
interfere with any clothing industry in the Philippines, and I
interceded for him in Manila and got the duty remitted, to
his great joy.
Looking back upon our relationship of the past three years,
I could not but feel a warm glow of appreciation and gratitude
for the noble way in which Sultan Jamalul Kiram had co-
operated with me. He had had little power for good, but that
little he had used as I directed, since he had full confidence
in my friendship for him and for the Moro people. He had
had, on the other hand, immense power for evil as titular head
of the religion of Islam, but he had never used it, although the
reduction of his revenues by the Commission in Manila would
have been cause enough for many in his place to revolt. He
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Some Memories of a Soldier
had had only to proclaim to his subjects that the Americans
were destroying their religion to bring all the Moros flocking
to his standard, ready to the last man to die for the faith.
He could have put forth his proclamation after starting for
the Moluccas, the Spice Islands, or Celebes, thus removing
himself from our power, but instead he was always loyal to the
government.
Our relations toward each other had changed from time to
time. While the Bates Agreement was in operation, it had been
as if he were on the throne and I were sitting somewhere out-
side the door. After the abrogation of the agreement, it was
as though we were both sharing the same throne; and later
as if I were occupying the throne alone with the sultan
sheltered under its protection.
I had protected him in every way in my power, in full recog-
nition of his loyalty, and had put the adverse laws in effect as
gently as I could, so that the shock was minimized. He had
always regarded me as his friend, as indeed I was, and while
I never gave him any royal honors such as the British accorded
him at Singapore, it was not because I objected to rendering
them, but rather because I knew that it would give him a
false idea of his real position, and would soon involve him in
difficulties with our common superiors, who did not under-
stand how loyal and how valuable he was, and had little sym-
pathy for him, feeling that he had no place in a modern scheme.
I had been able to do much for him in different ways, and he
had always coöperated with me to the best of his ability ever
since the third day of my governorship, when I had pulled
my watch on him.
When the interisland transport that was to take me away
came around again it brought, among others, General John
Storey, the chief of coast artillery, and Miss Laura McKinstry
of San Francisco, seeing the southern islands, as everybody in
Manila tried to do at least once. The officers of the port invited
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407
me to a farewell reception that night in the club-house I had
caused to be built, preparatory to my departure on the trans-
port. Hadji Abdula went with me, and when I put my cap
on a ledge the Hadji snatched it up and held it all evening
himself. Some polite young officer produced a chair for him
from somewhere, the only chair on the floor, where he sat
holding my cap, doubled up and wilted with grief, a most
pathetic sight that moved everybody.
The Hadji declared his intention of abandoning his home and
people and going to live with me at West Point. I had visions
of the effect which that earnest barefooted figure, armed with
rifle, revolver, and creese, and dressed in those frog-skin-tight
trousers, velvet jacket, and huge yellow turban, would have
on strangers and cadets, preceding the superintendent of West
Point, cracking on the shins with a cane whoever dared ob-
struct the passage of his "gubnor." But more than that, he
would have died of loneliness among an unsympathetic people
to whom he could not even talk, and of whose customs he
would be totally ignorant. While he and I got on in the utmost
companionship, there were many places where I would perforce
have to go where he might not, and for long periods, leaving
him alone. Moreover he knew nothing of our winters, which
he would never have been able to survive, and it had to be
broken to him very gently that he would have to stay at Joló.
As it was, he did not live long. The last I heard from him
directly was a message saying that he was quite ill with
tuberculosis, but was doing his best to get well, "so he could be
my dog again," and by the time I got the message he was dead.
FAREWELL TO JOLÓ
No farewell ceremonies were arranged. I expected just to
shake hands with everybody and go aboard the ship, but the
principal Filipino came to see me that evening and asked if
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Some Memories of a Soldier
the four hundred Filipinos of the town might accompany me
to the dock with their amateur band. When I was about to
start for the dock, in the middle of the night, the sultan
appeared with all the Hadjis, and Captain Tiana with the
prominent Chinese arrived from somewhere, and all asked to
go also. Some one formed them all into a procession with the
officers of the garrison, and I walked down to the dock, pre-
ceded by the band, with the sultan of Sulu on one arm and
Captain Tiana on the other, both in tears, and Hadji Abdula
close behind us, carrying a big spear one of the Moros of the
outlying parts had sent me as a present to take home.
All the transport passengers were on the dock side of the
ship when I went aboard, and after I had taken my leave and
come aboard, the ship soon cast off and began to warp away
from the dock. Looking back at them all standing there, gazing
mutely up, I saw Hadji Abdula, apart from the others, with-
ered and shrunken with grief-the last I ever saw of him—
and the sight tugged heavily at my heart-strings. The ship
gathered way little by little until it was able to clear the dock
and sheer off on its course for the north. The passengers left
the side quietly, one by one, without speaking a word, as if
they had seen a death. I sat there as long as I could see the
lights of Joló, until chilled by the night air.
I sometimes hear from Joló by letter. Somebody induced the
sultan to part with his rights as sultan for money-the last of
a line of four hundred years of sultans of Sulu. I think it
rather a pity to part with the only sultan we ever had, but I
suppose some complication with the Moros was feared other-
wise.
Captain Tiana, Hadji Abdula, Hadji Taib, and Eddy and
Charley Schück are all dead. Poor Charley had been severely
wounded in one of the fights with the Moros, and after his
recovery, while he was sitting on the floor of his house eating
The Philippines
409
dinner with his wife, a juramentado rushed in, and although
his wife caught the naked blade of the barong and nearly
severed her fingers trying to hold it, it was jerked away from
her and used to cut off poor Charley's head in a single stroke,
as clean as a whistle. By this act the troops lost a brave,
faithful, and skilful interpreter, and the Moros their best
friend. Schück knew everybody in Sulu, and was a tower of
strength to any commander. I am at a loss to imagine what I
could have done without him.
The letters received from the Moros are greatly cherished
by me for their sentiment and style of expression. One from
Hadji Butu opens: "To my father, the governor of Sulu, Major
Scott, from the white heart of his son, Hadji Butu. Major
Scott, who first brought justice and order into this country."
It ends with "the hope that God will exalt your position and
prolong your life, and that hope from all of us; may he for-
give us if we have ever given you a moment of displeasure.'
It is dated 1324, this date referring to the hejira of Mohammed
from Mecca 1323 years before.
""
In 1921 President Harding sent General Wood and Cameron
Forbes-who came out on the Philippine Commission and later
acquired a most enviable record as governor of the islands-
to the Philippines on a commission to investigate the condition
of affairs, which were reported to be in a sad state from
misgovernment.
Generals Wood and McCoy wrote me from Joló that I am
still remembered there. They spoke of going here and there
in automobiles and of the number of school-houses in every
district, and I smiled to myself at the memory of the difficulties
I had contended with in the starting of the first school. Those
schools are taught now by the daughters of our old friends,
Calbi, Jokanain, and Tiana, who are all dead. The daughters
went to that first school of mine and are now graduates of the
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Some Memories of a Soldier
University of Manila. The Moros were a unit against the inde-
pendence of the islands and wanted only an American governor.
Here is a letter from McCoy:
Dear General:
Special Mission to the Philippine Islands
On Board the U. S. S. "General Alava"
August 19, 1921.
I have just come aboard after our first day in Joló and it was
so full of you and of our old times together that I shall give you
the passing pictures before they fade a bit from my mind.
On the way down from Zamboanga we stopped off in Basilan for
some shooting and fishing at Baluk Baluk, where we found that
sometime-wild jungle island now a tame looking coconut plantation,
so we pushed on to the castilated Balod islands of fragrant memory
and they were just as charming as ever with the same fish eagles
soaring around their tops and the white and black pigeons flashing
from tree to tree. Some big pompanos and lapu lapu and tanguingi
excited the fishermen in the party but best of all was the soft out-
lines of Bagsak, Suliman and Bud Dajo when I rolled over on my
cot at daybreak this morning.
We slid along the coast from off Siet Lake, picking out the teak
grove and Taglibi Beach where you and I once held a bicharra with
Maharajah Andung, not forgetting his three sons of guns. (Colonel
Lewis, Medico, just calls over from his cot, "Are you writing to
Colonel Scott? Give him my best. I'll write to him when I get a
chance.") As we got opposite Suliman, the General and I picked out
the Hog Back where my horse went head over heels in the Moro
traps and the very one where Alonzo Gray cleaned out the trench,
and Gordon Johnston had to have a whirl in showing the new mem-
bers the rim of Bud Dajo.
Just about that time, all the Moro vintas, with their streamers
flying and gongs sounding, surrounded us and escorted us in past
Buz Buz, while the waterfront and the dock were alive with Moros
and their most vivid colors. At the landing the notables were all
asmile with beetle nut and gold and black-tooth grins:-the Sultan,
Hadju Butu, Hadji Tahil, Panglima Bandahalla, Julius and Willie
Schück, Hadji Panglima Abubakar, Panglima Unga, Maharajah
Sarrapuddin, Panglima Agga, Panglima Hayudini, old Tulawie and
The Philippines
411
his son Arolas Tulawie, Datu Uddini, and the sons of all our old
pirate friends Kalbi, Joakannin, Opao, etc., etc., etc. The usual
streaming mass escorted us to the Club, where Hadju Butu, the
Sultan, and various lesser lights spoke their welcome to a great
crowd that filled the plaza, including hundreds of school children in
their little white and blue frocks and uniforms. All laid great stress
upon their hunger for education and above all, their determination
to remain under the American flag. Governor Forbes spoke shortly
and then General Wood came to the front amid a roar of cheers. He
opened his speech by saying "Old friends of Joló, there is just one
man you would be more glad to see than I and that is your old
Governor, Scott," which aroused the wildest cheers of the day led
by all the old warriors on the porch. Old Hadju Tahil almost wept
on my shoulder.
After the public conference, we went down to the provincial
building, which is in the old Army hospital, and held heart to
heart talks until lunch time at the Club, where the school teachers,
the daughter of your old stenographer Young, and the domestic
science students gave us a very fine buffet lunch. Young is the leading
attorney here, by the way, and stayed with me most of the day.
The next procession will make your honest features relax for
the General and I accompanied the Governor in a big, angry touring
car (with Arolas Tulawie as interpreter), followed by a tail of
Dodges, Fords and big lumbering trucks loaded not only with our
party but all the notables from Hadju Butu down the line. The first
stop was at Asturias Barracks, which is kept in first class condition
and with first class grounds, where Lieut. Osborne Wood was inspect-
ing the Constabulary; then up through the Schück teak forest, stop-
ping at a very fine public school at Mama's place; and on to Indi-
nan's place where there was a Constabulary company and another
public school, also a very fine agricultural school, Bishop Brent's
Mission. The Constabulary Commander and the Deputy Governor
were living in Indinan's house while, sad to state, Indinan is safely
but comfortably alive in San Ramon Penal Colony where we had seen
him several days ago looking very sorry for himself and begging
General Wood to pardon him.
We held a long bicharra there and then set sail for Parang where
all the world was a-color, and we entered the old hard-shelled place
through long lines of 150 little school girls headed by Hadju Butu's
eldest daughter and Datu Kalbi's granddaughters as school teachers
412
Some Memories of a Soldier
--can you beat it? The General had a long and interesting confer-
ence in Parang with your old friends Datu Jamalin and Nakib
Sakudin. The old Nakib took me aside and very confidentially asked
about you
and wanted me to send you the messages of a very old man
and a very old friend. In spite of his age he claims you as father.
He then told me the great thing to be cleaned up in Parang was the
gambling, which was the worst thing left, and then petitioned for the
pardon of Indinan. That old rascal seems to have a wonderful hold
on the community.
On the drive back we took Indetas, the granddaughter of Kalbi,
between us and had a most interesting talk with her on the way.
She is a very intelligent, charming girl and speaks perfect English
and seems to know all about affairs past and present. The General
asked her if she knew you and she laughed and said she ought to
know you, although she was only three years of age when you left,
as she had heard her father and grandfather speak much about you.
In getting back to town we stopped in with the Sultan and, to our
surprise, found him in a very well turned out and well regulated
house, clean and shipshape and very different from the old ram-
shackle pagoda of Maibun. Dayang Dayang, much bejewelled and
in Philippine costume, received us in service with tea and coffee with
the help of Scott Butu and all the other Butus and various parientes.
The General has been holding conferences ever since dinner time
on board ship and the Governor of the Moros, formerly Provincial
Superintendent of Schools, took dinner with us and spent the evening.
He seems to be much above the average and it is about time for
they have had a most terrible mess here in the last ten years and
have been at the tender mercy of a lot of bum officials, who have
succeeded in leaving the new province over a million pesos in debt
and the place alive with grievances, in spite of the fact that there is
peace and that you can go about unarmed and safe.
I have a dispatch case full of reclamas and one noble petition,
drawn very cleverly, I suspect, by your Young but signed by every
notable in the island (excepting the Sultan), Hadju Butu leading the
list, and petitioning most determinedly for annexation to the United
States.
Tomorrow morning we are going to Maibun and Crater Lake by
automobile, returning in time to come aboard ship for lunch and run
down the coast to Bual. I'll finish when I come back tomorrow.
(August 20th) This morning we drove to Maibun, had a look
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413
around and talk in the market place. The tiangi hasn't changed a bit
and was just as full of dirty Moros from the hill country, bartering
rice and beetle nut, buyo leaves, and various colored limes for fish
and high smelling sea food; and that loathesome village of Maibun
looks just the same, and smells even worse than ever before but the
Sultan's old pagoda is now in a little park, very well kept and being
used as a public school while a fine new school building is nearly
finished across the way.
Just this side of Talipao we turned off north toward Crater Lake
and passed right up through the dark and bloody ground picking
out old camps and the hill above Peruka Utig's cotta, and came to
the end of the road at Camp Romandier short of Crater Lake, where
there is a Constabulary company, and at Tangui where a final talk
fest was held before returning to Joló to board the ship and skirt
the coast to Bual, where the General held a bicharra all the after-
noon with Opao's people, who are now divided between his son
(the boy you may remember) and a nephew of Opao, who told us
he was the chief who had the fight with us at Siet Lake in 1904.
Datu Kalbi's Number-One wife, some sort of Dayang Dayang, came
aboard from a gayly decorated vinta from Tulayan and begged to be
taken back to Joló with us to attend the ball and reception to be
given that night at the Club. After dinner, the Sultan and Hadju
Butu and all the anxious hangers on came aboard ship and with the
Dayang Dayang, the Sultan's niece, who seems to be the power be-
hind the throne nowadays, held a long evening conference pretty
much the same sort of one he would have held with you fifteen years
ago same complaints and request for authority to administer the
Mohammedan law with official authority; in other words, to fine the
poor tao and pocket the fines and levy tribute in the sacred name of
Mohammed. I finally butted in on the conference and called the
General's attention to the fact that he was due at the Club and the
General asked the Sultan if he had anything else he wished to say
and the Sultan looked blankly around and, on reminder from the
Dayang Dayang, 'Oh, yes, he also wanted to tell about how the
Filipino Chief of police had enticed one of his favorite wives from
the harem and was living publicly with her in Joló right under his
royal eye.' He complained bitterly that he could not administer the
proper treatment and have his head cut off. This threat was not
made, however, in a very aggressive or satisfying tone of voice.
I remarked to the General that it certainly was a shame that the
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Some Memories of a Soldier
royal house should be treated so and it was almost as hard on a
Sultan as General Scott charging duty on his royal red uniform from
Singapore.
Before we left the boat Datu Kalbi's young daughter, Jolali, fol-
lowed by maids and some of Kalbi's old retainers that I recognized,
turned up to pay her respects and the General took her off to the
ball with him, where we stayed and sat in state with the charming
little girl and daughter of Jolkanain, who was a school teacher in
the high school here, and various Schücks, old Hadji Fatima, the
Sultan, Hadju Butu, Scott Butu and all the other Butus. It was
really a grand party and I must say I enjoyed every minute of the
stay in Joló.
Before dinner the General and I went around to Tiana's house
to see him, as we had been told that he was very ill and unable to
leave his bed and very anxious to see the General before he died.
The old man looks about the same but really is dying and seems to
be broken up all over and still mourning the loss of his son and the
more recent burning up of his home with everything in it. His eyes
lighted up when the General talked to him about you and he hoped
we would give you his last farewell.
The town itself has lost a good deal of its charm, as all of the
old trees have been cut down and the new ones make no impression
as yet. I shall send you some postal cards to kindle your remem-
brance.
(August 21st) At Joló, Forbes and his party went off to South
Ubbian and Tandubas, while I went with the General to Siassi,
Bongao, and Sibutu. We will meet Forbes again at Sandakan on
day after tomorrow. Just now we are lying off Bangao after having
spent the morning with short visits to Semenor and Bongao. The
Governor and Willie Schück are aboard with us, and we also had a
stop at Siassi, which hasn't changed much excepting for the schools
and the shipshape appearance of the old fort and Constabulary
headquarters. The Constabulary, by the way, all over the Islands,
has been in Number One condition and their barracks are always
surrounded, as are the school buildings, with well kept lawns and
shrubbery. In Joló, however, the Constabulary has not been an
entire success in its dealings with the natives and there is much
complaint against them throughout the Islands and the Deputy Gov-
ernors down south here, who have been Constabulary officers, have
not been a success.
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415
The Governor of the Province, Moore, has been in office but a
couple of months, after having served some twelve years as Superin-
tendent of Public Schools in the province, most of the time in Zam-
boanga. He impressed us very favorably and has the requisite feeling,
patience and sense of personal dignity, both his own and that of
the Moros.
It may cause your honest features to relax to know that one of the
complaints at Siassi was over the size of the water pipe for the
thriving municipality. To my certain knowledge, that pipe was com-
plained against the only four other times I have been in the place
and six times more than fifteen years ago, so that, judging by the
size of the water pipe, there has not been much improvement, and
I surmise you were to blame for the fact that the pipe was too small.
One of the gladsome sights down here was the wireless towers
both at Siassi and Bongao; also, I am told that one has been erected
at Cagayan de Sulu. These are just finished and not yet in operation;
otherwise the southern islands are pretty well linked up by wireless.
Before this reaches you, the fact that the General is to remain out
here as Governor General will be announced and will occasion no
surprise, I am sure, on your part. He has made a great impression on
the natives throughout the Islands and they all hope that he will
accept, and to my surprise all of the leaders, such as Osmena, Quezon
and Palma have been just as insistent on it as the Americans
throughout the Islands. With his prestige and his connecting up with
the old times, I feel sure he will be able to straighten out and smooth
out many of the things that have gone awry. It will surprise you,
however, as it did me, to hear that the General and Forbes have
cabled recommending that I be appointed Vice-Governor. To this
strange proposal there has come no reply and I must confess that I
have not much hope that the recommendation will be followed by
the President.
The present association of the Mission has been delightful but we
have often wished for you and Dorey. Amongst our other congenial
habits have been playing polo together when we happened to hit
Manila and a continuous chess tournament wherever we happened to
be. I mention this because the little chess board that Mrs. Scott gave
me one happy Christmas in Sam Houston has been a godsend in
carrying about aboard ship, in motor cars and on horseback, as it
was during the war and on the trip to the Near East.
Give my love to all of the family and I shall look forward to
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Some Memories of a Soldier
dropping in on you when I come home and talking over this most
interesting summer.
General Hugh L. Scott,
Princeton, N. J.
Faithfully yours,
FRANK McCoy.
Indanan, the rebel, was convicted of some crime and given a
long sentence in the government prison at San Ramundo near
Zamboanga. He wrote and asked me for help to obtain a
pardon. Remembering the help he once gave me, I let him stay
there until I thought he ought to have learned enough to be-
have himself, and then used my influence to obtain his pardon,
but I heard later that he was back in San Ramundo again.
As I look back now, in the light of other events, at those
three strenuous years at Joló, I feel that they were worth
while, and I am glad to have been associated in the work of
starting the Moros on their way toward civilization,¹ with my
many able companions in and out of the army, without whose
faithful coöperation all my efforts would have been futile.
Many of those of the army have attained high rank in the
service, playing great parts in the World War, and are now
scattered over the country in various capacities.
Although those hadjis are one by one dying peacefully in
their beds, they have all killed enough Spaniards and Christian
Filipinos to entitle them to many white horses with green
manes, and to high rank in Mohammed's paradise. And if, as
they believe, their Allah will receive with favor their blood-
stained souls in that hereafter, I know that, although I am an
unbeliever of the unbelievers, a dog of a Christian, and an
eater of pig, when my time comes to move toward that bourne
from which no traveler returns, if I can but meet them riding
on their white horses in that realm beyond the stars, I will
not be allowed to trudge on alone, tired, dusty and thirsty,
but the feet of their "gubnor" will be raised off the ground and
I will be taken care of in the company of the faithful.
'See Appendix, letters from General Wood.
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Courtesy of Department of Drawing, U. S. Military Academy, West Point, N. Y.
"NEW" CHAPEL AT WEST POINT
PART V
Superintendent of West Point
AFTER seeing my family at Princeton I went to take over the
command of West Point from my predecessor, General A. L.
Mills, on August 31, 1906, riding up the long hill from the
dock down which I had last come as a graduating cadet thirty
years before, down which had passed thousands during the last
hundred years, some joyous at the accomplishment of their
goal, many in despair at their failure.
The well remembered Plain burst into view at the top,
where we used to be gripped by the "Spirit of Old West
Point," described so delightfully by our oldest and best be-
loved graduate, General Morris Schaff; the spirit that will
never let us go so long as life endures. About that Plain gather
the memories of Washington, Hamilton, and Knox, to whom we
owe the inception of the Military Academy. There stand the
old gray walls that have seen so many of our great soldiers pass
their novitiate, leaving immortal memories behind them.
Crowning the mountain-top in the rear is old Fort Putnam
that Benedict Arnold tried to sell, which with the iron chain
and earthen batteries of the Revolution are among the major
reasons why we are not now governed by a British king.
I felt a deep thrill at taking possession of the old brick
house built in 1826 by Colonel Sylvanus Thayer, the Father of
the Military Academy, which has been inhabited ever since by
West Point's long line of superintendents, and has sheltered
the presidents and cabinet officers of every administration since
that time; senators, representatives, and governors from many
417
418
Some Memories of a Soldier
States, as well as the great of every country who have visited
our shores. The Great Emancipator stayed there; Grant and
Sherman and Sheridan have been its guests; Colonel Robert
E. Lee occupied it for four years as superintendent; royal
dukes, princes, and premiers have dined under its roof, as well
as a countless host of men whose names have been household
words. And I thought, "Who indeed am I—a major of cavalry
-to be allowed to live in this old house, hallowed by the mem-
ories of so many of the great and good who have gone before?"
I walked down to the office next morning past the old gray
barracks just as I had often seen the superintendents walk
before me, watching them out of the same old windows as they
traveled back and forth to the office, and I smiled, remember-
ing the awe I had felt for them, those veterans of the Civil
War, who had been the superintendents of my youth, when my
wildest fancy had never hinted that I one day would tread in
their footsteps.
I went into the superintendent's office and sat down in the
seat of the mighty, thinking, "We are too puny a race to try
and fill their chairs"; yet here was I behind the same old desk
before which I had used to be arraigned to explain my crimes
and misdemeanors and receive my sentence, all of which did
not seem nearly so far away as it really was, and I would
have felt little surprise if those old superintendents, long sleep-
ing in their honored graves, had come trooping back to their
office once more to chill my blood and pronounce my doom.
I recalled the first day my Uncle David had taken me
about the post, which was little changed since that day, thirty-
five years before. All the old professors to whom he had intro-
duced me then were now dead and forgotten save by such
as I who had cause to remember them as long as the mind can
remember anything. We had thought them very old from the
standpoint of our youth, but when at a meeting of my class-
mates years later some one began to talk about "Old Ruger"
Superintendent of West Point
419
and "Old Upton" and their ages were looked up, we were all
surprised to find that we ourselves were then older than they
had been when superintendent and commandant; and although
veterans of the Civil War in which they both had acquired
distinction, they had really been at that time comparatively
young.
Many places about the post were completely unchanged, and
it seemed at times as if I had never been away. Soon the old
Administration Building with its ugly façade and mansard
roof, its overcrowded rooms and stifling atmosphere, was torn
down, and no one mourned its passing. In its place was reared
a great stone castle reminiscent of a medieval city, and ade-
quate for every administrative purpose. Mr. Paul Morton,
one-time secretary of the navy, remarked that passing down
the river one time on the opposite side with a party from New
York, all had agreed that the Administration was the finest
building on the Hudson River.
After settling the family in our new home, I went to Wash-
ington and joined my classmate, General Garlington, who had
just been appointed inspector-general of the army, and General
Sniffen, paymaster-general, and we went together to the White
House to thank President Roosevelt for our appointments.
The President received us with his usual gracious and hearty
manner that always made it a pleasure to see him, and after
some talk, he referred to a recent editorial in the "New York
Evening Post," criticizing my going to West Point on the
grounds that I had served too long on the Plains of the West
and was not enough of a scholar for such a command, as would
have been the candidate of the "Post" from the coast artillery.
This attitude was commented upon in my defense by an
editorial in the "New York Sun," which retorted that while
doubtless I would make a poor typewriter operator (from
wounds in both hands) and was not distinguished for my
learning in mathematics, yet a practical soldier was needed
420
Some Memories of a Soldier
far more at West Point than a scholar; and Mr. Roosevelt
added with characteristic emphasis, "What I want at West
Point is a soldier, and I am getting one!" This showed his
complete knowledge of what was printed in the daily press,
through which he kept his finger continually on the pulse of
the nation. He missed nothing, and he remembered everything,
for his memory was truly prodigious.
Every man graduating at West Point has his individual opin-
ion as to how West Point should be governed; views acquired
during cadet days, and generally marked by the lack of sound
judgment characterizing youth. Should he come back in com-
mand after many years and attempt to put his ideas at once
into practice, he would be apt to run on the rocks before he
knew it, as some have discovered to their cost. I realized that
I was not returning to the same West Point that I had left
thirty years before. The spirit of the American people and of
the War Department had changed tremendously since 1876,
and West Point with them; and as I recognized this fact at the
outset, my theories of government were held in abeyance for
a long time.
I had brought to West Point no arrogant project of drastic
reform such as we sometimes hear about away from there.
West Point is not a subject for reform in that sense. It goes
forward on its majestic course from year to year toward the
fulfilment of its destiny, moving serenely under its traditions
of "honor, duty, country," and the laws of Congress laid down
for its guidance, improved from time to time to keep it abreast
of the age, but without need of radical alteration. Its discipline,
to be sure, swings back and forth like a pendulum under dif-
ferent superintendents, but only within narrow limits, else a
new superintendent with better ideas is promptly sent to re-
lieve the inefficient one before his normal period is half over;
a case of "keep your powder dry or walk the plank."
It was my ambition to carry forward and improve where
Superintendent of West Point
421
possible the standards of efficiency, duty, and honor of my
long line of predecessors, the result of the evolution of a
hundred years; to modernize the curriculum from time to
time so as to keep in step with the times in science and art;
to regulate and steady the discipline; to erect with economy
new buildings suitable for our requirements; and to bring up
to date the equipment of the institution, especially the artillery,
which had not been up to date since the Civil War.
It was also my desire to readjust the relations of West Point
with the metropolitan press of New York, which was then quite
hostile, as the result of the "Booze investigation" of West
Point by Congress. Moreover I intended to provide an eco-
nomical but efficient administration in every department. And,
lastly, it was my firm resolve to obey the law myself and to
cause all under me at West Point to do likewise, as far as my
authority should extend.
This extensive program was approached with great humility
of spirit, without any of the sort of pride that goes before a
fall, relying upon the good faith and ability of my numerous
associates. I regard the command of West Point as the most
difficult in the service, more difficult even than the command
of the army itself; for there are many dangerous elements con-
nected with it, any one of which, while appearing at first like
a cloud the size of a man's hand, may turn suddenly into a
raging hurricane, as many superintendents have discovered
to their grief. When Mrs. Scott remarked once at San Antonio
that she would like to go back to live at West Point, I said:
"No, indeed! Never again! When a man has once had his
head in a lion's mouth and is fortunate enough to get it safely
out again, he is a fool to put it in jeopardy a second time."
One of the principal troubles of the superintendent arises
from the interferences of individual members of Congress with
his administration in the effort to obtain special favors for
their constituents, and they often become wroth and vindictive
422
Some Memories of a Soldier
when unsuccessful, as though their rights were being invaded,
whereas the Constitution limits their rights to legislation and
inspection.
Every cadet has one representative and two senators, and
whenever he misbehaves himself seriously or fails to meet the
academic requirements, he flies to his congressman, who be-
sieges the War Department and often applies to the President
himself to overrule the superintendent and the Academic
Board; and the whole question may even be thrown into poli-
tics, where matters are no longer judged upon their own merits,
but on their effect upon somebody's political fortunes else-
where.
Every cadet is certain to get in due course, in the natural
way, everything to which he is entitled, and when he appeals to
a political power, it is usually for favors to which he knows he
is not entitled; if the favor should be obtained in that way,
it is usually at the expense of the discipline of the Military
Academy. It often becomes a struggle then, the superintendent
defending the discipline and the congressman trying to pull it
down in the interest of some political power in his home dis-
trict, the result depending in the last resort upon the President,
to whom the congressman often appeals as arbiter. Some Presi-
dents give way easily to political pressure; others do not. There
never was a President more adamantine in this respect than
President Wilson, who cared nothing for expediency and
thereby saved himself and the army from great annoyance
and constant interference.
PRESS PROBLEMS
There are many other difficult questions that arise within
and outside the Academy from time to time for which the
superintendent must find the proper solutions or permit them
to wreck his career. It was my conviction that no matter how
Superintendent of West Point
423
well a superintendent may manage the discipline and instruc-
tion of the cadets, preserve harmony and discipline among
officers and enlisted men of the garrison, keep himself and his
administration straight with the President, with Congress, and
the War Department-if he fails in preventing West Point
from being continually cried down by the press, he is a failure
as a superintendent. The newspapers that had come to the
Philippine Islands while I was still in Joló had made it very evi-
dent that, after the "Booze investigation" by a committee from
Congress, West Point had been out of joint with the press,
especially the "Army and Navy Journal."
It so happened that one night, shortly after my arrival, I
found myself seated next to the editor of this publication,
and after we had become somewhat acquainted I asked him
why his paper was so inimical to West Point. He shook his
head like an angry bull and gave me to understand that some
one there had not treated him as he thought he ought to have
been treated. I told him that that was no reason for him to
hammer a great national institution; that he ought to be help-
ing instead of the reverse; moreover that his editorials showed
that he was not aware of the actual conditions and that they
often gave rise to mirth as a consequence. If he would come
up and stay at my house for a week, I suggested, and let me
show him the Academy from the inside, so that he might form
true conclusions, he could go home afterward and write what
he pleased, but on the basis of fact.
He came up and spent a week with us looking into every
branch and department, after which he invited Mrs. Scott and
me to spend a week-end at his house, and a friendship ensued
between our two families that lasted as long as he lived, and
I never again saw an article in his paper derogatory to the
Military Academy.
I found that the reporters of the metropolitan dailies who
came to West Point for news, and were out of favor with the
424
Some Memories of a Soldier
administration, were seeking their material wherever they
could get it, principally at the back doors of the disreputable,
the dissatisfied, and the actual enemies of the Academy, and
this was all naturally reflected in the press.
In order to change this condition, I invited them to come
and see me instead and always had some little news for them.
They began to tell each other in receiving an assignment, "You
go straight to Colonel Scott's front door, and he will treat you
right." They would usually arrive about the middle of dinner,
and a cup of coffee and a cigar would be sent out to them,
and later they would be asked with kindness and sympathy
what we could do for them, and they would be told that I
recognized that they were under orders to get news and that
I would give them everything possible for me to give within the
bounds of my authority, and they must look to the War De-
partment for anything further. This always satisfied them and
the conversation would soon be diverted to their own affairs
until it would suddenly be discovered that their train was
nearly due and they would be sent down to the station in a
carriage.
It was not very long before the whole attitude of the press
changed toward West Point, and it supported me of its own
motion in all my efforts to enforce discipline against opposition.
When the bill for the enlargement of the corps of cadets was
about to come up in Congress I went to the editors of all the
prominent New York dailies-except the "Herald," which had
a grudge against the army, thirty years old, originating in some
fancied slight to Mr. Bennett-and told these gentlemen about
the bill, assuring them that I had appreciated their support
in the matter of discipline, and informing them that I had an-
other favor to ask of them. When I requested a favorable
editorial from each paper a week apart, each editor said,
"You will get what you want," and the editorial opinion of the

Courtesy of Department of Drawing, U. S. Military Academy, West Point, N. Y
"OLD" CHAPEL AT WEST POINT
Superintendent of West Point
425
East put up such a convincing argument that the bill passed
without question.
West Point is running to this day on the momentum of the
sympathy of the press then won. We never hear the Academy
hammered any more, and this happy condition, which has
lasted twenty years, is likely to endure until some tactless
person at West Point destroys it. The relations existing be-
tween the press and West Point during my régime were those
of mutual service, for I was glad to keep the Academy in the
minds of the public in a proper way. It can never have too
many friends, and how can it have any friends at all if the
public does not know about it? I encouraged the public to
come to its ceremonies, and for the first time in a hundred years
comfort stations for both sexes and a sanitary drinking foun-
tain were provided for the visitors, although the same visitors
would outrage the feelings of the quartermaster by throwing
trash on the beautiful green lawns which it would take his
whole available force several days to remove. He would always
be told, however, that "that is the price we have to pay for
their friendship, and a very small one, after all.”
BUILDINGS AND BATTERIES
General Mills, my predecessor, had, after a wide competi-
tion, entered into a contract with the firm of Crane, Goodhue
& Ferguson, architects, to furnish plans and supervision for a
reconstruction and enlargement of the West Point plant.
The advances in the military art, the expansion of the
Regular Army, and the growth of the corps of cadets had
made this improvement imperative and had caused Mr. Elihu
Root, secretary of war, and General Corbin, the adjutant-
general, to urge the measure upon Congress; General Corbin,
though not himself a graduate of the Academy, was so en-
426
Some Memories of a Soldier
thusiastic as to take a car-load of Congressmen to West Point
at his own expense in order to convince them of the necessity
of the change. All this had resulted in an appropriation of
thirteen million dollars for the purpose, and the foundations
of the Administration Building were already under way when I
arrived. Contracts were let for other buildings from time to
time by Colonel J. M. Carson, the quartermaster, who super-
vised the construction in coöperation with the architects.
My association with all these gentlemen was delightful. We
functioned together for the next four years in the utmost
harmony, and the results were so satisfactory that the firm
was afterward chosen as consulting architects for Princeton
University and later for the great Cathedral of St. John the
Divine in New York.
One of the pressing questions found on my arrival was the
location of the new chapel. One faction wanted it at the lower
end of the post, while another demanded the northern end,
where it would mask the view up the Hudson, one of the glories
of West Point.
The site previously selected by General Mills, the architect,
and the quartermaster seemed to me best to meet the condi-
tions, and I directed Colonel Carson to dig a hole where the
chapel now stands, blast some rocks, and, what would be still
more convincing, spend some money. As soon as this was ac-
complished it was generally recognized that the matter was
settled, and the clamor ceased.
Driving across the parade one day with a member of Con-
gress who considered it a crime to spend a dollar of the public
revenue outside of his district, he looked up at the chapel
then under construction, and shook his fist at me, exclaiming,
"You are not building a chapel; you are building a cathedral,
and when the American people find out what you have done,
they will tramp you into the mire!" This direful prophecy
has not yet eventuated. Since those days, Congress has made
Superintendent of West Point
427
still another enlargement of the corps, and the new chapel now
barely holds them.
Although most of the ancient buildings were of local stone,
some superintendent of the past, discouraged by the failure
and bankruptcy of contractors who spent their money opening
quarries only to find the stone full of rotten seams which caused
its rejection, had purchased the material for the West Aca-
demic Building in Connecticut. When the question of obtain-
ing stone for the new buildings arose, this circumstance was
brought up, but it seemed to me unnecessary to pay the huge
freight bills on stone from Connecticut when the mountains all
around West Point were full of stone. It appeared far more
economical for the government itself to find the stone and
furnish it delivered on the site to the contractor, who would
then run no risk, and, bidding upon known and fixed condi-
tions, could afford to quote a lower price on his work.
It was not long before stone of fine quality and suitable
quantity was found in my own garden close under the chapel
site, where it was delivered with ease and economy, by means
of an aërial trolley.
This brought about a number of economies, not only saving
the freight from Connecticut on a vast quantity of stone for
this and other buildings, and enabling the contractors to offer
lower bids, but furnishing at the same time, free of cost, all
the spalls for road and concrete work.
During a discussion of gardens, I was asked what was being
raised in the superintendent's garden, and replied, “We raise
chapels." Our chapel raising, as a matter of fact, put an end to
the production of anything else a sad blow to the superin-
tendent's cook.
During the period of the erection of the chapel, I recog-
nized fully that it would never approach completion without
a fine organ and a stained glass memorial window over the
chancel, for which it did not seem proper to use the building
428
Some Memories of a Soldier
appropriation. I reflected that Congress would certainly not
provide for a memorial window but might for the organ if
properly approached. The alumni were appealed to for the
window and responded nobly. The competition for the window
was thrown open to all the stained glass firms of the United
States and England, and eleven bids were received. The designs
were passed upon by a board of the most prominent artists of
the country, and the design of a Pittsburgh firm was approved.
This resulted so satisfactorily that the same firm was engaged
by the alumni to place the great window over the portal as a
memorial to those who died in the World War. The window in
Proctor Hall in the Graduate College of Princeton University
was placed afterward by the same firm.
When estimates containing an item of ten thousand dollars
for an organ were taken up by the committee in the House,
the item was promptly rejected with scorn and "cast out to the
owls and the bats."
It came up again in the subcommittee of the Senate, of
which an old friend, Senator Nathan B. Scott of West Virginia,
was chairman. After reading over the estimate he announced
his intention of throwing out the organ. I said, "Senator, what
do you want to treat a fellow you know that way for?" He
replied in his joking way, "If I don't throw something out of
this estimate, people will think I never read it."
I told him that if he felt he must make a cut I hoped he
would let me do it where it would hurt the least, and then
Senator Brown of Nebraska called out, "Oh, Senator, you have
plenty of money; give the fellow what he wants." The item
passed the Senate, survived in the conference, and there the
organ is, one of the fine ones of the country. Various friends
have left money in their wills to improve it, and the alumni
have voted to expend fifteen thousand dollars more to make it
at least the equal to the best.
Walking about through the uncompleted chapel with Senator
Superintendent of West Point
429
Warner of Missouri, I thanked him for his part in securing
the appropriation for the organ and told him that Congress
no doubt after providing such a splendid instrument would feel
badly if it had to be played on by a blacksmith for want of a
real organist. The senator stopped right there and called over
to Senator Simmons of North Carolina: "Scott says he doesn't
want this organ played on by a blacksmith. What are you
going to do about it?" And it was agreed among them all that
Congress would create the position of organist with the pay and
allowances of first lieutenant.
This compensation has been added to since, but it is by no
means equal to the amount offered Mr. Meyer, the organist, to
leave West Point and go to New York. He feels, however, that
he has nursed the organ along since the beginning; that it is his
creation, his child, a part of his flesh, and cannot be parted
with for money. His musical programs distributed among the
pews on important occasions afford a musical, ethical, and
artistic education of the highest value, introducing a spiritual
refinement never known before at West Point.
Besides the great memorial windows over the chancel and
over the portal, the other windows devoted mainly to class
memorials for their dead are harmonized also to prevent the
incongruous appearance seen in some churches where the
memorials are placed by individuals without thought of the
total effect. The colors of the windows, blending with those of
the battle-flags of the republic displayed high overhead, give
an artistic impression which mingles with the sentiment con-
nected with their history. Nowhere in America are such im-
pressive services to be seen. And under the spell of the light
shining down through the stained glass illuminating the lofty
chancel, and the historic battle-flags of the nation, conse-
crated by the blood of heroes, hanging high overhead, and
the choir of a hundred and fifty voices leading the great cadet
congregation accompanied by the wonderful notes of the
430
Some Memories of a Soldier
majestic organ, the most prosaic American soul is filled with
religious and patriotic fervor. The Academy has been fortunate
in having the services of Chaplains Silver and Wheat, who,
besides the incarnation of eloquence, spiritual zeal, and what
is most important, tact, have had the felicity to gain the re-
spect and affection of the young men and exert an influence
over them such as was unknown when I was a cadet. Indeed
it may be said that the conjunction of those chaplains, the
chapel, the organist, and his organ has wrought a greater
change in the spiritual life of West Point, with consequent
effect on the American army, than anything that has been
instituted during the Academy's entire century of existence,
without any exception.
If you want to be thrilled to the marrow and to have
your children filled with a religious and patriotic spirit, go
there with them some Sunday morning and listen and let them
listen to the music amid those historic surroundings. That is
your chapel, maintained, as is all West Point, for you and
your children, and it is the birthright of every American
boy and girl to know West Point.
By reason of several enlargements of the corps of cadets,
the old chapel became too small even to allow the corps to
stand together on the site, and it became necessary to remove
it and utilize its site for another purpose. It was found that
the affections of the alumni were more closely entwined about
this old building than about any other. Cadets Grant, Sherman,
Sheridan, Lee, and Jackson, with many others up to 1906
including the father of Mrs. Scott, had sat every Sunday for
four years looking up at the legend painted high up over the
chancel: "Righteousness exalteth a nation but sin is a reproach
to any people." The constant presence of this legend before
our eyes caused it to be ground into the very marrow of our
consciousness, so that we never forgot it. It forms the basis
of the conduct of the American soldier in every clime and
Superintendent of West Point
431
crisis. It is a part of the old chapel, and its memory is dear
to the heart of every graduate who knew it.
The old chapel was taken down carefully and reërected,
stone by stone, as a mortuary chapel in the cemetery, where it
may be seen just as it was in the time when the Civil War's
generals were cadets, and later, in the middle fifties, when Lee
sat every Sunday for four years in the seat of the superin-
tendent.
I intended to have a few insignificant trees cut down that
mask the view up the Hudson from the chapel terrace, but
something prevented the execution of my wishes just as I was
leaving. Since that time the cutting of such a vista unmasking
one of the finest views on the Hudson River has been sug-
gested to several superintendents without meeting favor. There
are many beautiful views up and down the river on the edge
of the Plain that had been allowed to disappear overgrown by
foliage until the famous landscape artist of Boston, Mr. Fred
K. Law Olmstead, was brought down to open them up, but
time seems again to be closing them with saplings.
After the new Administration Building came the completion
of the North Barracks. They were soon filled with cadets, but
I determined to spend a hundred thousand dollars on an ell
without any cadet to occupy it. This worried the chief of staff
in Washington, who considered the building of barracks with-
out cadets to occupy them a great extravagance, and hailed me
before him to account for it. He was asked to hold his objec-
tions in abeyance for a while.
1
When the bill for the enlargement of the corps was being
argued before the House committee, the members were very
polite and sympathetic. They were extremely anxious, of
course, to provide the increase in the corps but were too poor
to do it now, since this would call for the additional cost of
building barracks for them; otherwise of course they would
be delighted to furnish the cadets. Having committed them-
432
Some Memories of a Soldier
selves to the desire to enlarge the corps, I asked if the lack of
barracks was the only obstacle. They said it was, whereupon
it was broken to them that the barracks were here, ready, and
since they had committed themselves too strongly to refuse,
the barracks were soon filled.
When the power-house approached completion, the question
of a siding by which it could be supplied with coal became
acute. Correspondence developed that the railway would put
in the siding for fifteen thousand dollars, which we did not
have at our disposal.
The railway representative declared at a conference that
the railway never furnished sidings for anybody under any
circumstances. I assured him of our disappointment about
this, since we had hoped that his road might be used to carry
the coal to the power-house, but since we had no money to
pay for a siding and could not use the road without a siding,
we would have to arrange to bring our coal by the river. He
replied that if I felt that way about it the railway would
furnish the siding, and after assurance was given that I did
feel just that way, the siding was installed without cost to the
government, and much coal has been carried over it since.
The yearly estimates for the support of the Military Aca-
demy had been printed and were in the hands of Congress
before my arrival from the Orient, and going before the mili-
tary committee of the House to justify them, I was surprised
to see an item in the estimate of one hundred and fifty thou-
sand dollars for the building of a sea-coast battery at West
Point for the instruction of cadets in the use of great guns.
The committee was told that they might eliminate that
item. "What! don't you want a battery?" they all exclaimed
at once. I explained that no such amount would be required to
accomplish what was needed and said that the estimate would
come back to them later after revision. Inquiry at the office
of the chief of engineers developed that the estimate had been
Superintendent of West Point
433
made there, and I was advised to see a certain authority about
it. It was carefully explained to him that West Point did not
need an expensive battery with great masses of concrete like
those at Sandy Hook for the defense of New York. He took
down his drawings of Sandy Hook, and when I saw that his
mind was fixed, without possibility of change, I excused myself
to go to lunch, and never went back.
A board of officers was then convened at West Point with
orders to study the project and submit a plan and estimate for
a mere shell, since this battery would never be fired on. Two
fire-control stations would be required; stable platforms to
carry the guns; a parapet of earth behind which the disap-
pearing-guns could go in and out of the battery; and a simu-
lated magazine with ammunition-hoists and carriers-in fact
everything needed for instruction, and nothing more.
The board reported that my wishes could be carried out for
sixty-five hundred dollars. Application was then made to the
Senate for seven thousand dollars, for which the present sea-
coast battery was constructed, and it is adequate for all pur-
poses of instruction.
This episode resulted very favorably both for the Academy
and my administration, for the impression was gained at the
outset that mine was to be a careful and economical régime,
and this brought West Point everything that I requested from
Congress in its behalf during the next four years, with a few
trifling exceptions.
For some unknown reason the chief of ordnance had always
refused to give West Point any of his modern disappearing-
guns, and when he was asked for them anew, he said he did not
have any. "Get out," I said, "you have got plenty all up and
down the Atlantic Coast!" He replied that they were all in
batteries. I told him that made no difference, as they would be
cared for as well at West Point as in any other battery, and
if they were needed at any time for the defense of New York, I
434
Some Memories of a Soldier
would guarantee to get them back in twenty-four hours. Rather
than have to go on arguing with such a pestilent person, he
agreed to send what I wished, and there they have been
ever since, affording instruction so valuable that when Captain
Summerall, now chief of staff of the army, took the cadets to
Fishers Island for target-practice under service conditions, they
went so well instructed beforehand that they beat the regular
seacoast artillery garrison both in accuracy of shooting and
in the handling of the guns.
Plenty of modern .75 guns were inherited from General
Mills, and also a mountain battery carried on mules. All that
was needed now to complete the artillery equipment was a
modern mortar battery. The mortars were secured from the
chief of ordnance and a ten-thousand-dollar appropriation for
the mortar-pit and emplacement obtained from Congress. The
work was begun, but my term as superintendent expired be-
fore it was finished. Its completion left the Academy, however,
with its artillery equipment adequate for all purposes of in-
struction and up-to-date, for the first time since the Civil War.
Even before my time as a cadet, the guns had been obsolete in
pattern.
COLORED TROOPS
There is one transaction that I shall always look back upon
with satisfaction as a real achievement-the exchange of white
men for colored in the cavalry detachment at West Point after
six months' experience as superintendent.
It is the function of this detachment to furnish a part of the
guard over the buildings and property of the government and
to groom, feed, and saddle the horses for the cadets to ride.
The time of the cadet is so valuable that it is never wasted on
routine matters.
I found the detachment composed of white men just as it
had been when I had left it in 1876, although somewhat en-
Superintendent of West Point
435
larged; and our old Irish sergeant was no longer there. We
cadets had used to listen with great joy while he drilled the
new cavalry recruits with the saber. "Whin I say t'dra, don't
yez-t'dra'; whin I say sabers, dom yez 't'dra'." There had
always been dissatisfaction in the detachment ever since then,
and even farther back, notwithstanding the fact that its troops
were as well fed and looked after as were the others, but they
had enlisted in the cavalry under the impression that they were
going to be cavalrymen and ride horses and go careering
through the West removing Indian scalps and enjoying them-
selves generally, only to find themselves instead working as
chambermaids to horses for cadets to ride. They frequently
settled the matter by running away, often to be brought back
forcibly to confront a court-martial and undergo a term of
imprisonment for desertion from the service.
The yearly turnover was always abnormal, notwithstanding
the efforts made during all those years to find a remedy, and
thirteen desertions took place during my first six months. I
determined then to experiment by changing from white men to
colored.
The colored detachment was first formed from volunteers
among the staid old cavalrymen of long service in the Indian
country, and some are at West Point yet after twenty years.
When they were assembled for the first time, their fine old
sergeant told them that they and their race were both on trial
and that they were to know that they had been brought there
as "examples to the kaydets" and should govern themselves
accordingly.
The venture was found to be a complete success, and has
yielded immense satisfaction to the authorities ever since.
Only one desertion occurred among the colored men during
the ensuing three years and a half, that of a thief who fled to
escape punishment. The duty is agreeable to the colored man,
and he makes an ideal groom. He likes the music, the uniforms,
436
Some Memories of a Soldier
the ceremonies, and he is well fed, paid, and cared for just as
the white man was before him.
The detachment now forms the mounted escort for the presi-
dent and other visitors of importance and always presents a
splendid military appearance. It affords me immense satisfac-
tion every time I see it; its troopers are a credit to their race as
well as to themselves.
ATHLETICS
In the spring of 1908, Mr. James Garfield, secretary of the
interior, told President Roosevelt that he had a situation in
the Navajo country which no one in his department was com-
petent to handle and suggested that I be sent to Arizona for
the purpose. This was the first time in the history of the
Academy that the superintendent had ever been sent West on
any business not connected with the Academy itself.
On my return to West Point after the successful settlement
of the matter, it was discovered that Congress had abolished
the annual Board of Visitors which had long been a feature of
great importance and ought to be put back, for many reasons.
This was one of the things which Congress does every now and
then at the instance of some one member ignorant of the
history and facts, who sees an opportunity to make a hundred
dollars but does not see that he is losing something of great
intangible value. I might have prevented this mistake had I
been in the East but it was a fact accomplished when I re-
turned. Much to my sorrow it has continued to this day.
The athletic situation was found to be in a dangerous mess
with a spirit of insubordination growing among about thirty
fine young officers obsessed with a wrong idea that would cause
a blow-up with a great scandal if allowed to continue. I did not
know their names and would not allow anybody to tell me un-
less it should become necessary, and I don't know them to
this day.
Superintendent of West Point
437
They announced that since athletics at West Point were not
supported by government funds but by private subscription
mainly from the army at large, the funds were private and the
athletics should be managed by the officers elected by the
Athletic Association without interference by the superinten-
dent. One wiser officer asked if any believed that should they
subscribe to a private fund to erect a building on the reserva-
tion without the authority of the superintendent, would it ever
be built.
They had fallen into a tangle with the commandant of cadets
during my absence, voting him out of office, and voting like-
wise to refuse to play the annual football game with the navy.
Once before they had refused to play the naval game before
my time as superintendent, and President Roosevelt had
ordered them to play and I did not want him to intervene
again in the same way.
A meeting was called after my return from the West and my
representative delivered to the meeting my wishes that they
play. A number of votes had been given against playing the
navy when some one moved to record the votes by names. This
frightened the opposing element who left the meeting without
a quorum.
I was advised by friends to take no notice of this and not
to interfere lest an army quarrel break out and ruin athletics
at West Point by stopping subscriptions. I went to Washington
to be sure of my ground and told each head of a corps that
some of their young men whose names I would not let anybody
tell me were bringing about a state of insubordination that
could not be tolerated and when they had gone too far, I pro-
posed to telegraph to ask for them to be relieved from duty at
West Point and be sent to their regiments. They all answered
that it would only be necessary to telegraph their names.
On my return to the Academy, an order was issued abolish-
ing the entire Athletic Association root and branch, and making
440
Some Memories of a Soldier
A game was scheduled with Cornell in a fortnight and a
similar advertisement was published to bring the Cornell
alumni to West Point, without asking permission this time to
dock the ship. Another letter of remonstrance was sent the
promoter which was published in the press as a warning to
purchasers of tickets. The promoter then came for his permit
to dock his ship and was refused permission. "You gave it to
me before," he said, "why won't you give it to me now?" I
told him that I was a good-natured person who liked to grant
requests but that I tried not to be victimized twice by the same
man. He went away very wroth and telephoned a complaint to
every congressman and senator in the state of New York, from
whom telegrams began to come in from every direction; he
must have been a person of some political importance judging
from the insistence of the messages sent me.
The telegrams were answered politely, explaining why the
request could not be granted. Perceiving soon the waste of
effort in dealing further with me, the congressmen turned their
guns upon the War Department from whence came a truculent
demand for information as to what right I had to prevent an
American citizen from landing at a public dock. I replied that
I had the right and intended to use it unless forbidden by the
secretary of war. Mr. Louis Wiley of the "New York Times"
and Colonel John Vrooman of Herkimer, N. Y., watched with
great interest to see what I would do but I did not know what
the War Department would allow me to do.
The ship was coming up the river while West Point was
fencing with Washington by telegraph and had gotten within
a short distance of the dock when Washington receded. The
ship drew up to the dock where an officer with a guard told
the captain to sheer off, preventing a landing.
Some of the Cornell alumni were very indignant about this
but the warning in the press beforehand gave them no excuse
and the matter was soon dropped, so far as complaint in the
Superintendent of West Point
439
Some time afterward some of their officials asked me to stay
over after a banquet in New York to go with them the next
morning to examine some drawings at Tiffanys. They said the
legion had been so pleased with its reception at West Point,
that they had made up a sum of a thousand dollars going down
in the boat, to purchase a punch bowl and ladle for me. I told
them I would be glad to go with them but that so far as the
punch bowl was concerned, I was a wanderer on the face of
the earth and if they gave it to me I would take it away with
me, whereas if they were to give it to the officers' mess at
West Point, it would remain there forever, a sign of the cordial
relations of the commissioned officers of the Civil War with
West Point.
General Hubbard, president of the organization, accom-
panied by other delegates brought it up with nine gallons of
punch and presented it to the officers' mess with ceremony. It
may be seen there now any day on the sideboard of the mess,
mute testimony to a generous friendship, but with nothing in it
but the ladle, as dry as a bone.
About the same time a very disagreeable incident occurred
that nearly involved the alumni of Cornell and every member
of Congress from New York in a prolonged controversy with
West Point.
A man from New York applied for a permit to land at the
West Point dock with a ship carrying the alumni of Yale
coming to a Yale game at West Point. This was immediately
given him but some time after it was noticed in his advertise-
ment that he was promising seats to the cadet game to all who
came by his boat. I wrote him remonstrating against this false-
hood but he made an impudent reply, refusing to change his
advertisement. The boat was allowed to land for the sake of
the passengers, but the owner sold liquor on board, and men
broke through our lines at the game, fought with our police
and acted in a very improper manner.
440
Some Memories of a Soldier
A game was scheduled with Cornell in a fortnight and a
similar advertisement was published to bring the Cornell
alumni to West Point, without asking permission this time to
dock the ship. Another letter of remonstrance was sent the
promoter which was published in the press as a warning to
purchasers of tickets. The promoter then came for his permit
to dock his ship and was refused permission. "You gave it to
me before," he said, "why won't you give it to me now?" I
told him that I was a good-natured person who liked to grant
requests but that I tried not to be victimized twice by the same
man. He went away very wroth and telephoned a complaint to
every congressman and senator in the state of New York, from
whom telegrams began to come in from every direction; he
must have been a person of some political importance judging
from the insistence of the messages sent me.
The telegrams were answered politely, explaining why the
request could not be granted. Perceiving soon the waste of
effort in dealing further with me, the congressmen turned their
guns upon the War Department from whence came a truculent
demand for information as to what right I had to prevent an
American citizen from landing at a public dock. I replied that
I had the right and intended to use it unless forbidden by the
secretary of war. Mr. Louis Wiley of the "New York Times"
and Colonel John Vrooman of Herkimer, N. Y., watched with
great interest to see what I would do but I did not know what
the War Department would allow me to do.
The ship was coming up the river while West Point was
fencing with Washington by telegraph and had gotten within
a short distance of the dock when Washington receded. The
ship drew up to the dock where an officer with a guard told
the captain to sheer off, preventing a landing.
Some of the Cornell alumni were very indignant about this
but the warning in the press beforehand gave them no excuse
and the matter was soon dropped, so far as complaint in the
f!་

LORD KITCHENER AND COLONEL SCOTT AT WEST POINT
Superintendent of West Point
441
newspapers was concerned, although members of Congress
refused to be placated for some time. Senator Chauncey Depew
and Representative Dwight came around very graciously but
some others did not. Frank Platt told me that his father, the
senator from New York, never forgave me as long as he lived.
The danger to a superintendent in such cases lies in the
power of the Senate. When an officer after a long life of service
arrives at the goal of his ambition-appointmnet as a brigadier-
general-he is liable to have his confirmation rejected in the
Senate to pay off the private grudges of an individual. The
power of the United States has often been used in the past to
pay off private grudges and every time an officer does his duty
he has to consider the consequences if he runs counter to the
wishes of a senator or prominent member of the House.
Throughout my four years at West Point, my relations with
the President and the various secretaries of war were very
cordial, as well as with the adjutant general. I could always
poke my head into Major Loeffler's office and ask "is Major
Radziminski anywhere around here?" to obtain an immediate
audience with President Roosevelt, whether he wanted to see
me or not.
HAZING
There was one episode with President Roosevelt and the
secretary of war, however, which I fully expected to see result
in serious trouble for me.
A congressional committee had investigated a case of hazing
before my time which had caused a great deal of bitterness in
Congress and resulted in a drastic law against hazing with
threats in Congress against the life of the institution. Now
again some young men of different classes, reported for haz-
ing new cadets, were pronounced guilty by a court of in-
quiry and sent away. They immediately went to their con-
gressmen for help who in turn fell upon the secretary of war
442
Some Memories of a Soldier
who had been in the War Department but a short while. The
latter questioned the cadets, who acknowledged their guilt, but
said that they very much wanted to be put back, and as they
were such well set-up young men, the secretary said he would
send them back. This was equivalent of telling the cadets,
"You don't have to obey the law if you have enough political
influence": a poor doctrine to teach youths who might some
day hold in their hands the life or death of this country, de-
pending on their obedience or disobedience.
The secretary sent the proceedings of the court of inquiry
back to me to have the court make a different finding. I showed
the letter to the president of the court and told him that I
would not ask him to do what I would not do myself, and that
I would go down to Washington and see the secretary. My
conference with him was a little heated and the secretary said,
"Why don't you talk to Mr. Roosevelt the way you talk to
me?" I said, "I would if he were here but he has gone to
Oyster Bay for a rest and he won't want me to come breaking
in on his rest." The secretary asked by telegraph for an ap-
pointment and an invitation came back for us both to lunch
some days ahead at Oyster Bay.
On my return to West Point, I told Mrs. Scott: "I am going
to do the most dangerous thing I can possibly do. I am going
to butt right into the President of the United States and the
secretary of war head-on. The President is so sure of himself
that anyone who differs with him must in consequence be
wrong-nobody can possibly be right who differs with him. The
secretary of war will be sitting right there and all the President
will have to do is to say to him, "This bothersome fellow annoys
me; he won't let me do what I want to do; send him to the
Mexican border, Alaska or any old place away from West
Point!' and all the little reputation I have been all my life
building up will be kicked over like a bucket of milk and I'll
have to go away with the stigma on my record that the Presi-
Superintendent of West Point
443
dent of the United States considers me unfit to command the
Military Academy, and my career will be over before it is
really begun."
She said, "You know what you ought to do-go ahead and
do it. We have lived on the prairie before and I am ready to
go back with you and do it again," and that has been her
attitude all our married life.
Mr. Frank Hitchcock, who was the political manager of
Secretary Taft, then a candidate for the Presidency, Major
Henry Lee Higginson, Boston's great broker, and an African
hunter, with Mrs. Robinson, the president's sister, were the
other guests at lunch, after which Mr. Roosevelt took the
secretary and me into his library where they began to tell
each other what bad boys they had been, the inference be-
ing that bad boys like them could come to high places, and
it was evident that if I did not get in what I had to say I
would be steam-rollered by a positive order I could not get
changed.
The President gave me my chance at last by asking me to
tell him again why I had sent those young men away. This gave
me the floor.
"Mr. President," I said, "that is the law! The law says if
you haze new cadets, you 'shall be dismissed'! The culprits do
not deny their guilt and there is nothing else to do."
"Oh yes, yes, I know, I know," he said, several times nod-
ding his head alternately to one side and then the other, "Con-
gress passed a hysterical law."
"Mr. President, I am not the Supreme Court," I said, "to
pass on these laws. I have got to take them as they come to
me from the War Department. I cannot pick and choose among
them. I have taken an oath to obey them and so have you, and
if you and the secretary do what you are now contemplating,
you will do the greatest damage to the discipline of the Military
Academy that anybody has done in this generation."
444
Some Memories of a Soldier
Then I looked around waiting for the lightning to strike,
but the President, instead of fulminating, wheeled quickly
around to the secretary, saying, "Luke, we have got to look
out here what we are doing!" and the storm was all over. I
came away from Oyster Bay wearing my own hide and I am
still wearing it.
This was by no means, however, the end of the matter. The
metropolitan press of New York supported me throughout but
various senators from time to time asked me to relent, one old
friend saying that one of the dismissed cadets was the son of
one of his most influential constituents, and that as he was
coming up for reëlection in the near future, and had always
befriended me, would I not now befriend him. I had to refuse
to act on his behalf.
Next a bill was introduced in Congress to reinstate the guilty
cadets and I was summoned before a Senate committee, to be
subjected like a criminal to a severe grilling, not comporting
at all with the dignity of the upper house, and reminding one
of a police court; three or four senators threw hypothetical
questions at me simultaneously and in a loud tone, endeavoring
to confuse me into saying something I did not mean. Matters
became acrimonious at times, the session lasting more than
two hours, and the record exceeding seventy-five typewritten
pages. Senator Dick of Ohio, who had been one of the con-
gressional committee engaged in the "Booze Investigation of
West Point," was well aware of the importance of this case,
and was my only friend in the committee; he remarked on
leaving, "They haven't scored a point on you."
All this disturbance so injurious to West Point was but an
effort to favor the powerful political influence enjoyed by
friends of the dismissed cadets, and portrays some of the diffi-
culties encountered in the stamping out of hazing at the
Military Academy.
Here lies in my opinion one of the greatest evils in modern
Superintendent of West Point
445
American life. Children are no longer disciplined at home and
grow up without a knowledge of what the word means. When
speaking of it to Congress I spoke a foreign language. Lack
of discipline is the foundation of our notorious disrespect of
the law. It provides a major argument for compulsory military
training, which would atone in part for the neglect of Amer-
ican parents.
The attitude of the President at Oyster Bay toward that
"hysterical law" against hazing was very illuminating as to his
real sentiments. Although he was considered an impulsive man,
I always found Mr. Roosevelt not only on this but on other
occasions amenable to reason, if you could get the opportunity
to reason with him. His power was so great that it frightened
many, and he rather liked you if you would not run away from
him, as many did.
He frightened me greatly once, however, by writing me,
"You teach too much mathematics at West Point. I want you
to stop it." I thought that the most remarkable letter coming
from a graduate and an overseer of Harvard that I had ever
seen, but I realize now that the President must have been
influenced by the constant badgering of Congressmen whose ap-
pointees had failed in mathematics. The wails of some of them
were very moving and it seemed to be the prevailing idea in
Congress that the superintendent and faculty lay awake nights
searching for some way to send Congressmen's appointees
away, whereas actually they lie awake pondering how they can
possibly keep them there.
This letter scared me stiff, and I showed it to the chiefs of
engineers and of ordnance, and other authorities, asking for
help. They asked what help I needed. I told them that that
was a positive order from the President, which would knock
out the foundations from under every one of their scientific
corps. I intended to go to the White House and argue with him
myself, but ultimately this proved unnecessary.
446
Some Memories of a Soldier
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
One of the big privileges that comes to the superintendent of
West Point is the opportunity to meet many of the great men
of the world. The government at Washington considers West
Point one of its show places and sends there its guests from
foreign countries of whom there has been a long line. King
Edward visited at West Point as Prince of Wales about 1862
and his grandson has followed his example. Queen Marie of
Rumania has more lately been there, and Generals Joffre and
Foch, marshals of France, came over after the war. There have
been many Japanese and Chinese princes, admirals, and gen-
erals of note, as well as premiers of foreign countries, and
governors and citizens of high degree.
The visits of General Kuroki and Vice-Admiral Uriu of
Japan, occurring many years apart, were both marred by rain.
General Kuroki asked to have the review ordered in his honor
called off on that account as it is not customary to hold re-
views in the rain in any army. After the review for Vice-
Admiral Uriu was ordered, his attention was called to the rain
during lunch, but he said it was not raining too hard for him
and I did not want him to go back to Japan saying that West
Point cadets were too tender to go out in the wet, so the review
was held in a pelting rain. The naval officer received it dressed
in my raincoat and a high silk hat while the water ran down
his nose as well as mine-it must have cost him at least a
new hat.
We were favored also at different times by visits from Prince
Kuni of Japan with his wife, Lady Nagasaki, and Dr. Taku-
mane, discoverer of the drug adrenalin. Also by a visit from
Prince Tao-tai, a brother of the Chinese emperor, and on an-
other occasion we enjoyed seeing Prince Li, the son of Li Hung
Chang, the latter having visited West Point long before, bring-
Superintendent of West Point
447
ing his coffin with him. In 1909 the Hudson Fulton celebration
took place in New York and four hundred foreign guests were
given luncheon at West Point and a review, after which I drove
the high ranking admirals down to the railway station in the
same carriage; they were Sir Hobart Seymour, Von Koester of
Germany, and Le Pord of France, and discussing the event, all
agreed with each other that they did not have such a military
school in their countries. A photograph of the review was made
by a press correspondent and copies were sent to each of the
admirals. Von Koester sent his to the emperor of Germany
who endorsed it as follows: "A fine body of young men, a sight
delightful to a soldier's heart. William I. R."
While on the subject of distinguished visitors, and demon-
strations held in their honor, the story of how General Horace
Porter came to be broken from the exalted rank of class
adjutant, may be apropos. General Porter was a graduate
of 1861 who had a very distinguished career on the staff
of General Grant in the Civil War, after which he became
the Vice-President of the Pullman Car Company, and later
American ambassador to France. He had been a roommate of
my uncle at Lawrenceville before going to West Point, which
taken with the fact that I was a Lawrenceville boy myself,
though of a later day, made us firm friends. I sat next to him
at a banquet at the Union League Club of New York, and was
fortunate in having him give me an account of his recovery of
the bones of John Paul Jones, father of the American Navy,
who had been buried in an obscure Paris graveyard, over which
a city block had been built, and underneath which the general
excavated at his own expense until the remains were found. He
brought them over to the Naval Academy where they are now
enshrined.
But that is not the story. One night after dinner at Castle
Rock, the home of Dr. and Mrs. Fairfield Osborn, as whose
guests Mrs. Scott and I had been invited to dine with General
448
Some Memories of a Soldier
Porter, we all sat out on the terrace overlooking the Hudson
River and watched the lights at West Point go on, and the
General then told his tale.
It seems that General Delafield, superintendent of the day
of Porter's class, had previously been sent to make a report
on the armies of Europe and had picked up ideas he thought
proper to introduce at West Point. Among others was the
wearing of the overcoat in a roll over the shoulder at cere-
monies under arms, like the wearing of the blanket roll to-day.
The cadet cult then in vogue did not permit wearing of the
overcoat just as I hear the hat is not used now at Groton and
the arctic overshoes at Princeton are left unfastened. And
as the overcoat does not lend itself naturally to the making
of a smooth roll, one cadet would cut off the cape, another
the sleeves or skirt while another would make his roll by
stuffing a pair of gray trousers instead, the rolls then being
sewn to keep them tight and shapely.
Porter neglected his duty at the daily guard mount by not
ordering the coats to be unrolled from time to time at guard
inspections, a precaution which would have exposed this cadet
practice. All went well until a Russian officer came to call on
the superintendent while Porter was mounting the guard right
in front of the superintendent's quarters, an age old custom.
The superintendent, desiring to show his foreign guest the prac-
tice he had picked up abroad, sent his orderly out to Porter
with an order to "unroll the overcoats."
This order struck terror into every heart but there stood
the superintendent waiting for its execution and there could
be no evasion. The rolls had to be unripped in ranks with the
bayonets before the withering glance of the superintendent.
One man put on an overcoat without sleeves, another without
a cape or skirt, while another draped a pair of gray trousers
over his shoulders, and the guard began to pass in review
before the superintendent as ragged as Falstaff's Army. Porter

!
COLONEL SCOTT WITH LORD KITCHENER AND BUTLER DUNCAN, JR., WEST POINT, 1910
Superintendent of West Point
449
said the band was so convulsed with laughter that the only
musician able to play was the base drummer, but it was no
laughing matter for the cadets. It threw the superintendent into
such a fury that he broke the young future general on the spot.
It was a long while before Porter could see anything to laugh
about in the incident but it caused him great hilarity on this
occasion, nearly fifty years afterward.
In my own official receiving of important guests, I was
greatly assisted throughout my sojourn at West Point by the
tact, diplomacy, and social grace of Mrs. Scott who was always
equal to every emergency. She had full control of the inside
of the house and was always ready for the entertainment of
visitors of any number and every degree. I had only to tele-
phone that I was coming with a foreign prince and his suite,
a great soldier, the secretary of war or the President and I
knew that she would be fully equal to the occasion and that
they would be received in a fitting manner. This took a vast
weight of responsibility from my shoulders and was of immense
importance to the success of my administration. I fear, how-
ever, that I was often a great trial to my family, bringing
home distinguished guests without previous warning.
I once telephoned my daughter, Blanchard, who was chate-
laine during Mrs. Scott's absence one Sunday afternoon, that
I was bringing a party of senators and their families-ten
persons in all-home with me to tea. She cried out in horror,
"You can't do that-this is Sunday and the cook is away, and
there isn't enough food in the house for that many and the
shops are all closed." She was told that the invitation had
already been given and accepted and I was coming with the
party. We found an excellent tea which she had managed to
get together on the spur of the moment as I knew she would,
but she told her mother upon the latter's return that she "hoped
never to be left alone in the house with father again."
We were greatly favored on one occasion by a visit from Sir
450
Some Memories of a Soldier
Howard Vincent of the British army, aide-de-camp to King
Edward VII. He was inadvertently taken into the old chapel
while inspecting the Post but was called out before he could
catch sight of the colors of the British regiments taken at
Yorktown and Saratoga, hung in the chapel. His own aide,
coming in with another party, saw them and called Sir Howard
back and they both thrilled with interest, as I myself have
thrilled seeing the colors of the Fourth Regiment of our
regular infantry in Westminster Abbey, taken on the Great
Lakes in 1812.
Sir Howard surprised us all by saying that while there are
various British naval colors in foreign custody, those flags from
Yorktown and Saratoga in the old chapel are the only British
army flags held by foreigners, save one. It seems that in the
long ago, a British punitive expedition landed in the Argentine
and lost its colors there.
One day in 1910, without pomp or ceremony, Field Marshal
Herbert, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, came to West Point,
accompanied by Mr. Butler Duncan, Jr., of the Pilgrim Society
of New York, but without any military aide. He declined to
receive a review or any other military ceremony in his honor
but saw a review of the corps from the veranda of the super-
intendent's quarters. He was most affable and pleasant to Mrs.
Scott and to everybody he met. I whisked them about inspect-
ing the post so rapidly that he asked if I were trying to kill
him. He was particularly impressed, as a practical soldier who
is always interested in transportation, with the pack-train of
50 cargo mules. He saw these animals in the pink of condition
line themselves up against their rigging; then we inspected the
artillery stables and barracks and came back in fourteen min-
utes by his watch, during which time the mules had been
saddled and loaded with fourteen thousand pounds and the
train started down the road. This pleased him greatly and he
Superintendent of West Point
451
spoke of it again and again, remembering no doubt his own
transportation troubles in Africa.
He was taken hurriedly about the post and brought up
finally at the power-house that no stranger recognizes as such,
since its chimney is masked in the tower of the riding hall and
thus it appears like any other great stone building. Many thou-
sands of visitors pass its doors every year without recognizing
it for what it is, and when one stands inside and looks down
among the dynamos, the place seems deserted, hid away by
itself, as West Point is isolated, until some lonely oiler appears
for a moment and then disappears. I always consider the
power-house the symbol of West Point; thousands go past
them both every day without appreciating their presence, yet
there they are working silently day and night each at its ap-
pointed task of furnishing light and power for post and nation,
with the highest efficiency, regularity and fidelity. Lord
Kitchener stood in the entrance of the power-house, apparently
deserted, looking down among the whirring dynamos, and
shook his head several times, saying, "We can't do it-we
can't do it."
AN AUSTRALIAN WEST POINT
He had been asked to recommend a system of defense for
Australia and had recommended among other things a West
Point for that continent and later sent Colonel Bridges of
the British army to our Military Academy where he had been
given our textbooks, and taught our methods, returning then
to Australia. Lord Kitchener had all this in mind while saying,
"We can't do it-we can't do it." I gave him some encourage-
ment by reminding him that our West Point is the evolution
of a hundred years, and he used these words of cheer in his
speech at Liverpool and elsewhere on his return to England.
A few days after this visit I was invited with Lord Kitchener
452
Some Memories of a Soldier
to dine in New York as the only guests of Consul-General
Bennett of Great Britain. Later Colonel Bernard R. James,
military attaché of the British Embassy at Washington,
joined us.
Lord Kitchener was immensely affable and animated in his
talk about India. Colonel James and I had been old friends
and we walked back to our hotel together after dinner and I
asked him, "What is all this talk we hear about the austerity
of Kitchener, the woman-hater. He was delightful to Mrs.
Scott at West Point and nobody could be pleasanter or more
kindly than he was to-night."
"Don't you go too fast now, about that," replied James.
"I sent my card up to him this afternoon at the Plaza Hotel,
and when I went up he was sitting on the only chair in the
room. He looked up for a moment as I entered and said, ‘Ah,
how do you do, James. Can I do anything for you to-day?' I
answered, 'I have just come on from Washington to place the
resources of the embassy at your disposal.' 'Ah, very well,
James,' he answered. 'I am very busy to-day'—and the inter-
view, which brought me all the way from Washington to show
him a courtesy, was over."
The loss of Lord Kitchener at sea sent a wave of sorrow over
the whole English-speaking world but I have often wondered
if it were not, after all, better so. He had organized and trained
his army and had done his bit for England. He was the product
of another time, untrained for command in France. Clouds of
opposition were gathering about his head at home and old age
might not have sat gracefully upon him. As it is, his exit at
the height of his glory among the heroes of England, was
dramatic, and his memory is enshrined forever-a great soldier
among the great men of the empire.
When Colonel Bridges of the British army, ordered to West
Point at Lord Kitchener's request, arrived on the post, every-
thing possible was done to assist him in his mission. After I
1
Superintendent of West Point
453
had shown him our textbooks and explained all our methods,
I asked him if he had arranged yet for his water supply.
"Good Lord," he said, "do I have to get a water supply?"
"You drink water and bathe, don't you," I asked him, and he
seemed greatly cast down at this multiplicity of things for
which he would have to make arrangements. I took him off to
look at our reservoir by way of encouraging him, and it is an
interesting detail that when we reached the power-house he
stood within an inch of where Lord Kitchener stood afterward,
and said too, "I can't do it-I can't do it," and I cheered him
with the same reminder that our West Point was the result of
an evolution of a hundred years.
Colonel Bridges went back to Australia and established the
Royal Military College of Duntroon, outside of Melbourne,
modeling it as nearly on West Point as he was able. He sent
me yearly reports of his progress until he was killed at Gal-
lipoli and I feared that with the death of Kitchener and
Bridges, its main sponsors, the school would also be lost.
I want to skip ahead a few years to remark that while
inspecting the Canadian forces at Folkestone, England, in
1917, the Canadians invited me to a dinner being given to a
British major general, Sam Steele, of South African fame. On
my left that night sat Sir Newton Moore, then in command of
all Australian forces in Great Britain, of whom I made inquiry
about the Australian West Point, asking if it had been of any
value in the war.
"Any value!" he exclaimed with emphasis, "any value! Why,
it has been the backbone of all our Australian forces in Europe,
and we will never let it go!"
In view of the glorious record made by Australian troops on
the battle-fields of France, this was good news for a West
Pointer who had had a humble part in helping to start the
Australian school upon its way.
If I were asked what I consider the greatest weakness in
454
Some Memories of a Soldier
the education of a West Point cadet, I would say that it is to
be found in the instruction in giving personal orders. To give
them "short, terse and snappy" is considered "military" at
West Point and does well enough among those who understand
the style but is considered harsh, arrogant, and even insulting
by outsiders and often causes hatred and opposition. The wiser
officers rid themselves of this manner after serving a little
while with troops.
I found my model early in Captain Benteen, the idol of the
Seventh Cavalry on the upper Missouri in 1877, who governed
mainly by suggestion; in all the years I knew him I never
once heard him raise his voice to enforce his purpose. He
would sit by the open fire at night, his bright pleasant face
framed by his snow-white hair, beaming with kindness and
humor, and often I watched his every movement to find out
the secret of his quiet steady government, that I might go and
govern likewise. For example, if he intended to stay a few
days in one camp he would say to his adjutant, "Brewer, don't
you think we had better take up our regular guard mount while
in this camp?" and Brewer always thought it "better" and so
did everybody else. If he found that this kindly manner were
misunderstood, then his iron hand would close down quickly,
but that was seldom necessary, and then only with new-comers
and never twice with the same person.
Benteen's policy, which I adopted in 1877, has paid me large
dividends. The press has lately remarked that General Foch,
marshal of France, probably considered now the foremost sol-
dier in the world, commands in the same way, and from my
brief association with him I am prepared to believe that this
is quite true. I tried to teach command by suggestion and
persuasion at West Point by methods of precept and example.
I tried to follow the same methods with the Indians, and at
Joló, and while my efforts along this line were not always suc-
cessful, they did prove so in a significant number of cases.
Superintendent of West Point
455
ADDITIONAL BENEFITS
There was something else, however, which West Point
needed badly when I first stepped behind the superintendent's
desk in 1906.
When I came back from the Black Hills of Dakota in the
Cheyenne Expedition of 1878, I telegraphed to Bismarck to
have a pair of shoes made to wear east on my four months'
leave. The fashion of the shoes of that time was even worse
than the fashion to-day. The heel was two inches high and the
toes were jammed forward to a sharp point in the center. I
took the shoes, however, as the fashion of the time and nearly
ruined my feet while on leave. I got almost every ailment that
feet are heir to and suffered untold misery in consequence.
After returning from leave I began to wonder about the cause
of such misery, and compared my shoes with the moccasins
of the Sioux, and my feet with theirs, which were the most
beautiful I had ever seen; slender, small, with the great toe
lying straight in the moccasin in the natural shape. I had my
shoes made to order on a last I designed myself on the lines
of a Sioux moccasin, and got back the healthy condition of
my feet; they have now had no blemish for thirty years. My
children's feet were kept free of blemish in the same way.
On my arrival at West Point, a last was worked out with
the Stetson Company of New York, a firm of shoemakers,
called the "Scott Last" although I had no financial interest in
it, and a change was then made in the cadets' shoes. Previous
to this time neither West Point nor the army had ever been
properly shod, a fact responsible for our inefficient foot troops
from early times. From thirty to fifty cadets would appear
every month on the sick list with foot troubles. A short time
after the shoes made on my last began to be worn, the cadets
with foot trouble began to drop off the sick report until they
456
Some Memories of a Soldier
disappeared altogether. A cadet coming to West Point with
blemished feet would find his ills vanishing while wearing the
Scott shoes, and these were practically the same shoes that
were made afterward for the army on what was called the
Munson last, in which the army got a proper shoe for the first
time in its history.
The last week of my time at West Point the corps spent in
field manoeuvers, marching many miles in the mud over rocky
mountains. I was able on its return to show the sick report
covering that march and several days thereafter without a
single entry for sore feet. General Garlington, inspector general
of the army, used to buy his shoes from the cadet store and got
ease from foot trouble for the first time in his life when he
adopted the new last. President Wilson bought three pairs
before going to Washington for his inauguration, having been
converted on the 'subject of sensible shoes at West Point.
Secretary Garfield wore them also, as well as many others.
We heard much in our former wars about painful feet, but
nothing at all about them in the late conflict. A proper last
does much to alleviate the horrors of war, which are bad
enough without painful feet.
The reservation of West Point is quite large and needs con-
stant supervision to protect the interests of the government.
The law permitted the retention of civilian lawbreakers eight
days in the guard-house without trial but there is a prejudice
against the use of the military power in civil communities,
stirred up by the lawbreakers themselves, and in order to
counteract this feeling, I caused the forest ranger to be ap-
pointed a deputy United States marshal and one of the civil
employees a United States commissioner. Thus all the law-
breakers were handled by the civil authorities and the military
satrap disappeared from view. The forest ranger planted many
tree nurseries and before I left West Point more than three

До Умів Ница,б бенг,
From his
his sweere
frund
Superintendent of West Point
457
hundred thousand white pine trees were planted on the moun-
tain sides.
The reservoir was restocked several times with black bass
and a number of Hungarian partridges were turned out on the
reservation, with what ultimate result, I am not informed. In
such ways the ambition to make my sojourn beneficial at my
every station has been carried out, and at no post was this
ambition higher than at West Point.
RETROSPECTIVE
Looking back over the history of the United States during
the century and a quarter since the foundation of West Point,
it will be seen that there has come and gone a glorious com-
pany of saints and sinners, all embued with the "Spirit of Old
West Point"; with patriotism and the love of service. Of them
we used to sing in our youth:
Their blood has watered western plains and northern wilds of
snow,
Has dyed deep red the Everglades and walls of Mexico.
Since those words were written there has been another glorious
company who have likewise fought the good fight and kept the
faith on both sides of the world.
While most graduates are confined to membership in only
one class, I have been blessed by membership in two, owing to
the fact of having been turned back a year as punishment in
1872. I was welcomed in the new class without ever losing my
spiritual membership in the old, which has not let go of me
and I do not propose to allow it ever to do so. The class of
1875 has been fortunate in having a class shepherd, General
Elbert Wheeler, of Nashua, N. H., who herds the members
together, drives them to the frequent celebrations of anni-
versaries, leads them to the performance of good works, and
458
Some Memories of a Soldier
generally causes them to keep alive the old class spirit, and to
strengthen the bonds of friendship forged fifty years ago in
the old gray barracks. At each reunion, however, we find our
number grown smaller, and as the years march by, each one
to go leaves a great gap behind him.
The class of '75 looks up to Wheeler with enduring love
and well it may, for it takes peculiar characteristics to make a
shepherd. The position cannot be held by one on the active
list who follows the flag, now here, now there; he must have
resigned early from the service, must enjoy leisure and have
a local habitation not far from West Point from which he can
issue his instructions and round up his sheep, for he cannot do
this from the Philippines, Mexico, or Cuba. Indeed, no class
was ever more blessed in a shepherd than is '75 in Wheeler.
The class of 1876 has never had a shepherd and suffers greatly
from the lack.
In 1909 there was a meeting of the members of '75 at West
Point and it was declared that the class was proud of the fact
that one of its members had become superintendent of the
Military Academy, and to mark this pride the class ordered
his portrait painted to hang in the cadet mess hall with the
portraits of all the other superintendents from the beginning-
the only one, however, ordered by the class. This has always
been a source of great satisfaction to me for they would surely
not have done it unless they had loved me.
Every now and then, however, some crabbed old pessimist
rises to declare that "West Point is not what it used to be; it
has completely outgrown itself and gone to the dogs!"
Certainly things are not what they used to be for West Point
has kept up with the age, progressing far. Contemplating the
record of West Point in the World War, when its output in-
stead of showing deterioration furnished the initiative and the
informing and directing spirit for the vast host which brought
us home a glorious victory, we may be assured that that output
Superintendent of West Point
459
is still of the same old bulldog breed that has ever been ready
to take, hold, and carry through anything in life.
My four years at West Point came to an end August 31,
1910. I took my leave of the academic board in their new room
and fifteen minutes after turning over the command, entered
the car with the new superintendent, General T. H. Barry,
passed in front of the corps on parade at the dock by order of
my successor, went aboard the steamer Hendrik Hudson and
left on a leave of absence of four months.
But a fortnight after I left West Point I received the fol-
lowing letter which, needless to say, meant a great deal to me:
War Department,
Major Hugh L. Scott, 14th Cavalry,
Washington, D. C.
Sir:
Office of The Chief of Staff,
Washington.
September 9, 1910.
The Secretary of War directs me to express to you his apprecia-
tion of the very efficient and valuable services rendered by you as
Superintendent of the United States Military Academy. It is con-
sidered that the results attained have been beneficial to the Academy
and highly creditable to you.
Very respectfully,
LEONARD WOOD,
Major General,
Chief of Staff.
The following is self-explanatory:
Extract from the Annual Report of the Board of Visitors to the
United States Military Academy, West Point, N. Y., June 14, 1907.
In conclusion, the Board of Visitors is of the opinion that the
Academy is in the hands of a most zealous and efficient Superin-
tendent (Colonel H. L. Scott), and that he has the earnest and
460
Some Memories of a Soldier
hearty co-operation of high-class officers and assistants in all de-
partments.
THOMAS WARD,
Brigadier General,
U. S. Army, Ret'd, President.
Augustus O. Bacon,
Vice President.
Bird W. Spencer,
Alexander R. Lawton,
Geo. H. Newman,
Roswell Park,
N. T. Guernsey,
Archibald Hopkins,
John A. T. Hull,
John W. Dwight,
N. B. Scott.
I did not go back to West Point for more than three years.
It has always been my belief that ghosts should not haunt the
scene of their past activities. They have no further responsi-
bilities there and their presence is certain to cause unnecessary
disturbance. I went home to Princeton, reverting to my former
rank as a major of cavalry after being four years a West Point
colonel. This was the second time that I had been promoted
backward, according to the law.
PART VI
Washington and the Border
PASSING SNAPSHOTS
THE years 1909-14, the period stretching from just before my
departure from West Point to the outbreak of the World War,
were mostly spent in New York and Washington, excepting
the border service. In contrast to past years on the great
Plains, in Cuba, the Sulu Archipelago and at the Military
Academy-the present period was neither so strenuous nor so
dramatic, but still this interlude was of profit and interest to
me in many ways.
In one direction, these years were vastly different than the
full ones which preceded them, and I refer here to my rela-
tions with men and affairs. In the past, I had dealt mostly
with the children of the world, if I may so describe them. In
more ways than one, the Sioux and the Moros were of a tem-
perament which demanded of me a paternal forbearance-often
a firm hand, to be sure, but generally my assignment had been
that of preceptor to those whom, from the point of view of
civilized mankind, our government regarded as less advanced
than we. Often I found traits in them of chivalry, of ethical
consciousness, of spirituality, and philosophy, that I suspected
were superior sometimes to the equivalent qualities in us. But
for all of that, my rôle even, to a degree, as superintendent at
West Point-had been that of instructor and administrator.
These present years, however, were to bring me in touch not
with children but with men of large affairs, with leaders of
461
462
Some Memories of a Soldier
various kinds. It was an important period in national and
international affairs-Roosevelt was about to leave the White
House, Taft succeeded him, and Woodrow Wilson was to be
elected in 1912. It was a long way from the Plains, a longer
way from the Philippines, but I had one contact again with
Joló which touched me exceedingly.
I want to take this opportunity to relate briefly some of my
impressions of these three years, before the event of the World
War hurtles me on to another period.
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
It is always my custom to announce my name when calling
on a public man to save him embarrassment in case he has for-
gotten it. Nothing enrages me so much as to have somebody
appear suddenly and say, "You don't know me?" I feel like
saying, "I don't know you and I don't want to know you," for
no gentleman has a right to embarrass another. It seems a
curious sort of vanity that causes a man to feel he is known to
everybody. I never expect to be recognized except by old and
dear friends and avoid all discourtesy by a simple announce-
ment.
On one of my visits to the White House to see President
Roosevelt I found him conferring with different groups. When
finished with one group he would turn quickly to another, and
the first group would leave.
After progressing around the room from group to group, he
turned suddenly to me. I announced myself as "Colonel Scott
from West Point." The President took the skirts of his long
frock coat in each hand, and making a curtsy like a girl said,
quick as a flash, "I am Theodore Roosevelt, President of the
United States," and then laughed loud enough to be heard
outside.
He remembered thousands of people and could often recall
Washington and the Border
463
the circumstances of meeting, and if thrown with him more or
less he would even remember one's ancestors. Lunching one
day at the White House with General Charles Francis Adams
as the only other guest, Mr. Roosevelt came from his office
bubbling with mirth over a letter he had just received from a
Rough Rider in the West giving news of comrades. He repeated
every word of it with shouts of laughter over Comrade A-
who had been hung for horse stealing, and Comrade B-
who had been arrested for robbing a bank; and turning sud-
denly to Mrs. Roosevelt, he said, “My dear, are you aware
that you are sitting between the descendants of President
Adams and Benjamin Franklin?”
General Palmer Pierce once asked me to write to President
Roosevelt to invite him to deliver an address before the dele-
gates to a meeting for the uplift of college sports in America.
The letter was written but no reply was received and the mat-
ter was forgotten. Later I went to spend the week-end, to-
gether with General Dudley, at the house of Commodore Swan,
a neighbor of Mr. Roosevelt at Oyster Bay, and the commo-
dore said, "Come on, let's go over and see Roosevelt."
The commodore sent in only his own name; we were ushered
into a dark room with the blinds all closed to keep out the
heat and glare of a hot July day. Mr. Roosevelt shook hands
cordially with all of us, and I sat down in the darkness, think-
ing he had no idea who Dudley and I were. I had not seen him
for two years.
He marched up and down across the floor, talking and wav-
ing a baton in one hand twisted from a newspaper. After a
while he said:
"Do you know I have a President's mail without a President's
force to handle it; just look at that pile of a hundred and fifty
invitations unanswered for want of a clerk. There is one of
those invitations I would like especially to accept but I cannot
do it. It is to deliver an address for the uplifting of college
464
Some Memories of a Soldier
sport in America." And passing, he hit me across the knee with
his baton as if saying, "There, you've got your answer!"
I was talking to him once in the Cabinet room when Mont-
gomery and Stone, the actors, came in with their families.
Stone had a new bullet he was going to try on bear at Kodiak
Island, Alaska. This question of bears began to excite the
President who sat down at the head of the Cabinet table, put-
ting me in the chair of the secretary of state, and Montgomery
and Stone in the chairs of the secretaries of the treasury and
the navy; and he began to talk about hunting in the West,
forgetting all about the senators waiting in the anteroom to
see him. He sent to his rooms for his rifle, and showed us
where a piece had been bitten out of the comb of the stock
when he had poked it in the mouth of a wounded mountain
lion charging toward him.
Stone said: "That was a dangerous place. I would not like
to have been there."
"That was not half as dangerous," said the President, "as
that stunt of yours, coming out of a window head first down a
ladder in the Red Mill."
While he had a fine personal dignity which no one ever
thought of disrespecting, Mr. Roosevelt was very affable and
simple in his ways. One day he invited General Wood, Captain
Hanna and me to walk in Rock Creek Park with him, and
when a two-horse open spring wagon drove up to take us out, I
thought it would be overcrowded and said I would go to the
park on the trolley and meet them there. But the President
said, "No, you are the largest-you sit by the driver and Gen-
eral Wood on the back seat with me." He then took Captain
Hanna on his lap and drove that way through the streets of
Washington. He had on an old pair of corduroy trousers, a
coat that had evidently been through the wars and a battered
old hat that surely some cat had brought in. When we came
back again through the city covered with mud, no stranger

GENERAL SCOTT WITH CAPTAIN DAVID HUNTER SCOTT, A.D.C.,
1914

464
Some Memories of a Soldier
sport in America." And passing, he hit me across the knee with
his baton as if saying, "The
I was talking
gom
got your answer!"
binet room when Mont-
in with their families.
try on bear at Kodiak
began to excite the
e Cabinet table, put-
te, and Montgomery
of the treasury and
nting in the West,
the anteroom to
, and showed us
mb of the stock
unded mountain
would not like
President, "as
first down a
o one ever
ffable and
1, Captain
him, and
us out, I
to the
esident
1. Gen-
ptain
ts of
s, a
red
ne
er
Washington and the Border
465
would have taken him for the President of the United States.
But he was President in every sense of the word. He was
one of our greatest. He was a many-sided President, of whom
any American might well be proud; he showed a breadth of
culture seldom seen in the White House or anywhere else.
He had traveled up and down Rock Creek times without
number and knew every stone in it. He liked to lead a new-
comer into some place that would stump him, such as a rock
jutting out over a pool where if you knew which foot to put
first in climbing around the points you were all right, but
starting with the wrong foot you found no place to step, and
were likely to fall into the pool while changing feet.
He invited General Wood, Colonel McCoy and me and some
others to walk one day, and one of the party, expecting to
stroll with the President up and down the boulevard, came to
me wearing a fine straw hat, a white waistcoat, eyeglasses on a
silk ribbon attached to his lapel, and with a beautiful swagger
stick to twirl.
He said, "It is raining very hard. I suppose that the walk
with the President is all off."
"What difference does the rain make," I asked him. "You
are not going to need that fine hat though or that dinky little
swagger stick; you're going to need your hands and feet both
when you 'walk' with the President."
Driving high up Rock Creek on that occasion, the President
plunged out of the carriage and into the brush in a pouring
rain. All of us followed. Every now and then the string of my
friend's glasses would catch in the brush, tearing them off and
a piece of flesh of his nose with them. The hat and waistcoat
were soon pulped, and in a fit of rage he drew out, saying,
"I'm going to quit this damned outfit!"
We were then all strung along the narrow foot-path through
the brush, the man in front of me going slower and slower,
until I had to pass him. The President turned off short and
466
Some Memories of a Soldier
climbed the face of a rocky cliff followed by General Wood
and me. When I got up about thirty feet I heard a voice from
below calling, "Mr. President-oh, Mr. President!"
Down came a gruff question from above: "What is the
matter down there?"
"I've got a stomach ache," was the reply.
The President called out, "You'd better not come up here
then," and we lost another. Nothing pleased him so much as
to drop companions along the road unable to keep up with him.
If he thought any one was too well dressed for an outing he
would swim across a deep pool and everybody was compelled
to follow. He was a great sport. Walking one day with a party
among whom was Mr. Jules Jusserand, ambassador from
France, the President proposed that they all go bathing in
Rock Creek without bathing suits, not far off the public high-
way. Mr. Jusserand waded in without any clothes except a pair
of white kid gloves and a high hat. Mr. Roosevelt looked at
him with astonishment for some time, but finally his curiosity
became too great and he had to ask the reason for the ambas-
sador's costume.
"Oh, Mr. President," Mr. Jusserand replied, "suppose some
ladies should go by!"
A VISIT FROM THE SULTAN
In the autumn of 1910 while I was on leave in Princeton, I
received an order to meet the sultan of Sulu and his suite arriv-
ing in New York, and take them to Washington to see Presi-
dent Taft.
They threw their arms around me on the ship and began to
cry. Hadji Gulam, whom I had made promise not to blacken
his teeth, rushed up calling out "Look at my teeth!" and I
found them still white "like a dog's."
We went to the Hotel Astor where the sultan demanded first
Washington and the Border
467
to see the Times Building, a picture of which I had sent him
some time before to show the manner of buildings over here.
He was charmed with the view over New York. Coming down-
stairs we were ushered into a room and found the entire man-
agement of the "New York Times" sitting at a long table like
a court-martial with Mr. Adolph Ochs at the head. They
asked if they might question the sultan, and among other
things, inquired what would happen if the United States should
come away from the Philippines. Without a moment's hesita-
tion the sultan replied, "We Moros would take the islands,” as
indeed they would, for in morale they are superior to the
Filipinos, who have never stood up against the Moros.
We went to Washington to see the President, and were quar-
tered in a suite at the old Arlington Hotel, since torn down.
When getting ready for our interview, Hadji Mohammed, the
chief priest of the Archipelago, came to me in great distress
saying that the sultan had been falling off from the true faith
all the way from Singapore to Paris, where he had worn a hat-
"A hat! What do you think of that? A hat!" And now he was
going before the President of the United States wearing a neck-
tie. "You know very well, my father," the Hadji wailed, "I
cannot wear a necktie. What shall I do? What will the Presi-
dent think when he sees me dressed different from the others?"
He was really in the sort of excitement in which a Sulu Moro
is capable of anything.
I said: "My son, don't you think anything of that. You go
up to your room and I will fix it all right." I went out and
bought one of those things they button on in front of the
collar, called a butterfly, and told him to put it on; that the
President would think he looked just like the others. "You
know yourself it won't go all the way around your neck, but no
one else will know it," I said to sooth him. This satisfied him
completely, although he had been ready to go to his death over
that necktie a moment before. On just such little crises as this
468
Some Memories of a Soldier
had hung peace or war in the days of the empire at Joló, yet
every one had its solution if you could only find it and had
the necessary time to carry out the remedy.
President Taft received us very graciously and the sultan
took occasion to ask him to send me back to Joló as governor.
The request was repeated to the chief of staff and I was asked
how I felt about it. I told them that it would be a great pleasure
to go back and see the progress and the people, but that I
would want my return ticket in my pocket, with a short time
limit, for my work at Joló was over, with the foundation laid,
ready for somebody else to build the superstructure.
While sitting in the Arlington Hotel talking about old times
in Joló, I asked the Raja Muda if he remembered that fearful
boil he once had. He replied: "Please, my father, please! Do
not talk about that. I don't know too much even now,
but at
that time I was an unborn child."
I arranged their transportation going west so as to save them
seven hundred dollars. We bade good-by to each other upstairs
in their suite, and I then walked down the stairs alone. I found
them lined up on both sides of the door, having come down by
the elevator, every one of them in tears. This was the last
time I ever saw them. I heard later that the Raja Muda had
sung a ballad about our meeting to large audiences upon their
return. The Moros sing ballads about their distinguished men
and their doings, just as did the minstrels of Provence in the
Middle Ages, who came back from the Crusades and paid for
food and lodging in some great castle by singing of the deeds of
Richard Coeur de Lion, of Godfrey de Bouillon and other
champions in the Holy Land, furnishing thus not only their
newspapers but also their opera.
PRESIDENT WILSON
The election of Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey
to the Presidency occurred in 1912 and knowing some of the
Washington and the Border
469
many pitfalls that await any one without experience in the
guileful city of Washington, especially any one with the gov-
ernor's profound ignorance of persons and things military, I
became apprehensive lest on arrival he be captured by the
political element of the army and become entangled before
he knew it. I had perfect confidence in his ultimate arrival at
the proper policy for the army but fearful politics might cause
him grief.
All sorts of rumors were in the air, one to the effect that the
head of General Wood as chief of staff was immediately to be
carried out on a charger. I knew that elaborate plans were
being laid by the political element to capture the ear of the
President, the result of which could not be otherwise than dis-
astrous to the army, the country and to the President himself.
The President had the acquaintance of only two officers of
the army; a young relative of junior rank and experience, and
myself, and since there was no one else to warn him of condi-
tions in Washington, I determined to try to do it myself.
Taking the opportunity of a Christmas visit to my brother
in Princeton, I sought by telephone an interview with the gov-
ernor at his home and was invited there at once.
I made a plain statement of facts to the governor as I saw
them, pointing out the rocks which my experience in Washing-
ton told me he would most probably run against. I was guided
in this entirely by my wish for the good of the service and my
friendship for him. There was no personal end in view.
The governor listened to me very graciously and asked some
questions, but he was full of the talk of some people he had
seen that day and quoted them at length with great enthusiasm.
"A" had said this and "B" had said that, and from all he told
me I became frozen with horror at the conviction that he in-
tended to make "A" the new secretary of war.
His remarks about "A" were listened to for some time while
I considered how the latter's selection as secretary of war
470
Some Memories of a Soldier
might be prevented. "Here I am," thought I, "about to place
myself right in the beginning in opposition to the President
and his secretary of war for the next four years, and any pro-
motion I might otherwise attain will fly right up the flue, but I
must oppose this selection at any cost"; and I laid the history
of "A" before the governor.
He spoke then of the intense opposition that had developed
against retention of General Wood as chief of staff and indi-
cated his intention to relieve him from office at once by saying,
"I always begin new policies with new people."
"If you do that, Governor," I said, "you will, by throwing
the great weight of your power with the political element of
the army, cause it to gain such a victory over the better and
more progressive element as to set back the progress of the
army for twenty years, and your policies, as far as the better-
ment of the service is concerned, will be foredoomed to failure
from the beginning."
The governor gave me no other intimation of his intentions,
but it happened that "A" never became secretary of war and,
notwithstanding tremendous political pressure by members of
Congress exerted upon both the new President and the secre-
tary of war for relief of General Wood as chief of staff, the
latter was allowed to serve out his full term, and there was no
setback or upheaval in the army. I have always believed that
this was a crucial point in the history of our country. The
governor was so charmed with "A" that I am certain he in-
tended then to offer him the position of secretary of war, and
I can look back now and visualize how disastrous would have
been the effect on the condition of our army at the outbreak
of the war, demoralized by such a régime. I believe it was right
there that the current, threatening to carry the army back to
the old conditions previous to the Spanish War when it was
organized for peace, was swerved toward a continued efficiency,
enabling it triumphantly to meet the demands of war.
Washington and the Border
471
White sitting there talking to the governor, I could perceive
from his ignorance of everything military that he had no idea
of the appointments he would have to make of brigadier-
generals. I thought: "If I ask him for the next vacancy, he will
probably promise it to me. If I don't, some one else will ask
and get it. But if I do ask him, he will believe that to have
been my real purpose in coming here and will discount all that
I've told him accordingly." So I sorrowfully watched my pro-
motion float away down the stream and disappear, and men-
tally I waved it good-by.
Although I did not know it then, this course was probably
the best I could possibly have taken with President Wilson to
gain promotion, for he ordered my appointment to the rank of
brigadier-general at his first cabinet meeting on March 5,
without my solicitation or that of any member of my family.
There was no vacancy then available but he directed that I be
given the first that occurred. This did not come to my knowl-
edge until long afterward. I never spoke to him or to the
secretary of war about either my subsequent detail as chief of
staff or my promotion to major-general except to thank them
after the announcement of each promotion, and my first
knowledge of both honors was received from a member of the
Associated Press.
Soon after the beginning of the new year, President Taft
ordered me to report to the secretary of the interior, Mr.
Walter Fisher of Chicago, who sent me to Arizona to settle
the case of the Hopi Indians, the so-called hostile element of
which was defying their agent at Keams Canon.
THE HOPI INDIANS
In the autumn of 1911 the secretary of the interior called
upon the secretary of war to take over the case of the Hopi
Indians of Arizona, with the request that troops be sent to
472
Some Memories of a Soldier
coerce the so-called hostile element at Hotevilla, who had de-
fied their agent and refused to obey any of his directions, which
were those of the Indian Department. The secretary of war
directed me to report to the secretary of the interior and carry
out his instructions. I reported every day for ten days, without
being able to get any instructions for some reason unknown to
me, but finally I was told to go to Holbrook, Arizona, where I
would find troops from Fort Apache, take charge of them, and
go to Keams Canon, Arizona, about a hundred miles north to
the Hopi and Navajo Agency, and coöperate with the agent. I
found the agent, Mr. Leo Crane, a very agreeable young gen-
tleman, but recently appointed, who was very anxious to do his
duty. He had had some experience in the Indian Office in Wash-
ington, but none in the field. He said he had received no orders
to coöperate with me, but would be glad to do anything for me
he could. He told me that an old Hopi chief named Yukeoma
was at the bottom of all the trouble, a fanatical old sinner, who
opposed everything the Government wanted to do, and while
he and his people called themselves peaceful they had guns and
had been known to use them against troops. This rebellion had
occurred many times in the past, for which troops had been
brought here before, in consequence of which there had been
bloodshed.
Yukeoma had been imprisoned at Alcatraz Island, Cali-
fornia, Fort Huachuca, Arizona, Fort Wingate, New Mexico,
and many times at Keams Canon, but these confinements made
no impression on him. He had been brought to Washington,
but influence brought to bear upon him there was without a
particle of effect. He had even been taken to the White House
where President Taft gave him his orders in person. He was
asked on return whether he had seen the President and replied
that he "didn't know whether he had seen the President or not
-he had seen a big fat man they said was President, but he
did not know who he was.”

COLONEL SCOTT AND DAUGHTER, COLONEL W. F. CODY, CAPTAIN JULIUS CONRAD AND CHILDREN,
AT SAN ANTONIO
i
Washington and the Border
473
The point at issue now was the refusal of Yukeoma and his
people to allow their children of school age to go to the agency
schools. Although the agent had not received any orders yet
to coöperate with me I concluded to leave the troops at the
agency, go over to the hostile town of Hotevilla with the sur-
geon, a bright young fellow who liked adventure and hoped
we might find some at Hotevilla, a cook, a teamster, and an
orderly, and try and see what was troubling Yukeoma. We
took possession of the empty house of the field matron, who
had left because of Yukeoma's unpleasantness.
I sent for Yukeoma who appeared with his staff. We all had
dinner together and I got him to tell us his troubles, which
were many and various. Witches were at the bottom of nearly
all of them. He had much to say of a return from the East
of a party that had gone East at a time "tradition" tells of, at
which time the "tradition" foretold his head was to be cut off,
and everything foretold long ago was to come to pass. In the
meantime no children could go to school as this would be in
violation of the "traditions." He produced a "tradition" against
everything he did not like, which meant everything the Gov-
ernment wanted-he could manage to produce a "tradition"
in short order against anything he had never even heard of
before. He said President Taft and Secretary Walter Fisher
were both witches, and every time a coyote would come near it
would be pointed out by him to me as a witch, and identified
as either Taft or Walter Fisher, secretary of the interior.
The old man would come over and eat with me every day,
and would bring over now and then a Hopi watermelon. He was
very fond of canned pears, and would take a can or so back
with him. He related the migration legends of the Hopi clans
and their ancient settlement, which I asked the doctor to
write down. This went on for ten days without making a dent
in Yukeoma's resolution to persist in rebellion. He was the
only Indian I have ever seen who could not be influenced by
474
Some Memories of a Soldier
reason, sympathy, and kindness. Of course, the children must
go to school with or without his resistance, but I was perfectly
willing to wait a month or two months rather than have to
kill him or any of his people.
The doctor and I had him under observation for ten days,
during which we both came to the same conclusion separately
that he was really a lunatic, "gone" on the subject of witches,
and there was no use wasting any more time trying to bring
a crazy man around. So I sent word to the troop commander
to come over with the agent and empty wagons for the chil-
dren, to surround the village before dawn, taking possession of
every strategic point, and allowing no gathering anywhere for
resistance. The people woke up to find every place occupied,
with no opportunity to get together. I then provided the agent
with a guard of troops and told him to search the houses with
his own men.
The old man came over in a fury, having felt from our feed-
ing him and our listening to everything he said, that he had
softened my heart about taking the children, but he was never
told anything that would give him a right to any such im-
pression. Our talk had been mainly about other things. But
opposition excited him vastly. He was now in an impotent
fury and informed the agent and myself we were both witches
like Taft and Fisher. I did not try to punish him, for that in
my belief was a matter for the Indian Department, and I was
there only to get the children. He frequently invited us to cut
off his head, confident probably that we would not accept the
invitation, but I could see from the lack of care he had be-
stowed on it that it would prove of no value to me.
When the children were rounded up they were put in the
wagons, and we made our respectful compliments to Yukeoma
and all left for the mission at Oraibi.
I had been vastly entertained at Hotevilla by the Hopi cere-
monies and customs. We were there in the winter solstice-
Washington and the Border
475
when they were engaged in turning back the sun. We white
men have no gratitude for what the Hopi do for us twice every
year. The sun travels back and forth between the tropic of
Capricorn and Cancer, and the Hopi sun priests watch this
carefully. They and their ancestors have been engaged in this
practice for a long time. The Hopi have been a stationary peo-
ple, who were never wanderers like the Plains people who
traveled with the buffalo, here to-day and gone to-morrow.
Oraibi antedates the discovery of America by Columbus and
during the hundreds of years of its life those sun priests have
noted the movements of the sun-or apparent movements-
and when the sun rises at a certain marked place on the horizon
the priest announces that it is eight days from Soyaluna-time
for the ceremonies to begin. Most of these take place down in
a kiva, or ceremonial chamber underground, entered by a
hatchway by means of a ladder. This hatchway is so covered
as to allow a sunbeam to strike the wall of the kiva in a certain
place. This beam travels back and forth during the year and
on the day of Soyaluna it has almost reached its furthest limit.
Then the old men are to be found down in the kiva, turning a
wheel with all their might; this turns back the sun to travel
toward the other tropic. If the sun were not turned back in
this way, the Hopi believe, it would go straight off and we
would die in darkness and cold.
The Hopi are the most intense ritualists I am acquainted
with; they heap ritual upon ritual, and the ritual seems end-
less and without purpose. I suppose the underlying thought of
most of their ritual was lost ages ago; and, in any event, it
tires me out completely. I suffer it as long as I can get any
meaning from it. Dr. Walter Fewkes, director of the Bureau of
Ethnology, is the only person I know of with patience to con-
tinue researches into this ritual; he knows all there is to know
about the Hopi.
I had long been acquainted with the Spanish history of that
476
Some Memories of a Soldier
country and remembered about the revolt of 1680 when the
Spaniards were driven out of what is now New Mexico and
Arizona with the loss of many men. They did not come back for
about fifteen years, when the country was reconquered "for
the faith" by Diego Vargas, as he has recorded on Inscription
Rock. Some of the churches were destroyed and their curas
killed. I was anxious to know what memory of it was retained
by the Hopi and asked if there had ever been a church here.
One of them said, "Yes, it was right there and was torn down.
There is the priest's bathtub yet he took a bath in it every
time it rained."
This was a stone with a concave surface, not injured from
incessant bathing for it rains there not much oftener than
once in eighteen months. If cleanliness is next to godliness,
that priest must have been far from heaven. I asked what had
become of the priest, and the answer was, "We threw him off
that rock." That answer seemed so definite that I asked no
more questions.
When we went down into a kiva a short time afterward I
was amazed to see the rafters were of pine logs, twenty inches
in diameter, with large diamond figures carved on them, and I
asked my hosts where those logs had come from. The answer
was prompt and decisive, “out of that church,”—destroyed, as
I have remarked in 1680.
"But," I said, "there was never any forest like that around
here where did they come from to make the church?" "Off
that mountain," my informant replied, pointing to San Fran-
cisco Mountain near Flag Staff, Arizona, a hundred miles away.
I felt a little dazed at this and asked, "You had no horses or
cattle then-how were they transported?" The answer was,
"We carried them by hand." It only occurred to me to wonder,
then, why they had not thrown the priest off the rock before
carrying logs a hundred miles for his church. What manner of
man was that priest who was able to induce these wild Indians
Washington and the Border
477
to carry those logs without force! How filled with zeal he must
have been for the glory of God and the salvation of those souls,
so far away in that vast wilderness! There used to be real men
in those days.
I went out to see the Snake Dance at Walpi in 1921 with my
old friends Slocum and John A. Johnston of Washington, and
while inspecting the agency at Keams Canon ran across my
old friend Yukeoma in jail there for the 'nth time. I reproached
the agent for Yukeoma's appearance; he appeared half starved
and naked. The agent said he couldn't help it-the Indian had
been given plenty of warm clothing but would not wear it, and
would not eat the food given him. I sent for him to come to the
agency office, where he sat upon the agent's swivel chair, his
knees doubled up to his chin and his bare feet in the chair,
looking like a dried up little old chimpanzee. He received me
with affability as an old friend, who had misused him, but he
was willing to let bygones be bygones. I asked him whether,
should I interest myself in procuring his return to his home, he
would promise to obey the agent. He said, "No! no!"-no more
and no less.
I looked at the little monkey with what amounted almost to
stupefaction. This was the result of twenty years of effort by
the great American nation, or rather the Indian Bureau, to
make that dried up little monkey obey.
But the Indian recognizes no law outside his natural desires.
The characteristics of his race, lawlessness, the freedom of the
plains and instincts based on age-old traditions, are too strongly
inherent in him for him to be taught obedience in one generation.
I advised the agent to keep the children without allowing
them any vacation at home or he would have all the trouble
to do over again. Then, after waiting a few days to see whether
Yukeoma was going to make any effort to retake the children,
started to march back to the railroad and went to San Antonio
to take over the colonelcy of the Third Cavalry.
478
Some Memories of a Soldier
TO SAN ANTONIO
President Taft announced that he was going to give the
first vacancy in a brigadier-generalship to the cavalry, and
General Parker was selected. The second, to the infantry, went
to General Liggett, and the third expected from the retirement
of General Steever, was to go to the artillery. This pushed my
chances of promotion to the indefinite future so I put the ques-
tion of promotion entirely out of my mind, and going to take
over command of the Third Cavalry at San Antonio, I sent for
Mrs. Scott and the family and settled down, in the expectation
of a long stay. The Third Cavalry I began vigorously to train
as a regiment.
This unit had long been considered the most contentious in
the service. Regiments get slanted in this direction or that
when first organized; older officers train the younger in their
ways as they come on, generation after generation, and it is
very difficult to change the habit of a regiment. Each regiment
lives its individual inner life and is noted for some individual
characteristic displayed year after year under different colo-
nels, as they come and go.
In 1895 Secretary of War Lamont with a party made a jour-
ney of inspection through the West and stopped to see General
Wesley Merritt, commander in Chicago. Discussing one of the
periodical upheavals of the Third Cavalry at Jefferson Bar-
racks, Secretary Lamont asked, "What is the matter with the
Third Cavalry, anyhow?" General Merritt replied that when
his class had graduated from West Point, a number of his
classmates were discussing what regiments to apply for, and
one said, "How about the Mounted Rifles?" (afterward
changed to the Third Cavalry), and another exclaimed, “Great
Scott! don't talk about the Mounted Rifles! They're a lot of
cats and dogs!"
Washington and the Border
479
"Mr. Secretary," the General said, "that was in 1860, and
that has been going on ever since."
This conversation was repeated to me in 1895 at Fort Sill
by Major George W. Davis, military secretary, who had been
present at the discussion, and it did not make me any too
anxious to get the Third Cavalry on promotion.
I had learned to ride a horse before going to West Point,
later received instruction there and in the mounted service the
manner was to sit close to the saddle at the trot and I rode
more than twenty thousand miles on the Plains in the same
way. One day, however, I read at San Antonio an article in
one of the service journals by Colonel T. Bentley Mott, of the
artillery, on the English fashion of rising at a trot, and I
found sufficient reasons advanced to give it a trial. It com-
mended itself to me so well that I changed my style of riding
after more than forty years' adherence to the old fashion, and
had the Third Cavalry change also, the first of all cavalry
regiments to make the change.
This greatly improved the equitation and alignments of that
regiment and is the only method now used in our mounted
service. This method was not new for I had known of it all
my life but had never given it consideration until reading
Colonel Mott's article, for the reason that like many others I
despised Anglomaniacs, who had first imported it just because
the English rode that way.
The Anglomaniac has long since disappeared from our midst
and no one cares now very much whether it is "raining in
London" or whether the Prince of Wales wears spats, but such
matters were once of high importance to some people.
The life at San Antonio was a constant round of drill,
parade, and inspection, instructing and fitting troops for field
service. The commander of a garrison has always reminded
me of a carpenter's assistant who is continually sharpening
tools for some one else to use and the constant sharpening is
480
Some Memories of a Soldier
very monotonous. I like to use the tools but not to sharpen
them and I felt all the time that I was not being used to the
best advantage. Life in an office or in a garrison has always
been irksome to me; some one must do it, of course, and I am
content to let those do it who like it, as many do, considering
it as an end rather than a means to an end. I look at that type
with astonishment as it gravely argues futile questions with
the wisdom and seriousness of a boiled owl. I call such men
garrison soldiers as distinguished from field soldiers.
The garrison life was broken now and then by detached
service, now at Corpus Christi and Brownsville to thwart fili-
bustering parties going into Mexico in defiance of our neu-
trality laws; now to Fort Sill on matters concerning the Fort
Sill Apaches, and once to Washington on a hurry call.
One of the greatest yearly events of San Antonio is the
"Battle of the Flowers" commemorating the battle of San
Jacinto, to which all Texas sends representatives, and we hear
much of the Duke and Duchess of Waco, of Dallas, of Austin,
of Sherman, of El Paso, and other cities, chosen for the occa-
sion to ride in great vehicles covered with flowers in the parade
through the streets of San Antonio.
The Third Cavalry was asked to take part. It was decided
by some of the young men headed by Major Sedgwick Rice to
cover the four horse regimental drag with flowers made by
the ladies of the regiment, of green and yellow tissue paper, the
colors of the Third Cavalry, inherited from the Mounted
Rifles.
A meeting of the ladies was called by Mrs. Scott to decide
about the flowers. Some agreed to make them while others
demurred. Mrs. Scott told these latter not to mind about that
for she and her daughters would make theirs for them. They
made more than two thousand and Mrs. Scott covered the
drag harness and horses with the paper flowers. The question
then became acute as to who should ride on the drag and
Washington and the Border
481
everybody supposed that Mrs. Scott would ride in it herself
with her daughters, but she said, "No, let the young girls of
the regiment ride, and fill in any vacant seats with recent
brides." This was received with much satisfaction by every-
body. Mrs. Scott bought some parasols and covered them with
green and yellow paper to match the flowers and made each
girl a green and yellow hat which they found so becoming that
afterward they wore them out from so much use.
The drag appeared in the parade escorted by platoons of
young mounted officers and afforded much pleasure in San
Antonio as well as in the Third Cavalry. It was by such
thoughtful acts as this that Mrs. Scott did her share to create
a new harmony in the regiment.
BRIGADIER-GENERAL ¹
Some time in the latter part of March, 1913, Colonel Treat
came up from one of the concentration camps saying it was
freely talked about that I would be the next brigadier-general
and very soon, according to reliable news from Washington.
We did not allow this to disturb us, believing that Generals
Wood or McCoy would have let us know if there had been
any truth in it, and we kept on in the even tenor of our way
until a telegram came from General Wood announcing it as a
fact. They said afterward that they had known it ever since
the Wilson inauguration but were afraid to notify me until the
vacancy actually occurred, lest something happen.
A telegram of thanks was sent to President Wilson, who
wrote that the appointment gave him more pleasure than any
he had made in Washington. This was accepted as a mere con-
ventional politeness from the president, but when a Princeton
girl staying at the White House reported hearing him say the
same thing to the family, and later hearing his daughter repeat
¹See Appendix, letter of March 31, 1913.
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Some Memories of a Soldier
it at Camp Dix, it seemed to be something more than a mere
conventionality.
When it came time to part with the Third Cavalry at San
Antonio, I was exceedingly sorry to leave. The positions of
captain of a company and colonel of a regiment are similar to
a certain degree. In both the commander is brought in close
relations with his officers and men whose welfare he has a
chance to foster, and such relations can become very close, as
I have had occasion to know many times.
The assembling at San Antonio of all the troops of the scat-
tered stations along the border and training them as a regiment,
together with a considerable infusion of new blood, had re-
sulted in the welding of the regiment into a solid harmonious
unit for the first time in its history. It had become recognized
at headquarters as the best trained regiment of cavalry on the
border and we were all proud of belonging to the Third Cav-
alry. The officers and ladies of the regiment gave a farewell
dinner in San Antonio to Mrs. Scott and me at which they
presented us with a piece of silver-a souvenir of friendship
and service together of which we are vastly proud-and we
parted with them all with sincere regret.
It became noised abroad that Senators Fall and Catron of
New Mexico had announced their intention of preventing my
confirmation by the Senate because of their displeasure over
the removal of Fort Sill Apaches to New Mexico. I went to
Princeton passing through Washington without asking when
there would be an executive session of the Senate to consider
confirmations. Some days afterward Mrs. Scott followed me
bringing a message from General Wood that I had been con-
firmed. I asked if Senator Fall had told the Senate what a bad
man I was. She said, "No." "Did Senator Catron?" "No, no
one said a word."
My first assignment as brigadier-general was to the com-
mand of the Mexican border from Fabens, Texas, to California.
Washington and the Border
483
A large part of the army was protecting the line, across which
the Mexican revolution was going full blast with continual
danger to our territory. Some of the El Paso people had been
killed on our side while watching a battle between Mexican
factions across the Rio Grande.
General Wood invited me to go with him on an inspection
of the whole border from Brownsville west, and I arrived in
Washington to join him. I made a call of respect on the new
secretary of war, Lindley M. Garrison, whom I found very
cordial. He said: "You are just the man I want to see. If I tell
the president that General Scott approves of a policy I won't
need to submit any further argument and I want you to stay
here."
This conversation, together with pressure from members of
Congress on the president and secretary to relieve General
Wood as chief of staff, made me very uneasy lest I be called
upon to replace either General Wood or General William W.
Wotherspoon, the assistant chief of staff, before expiration of
their legal terms. I thanked the secretary in some perturba-
tion and told him that the situation at El Paso was very serious
and that it would be most necessary for me to get down there
at once. He said, "Well, then, you are coming back soon."
CONCERNING THE PHILIPPINES
The secretary had directed me not to leave Washington be-
fore seeing the President who wanted to ask something about
the Philippines, but an appointment could not be arranged
immediately. General Wood left without me and I failed to
catch up with him until we reached Naco, Arizona.
The nature of politics is such that whatever is done by the
party in power is adversely criticised by the party out of
power, generally irrespective of the merits of the case. By
simply opposing what was done there by President McKinley,
William Jennings Bryan had made the Democratic policy
484
Some Memories of a Soldier
toward the Philippines one of immediate evacuation, without
taking into the least consideration the bloodshed and anarchy
that would ensue if we were to withdraw entirely from the
islands, leaving them without a government, a prey to foreign
aggression and the clash of races that had been enemies for
centuries. President McKinley saved us from the commission
of this crime against a defenseless people, but Mr. Bryan
made public speeches that had the effect of encouraging the
revolutionary element of the Philippines to fight and was the
cause of much useless misery and bloodshed.
Before the advent of President Wilson the Democratic party
had only a moral responsibility toward the Philippines and
none toward the country, and felt it could advocate anything,
but now responsibility had come to it suddenly care must be
taken lest the party be injured by ill considered action, and
information was being sought as to whether the policy of
evacuation advocated by Mr. Bryan should really be enforced.
When I presented myself at the White House to be questioned
by the President I was well-informed of Mr. Bryan's policy
but did not know how far Mr. Wilson was committed to it.
I was told, moreover, that he did not like to be opposed in his
policies by anybody, least of all by a subordinate.
"How about this?" I said to myself. "Are you going to tell
him the real truth or nothing but a polite evasion that will
please him?" And I saw at once that my duty lay in telling
him the truth whether it pleased him or not.
I found him sitting behind his desk in the chair I had seen
occupied by Roosevelt and Taft and since then by Presidents
Harding and Coolidge. Presidents Cleveland and Harrison and
McKinley never occupied that office as it was built since their
time. After a few kindly inquiries the President said that he
knew that I had served in the Philippines and he had invited
me over to ask my opinion concerning the giving of immediate
independence to the Filipino and evacuation of the islands.

SERGEANT RANDOLPH WITH BIZOSHE AND OTHER NAVAJO INDIANS,
NEW MEXICO
Washington and the Border
485
"I don't know any such person, Mr. President, as a
'Filipino' in the sense that you use the word." I replied. "I
know the Igorrote, the tribe which lives near the north end of
Luzon, whose importance is measured by the number of
human heads they have on their roof. Do you want to give
independence to him?"
"No, I do not," he said.
"If you give it to him," I went on, "the Tagalog would soon
take it away from him, the Visayan and Macabebe from the
Tagalog, and the Mohammedan Moro would take it away from
them all. You will then have succeeded in destroying every-
thing accomplished by the United States during the last twenty
years and in making the Philippines Mohammedan by fire and
sword, prevention of which was the outstanding accomplish-
ment of Spain in a struggle that lasted more than two hundred
years. There is no such person as a Filipino in a national sense.
There is a race of Filipinos but there is no national language
and no national purpose. There is a congeries of tribes with
more than fifty different languages, and many of these tribes
have been enemies for centuries."
The President then said: "Some have proposed to turn them
over to Japan. What would you say to that?"
"Do you believe, Mr. President," I answered, "that the
religious people of America would consent to the turning over
of five million Roman Catholic Christians to a non-Chris-
tian power?" He shook his head, saying: "No, I do not. I
do not."
After pondering a while he asked, "What would you do
then?"
"Do just what you are doing now," I replied. "Educate them
until they are able to walk on their own feet, then give them
their independence and leave the islands as we did in Cuba.
This will not be in my time or yours, Mr. President, for it is
not possible to make a self-governing people overnight, as so
486
Some Memories of a Soldier
many of us believe. It requires time and the proper sort of
material to build up a real republic and if attempted other-
wise as sometimes recommended by the unthinking, nothing
but violence and the destruction of life result. You will not
have fulfilled your responsibilities to the great mass of the
ignorant Filipino peoples if you turn them over to the small
oligarchy of semi-educated men who are clamoring for an
opportunity to exploit their fellows, and you will have a far
worse condition on your hands than you see in Mexico. The
evacuation of the islands now would remove the last barrier
to the destruction of the Filipino. It would be like throwing
a baby to the wolves."
Far from resenting this plain language, the President seemed
to be saddened by it. I went on to say:
"We never started out with a policy of taking the Philip-
pines. Nobody over here wanted them, least of all the soldier
who has service over there continually hanging over his head.
He must educate his children at home, with consequent separa-
tion from his family and double expense. Don't let anybody
make you believe, Mr. President, that any soldier wants to
keep the Philippines as many have doubtless told you, on his
own account, at constant risk of his life from wounds or
disease. But as an American citizen I want them kept until
the mass of the people can protect themselves from exploita-
tion, and I want thereafter an adequate naval station kept
permanently. Manila happens to be the most strategic point in
all the Orient. It lies at the hub of a wheel, whose rim is
the whole Asiatic coast, five days from Singapore, five days
from Saigon, five days from Nagasaki and Tokio, Macao,
Hongkong, and Shanghai. China has more people than any
country in the world with the greatest potential markets. It
is beginning to wake up and turn over and will soon want our
surplus manufactures which will stabilize our market. It has
been said that if the Chinaman would lengthen the tail of his
Washington and the Border
487
shirt one inch it would take the product of all our cotton fac-
tories to supply him. He will soon need hardware, shoes, elec-
tric supplies, and all sorts of manufactured goods, and to throw
away this market and the means of maintaining it by a coaling
station would be, in my opinion, to commit a crime against
the American people."
The President gave me no inkling of the course he was
going to pursue but the islands have not been evacuated yet.
I deprecate the arguments we sometimes hear now that we
must keep them to supply us with rubber. I am for turning
them over to their people as soon as the lower classes are able
to protect themselves from slavery and spoliation, which they
are far from being able to do yet. But our word must be com-
plied with, even if we have to buy our rubber from the Straits
Settlements and Java forever.
Taking my elder son, Captain David Hunter Scott, Fifth
Cavalry, who was also my aide, we started to catch up with
General Wood wherever we could find him which was not until
we were joined by my younger son, Lewis Merrill Scott, a
mining engineer, then with the Copper Queen at Bisbee. Gen-
eral Wood had a special car in which we all traveled together
to Nogales on the Mexican border and thence back to El Paso.
THE NAVAJO MENACE DISPELLED
1
But when we reached Fort Huachuca, Arizona, a telegram
was received relating to a difficulty at Beautiful Mountain with
Navajo Indians on their reservation. I was directed to go to
Gallup, New Mexico, where a squadron of the Twelfth Cavalry
from Nebraska would arrive, and I should go north with it
as escort, meet the veteran inspector of the Interior Depart-
ment, Major James McLaughlin, and settle the matter.
A bad situation had been developing there due to the dis-
'See Appendix, letter of Dec. 16, 1913.
488
Some Memories of a Soldier
tance of the Indians from the agency and the agent allowing
his power to be used by the Navajo police to even up their
private grudges. At a previous settlement in 1908, he had asked
me what criticism I had to make on his management, and I
told him then he didn't get about enough among his people
to give them his personal touch, and here he was in trouble
again, allowing the police to manage his business.
A policeman had arrested a Navajo woman during the ab-
sence of her family and had taken her into the agency where
she was locked up. Her husband returned and found his enemy
had carried off his wife. He gathered his sons and went into
the agency to see the agent and recover his wife. The agent
was away at Farmington, but he met his wife outside and took
her up on his horse behind him. A policeman caught his bridle
in order to stop him and some of the agency employees ran
out for the same purpose. He struck the policeman over the
head with his quirt, broke away and took his wife home, forti-
fied himself at Beautiful Mountain in a very difficult position
on a high terrace, which only one man could climb up to at
a time. He secured great Navajo support and they all had
food and water and plenty of high-powered rifles with ammu-
nition. The leaders had declared their intention to sell their
lives as dearly as possible.
The situation was very dangerous since there were thirty
thousand Navajos on the reservation. The mountains were
covered with snow and a winter campaign might involve the
whole tribe in one of the most difficult and little known sections
of the country, among those great canyons that run down into
the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, and no one could predict
when such a campaign would end. The cost would run far into
the millions, to say nothing about the suffering and bloodshed
on both sides.
We were met at the hotel in Gallup by Father Anselm Weber,
the Catholic missionary to the Navajo, and Chee Dodge, the
AIN

GENERAL YNEZ SALAZAR OF MEXICO, A PRISONER, FORT BLISS, TEXAS, 1914
Washington and the Border
489
most prominent Navajo, who were deeply impressed by the
trainloads of soldiers, horses, mules, wagons, and supplies
rolling into Gallup, one after another, and believed that I had
come to kill every Navajo I could find; they had come to soften
my hard heart.
I enjoyed their trepidation for a while, but it would have
been too cruel to let them go in that frame of mind. I sent them
off happy, saying that if any shooting was done, it would only
be after it had been begun by the Navajo themselves. I ex-
plained the troops had been sent at the request of the agent
to the secretary of the interior, and I had not been consulted
about sending them at all; moreover, I did not want them con-
sidering their presence a useless expense, and annoyance to
the troops.
I made what arrangements for the troops were possible,
having wood, hay, grain, and water put on their camp site,
but they arrived in a hard cold rain to camp in the mud and I
felt sorry for them and their stock exposed to the weather. I
hired an automobile to take me and my aide ahead of the
troops and told the commander I would go ahead of him in
the machine, traveling much faster than he could in the deep
mud. I wanted him to stop at the last water, a little trading
store twenty-five miles away, until he got further instructions,
and I expected to be back there with the principal men as
prisoners before he could reach there with his command.
The United States marshal wanted to go with me but I was
afraid his presence would be injurious. He had, however, acted
with unusual good sense and right feeling, for the agent had
urged him to gather a large posse of armed men and attack
the Indians in their stronghold, but realizing the consequences
of such an act on his part he had declined to do it and was
supported in his position by Federal Judge Pope at Santa Fé.
I told the marshal, however, that he must stay with the troops
and I would bring the prisoners to him.
4.900
Some Memories of a Soldirt
My som and I started north the next day but the machine
stuck in the mud and had to be dug and hauled out an often
↑ discharged it about twelve miles out when the cavalry came
aling We changed to hatars and fold the chaufieut he could
go back
We camped that night at the Navain School at Tomache.
twenty five miles auf, where the chauffeut asked me to frt him
agam as the fonds write briint from there on and he was given
another trial. We made beties time to the Navajo store next thr
Two Gony Hills, where the troops had born ardried to stop
As we approached the store my heart fell heavily at the sight
ed Majcst Mclaughlm and the agent, coming out to sor who
was coming in the machine I had thought that they were af
the agency whener the last telegrams had come, but here thre
were. They had been working on this car for several manche
and it had attived at such a stage they felt they ought to call
Sot traps. If I task them cent with me to the Indians, I would
be arvetele handicapped in the beginning, but how to kepur
McLaughlin behind without hurting his feelings friend fast
mens than thirty years. I did not know
We all went in and sat around the for discussing mafines for
an hout without the sering any way to leave them behind Thr
agent was rapecially insetent that I should have the trampe
ovet, saying the Navajos had been talked to again and agai
luf several months, each time griling thofe and matt muf
tageous, and now they were cleat out of bounds and would
contamly kill me as the Madoes. Lilind General Caube in #
somewhat similat situation if I went ovet without tranp
1 fold them I had to give the Indiane a chater first. I could not
go eves and shoot them all without giving them an opportunity,
and would have to go. The troups had theit anders already in
half hour until called fot
The agent broke out any "You aren't going to make
i ga curt with you, air you!" thus falling into my hand
Washington and the Border
491
like ripe fruit. I said, not at all, I would go over first and send
for them if it became necessary. I was gone with my aide within
five minutes in the machine.
I had looked at my son for a few minutes wondering if it
would be best to risk us both,-one in a family was enough,—
but I reflected no one had ever wrapped me in cotton-wool
when I was young, and I would not wrap him, for it would go
far toward killing him to be left behind.
We reached a little Navajo trading post near Beautiful
Mountain late that afternoon. It was kept by a Mormon named
Noel whose premises were so full of women and children we
had to sleep in a tent in the yard. He was in great fear of losing
his store and family in case of hostilities. The hostiles, as they
were called, saw the arrival of the machine from their lookout
and sent their scouts that night to prowl around outside. We
saw them listening at windows and their shadows pass over
the tent walls.
A courier was sent out to the hostiles next day for them to
come in to the store for a conference. This was refused at first,
but further messages brought them in the second day, seventy-
five of them, heavily armed and they crowded in and filled the
store so it was difficult to get a gangway for me to enter. The
white men at the store urged me to make them leave their
arms at home, but it was hard enough to get them to come,
as it was. A demand for them to disarm would cause deep
suspicion of a trap and probably defeat my whole plan, as
they would probably refuse to parley. My son went in behind
the counter with the trader, while I had a gangway made and
three chairs and a bench placed in the center, my back against
the counter.
Old Bizoshe, the father, was old and stiff in his ways. Those
that knew him said nothing could be done to influence him,
that everything had been tried in vain, that the old
man was hard as iron, and the eldest son was of such mentality
492
Some Memories of a Soldier
no one could deal with him at any time; it was just running
unnecessary risk, the white men said, to try to effect the
impossible.
I sat the old man near me with some ceremony. The large
crowd of armed Indians jammed into the store, listened with
perfect silence after they had once settled down. I said:
"My brother, I hear that you are in trouble out here. Troops
have been sent for you, but I have told them not to come any
nearer than the Two Gray Hills unless sent for, for I thought
we could come to an agreement here among ourselves. You and
I are too friendly for anything of that sort, and now I want you
to tell me what is the matter."
He poured out his troubles in a perfect stream and I let
him go until he was through, listening to him without interrup-
tion; then I told them I was too tired to talk any more that
day. They would find a hogan (Navajo hut) out in the yard
and plenty of food so they could rest, too, and I would
talk to them again in the morning. An Indian cannot be hurried.
He needs time to gather and assort his impressions and allow
them to soften him. They could have the rest of the day and
all night for the purpose of consideration. I had telegraphed
the agent to have some food ready for me but he had failed to
do so. When questioned, he said he did not believe in giving
Indians food. I had to make myself personally responsible for
the food at the store, rather than let the Indians get under the
influence of anybody else; hunting for food might have resulted
in ruining the whole project. The account was paid afterward
by the department. Father Weber came in with Chee Dodge
and stayed with us.
The nights were quite cold and when old Bizoshe came in
after dinner to learn from the trader what we were talking
about, I established him at the fire in an easy chair with tobacco
and began to hunt for his weak spot. I found he was a historian
and asked him, "Where did the Navajos come from first?"
Washington and the Border
493
That was enough to launch him on the history of the trials
and tribulations of the Navajo. He told us they had come up
out of the underworld through a hole in the La Plata Moun-
tains of Colorado. The Pueblos of the Rio Grande came up out
of the same hole but on the opposite side, which argues for a
long stay of the Navajos in that country. When he went out
later, I told Hunter, "It's all right, we've got him bagged. He
is coming our way when the time comes."
They all crowded into the store next morning with their
arms and Chee Dodge acted as interpreter. I felt them out a
little from time to time to see how soft they were and decided
to risk a direct demand and asked the old man, "What are you
going to do?"
He answered, "I am going to do just what you tell me to
do." Each one in their turn said the same thing.
I then said: "Very well, the marshal has warrants for you
(Bizoshe) and three sons. The wagons will be here this after-
noon and I want you to get in them and go with me to Gallup.
You will have to answer for your conduct to the judge at
Santa Fé. We will start to-morrow morning."
They said they would like to go home to make arrangements
for the care of their stock during their absence. They were
told they could go on one condition, that they must promise
to return in time to leave on the wagons a little after sunrise.
I was urged not to let them go lest they run clear away and
start trouble among the other Navajos, but I allowed them to
leave. The wagons did not get in when expected and it was
obvious they must have a night for rest after that long drive,
so our start was put off another day.
The eldest son said his child was sick and he would like to
go back and spend the night with it. He made the same agree-
ment as the day before. Having left all their horses at home
they had to do all their traveling back and forth on foot, six
miles in and out. He was back as promised but when the others
494
Some Memories of a Soldier
got into the wagon he refused to go, saying his child was too
sick to leave. We looked each other in the eye for a minute and
I told him, "You go and get into that wagon." He got into the
wagon.
We drove up to the camp and were soon surrounded by the
soldiers who had come all the way from Nebraska to fight
"those wild Navajos" and wanted to see what they looked like.
The Indians, not understanding the language, became uneasy
lest they intended some damage and I told them to go and get
their dinner in the store and stay there until I came for them.
The rear-guard of the troops had to stay back with some be-
lated wagons and I got back before their arrival at this camp,
making good my word. The marshal, hearing the glad tidings
of our arrival, hurried up to see his prisoners but finding them
all gone thought I had allowed them to escape. He became
wrathy but he was soon pacified.
We changed teams here and started on a long cold drive for
the Navajo School where we spent the night and went to Gallup
next day. The old man was very frail; he had no idea how to
ride in a side-seated ambulance. The weather was very raw
and cold and I had to hold a blanket around him all the ninety
miles into Gallup lest he get pneumonia. They were given a
good supper and a warm place to sleep in the jail and it was
explained that we would have to separate here. Father Weber
and Chee Dodge would go to Santa Fé with them. I turned
them over to the marshal and bade them be of good cheer. The
old man hugged me to his breast, making a rather affecting
scene when we parted. I sent a letter to the judge by Father
Weber, saying he would probably find the four Navajos had
been as much sinned against as sinning, if not more so; that
if he intended to imprison them at Santa Fé, the expiration of
their sentence would find them there with no money, unable to
speak the language, and without transportation home. Thus
they might be thrown on the charity of the town; whereas if
Washington and the Border
495
their sentences expired at Gallup, on the edge of their reserva-
tion, their people could come for them on horseback and take
them home safely. The judge gave them thirty days in Gallup.
We started back toward El Paso.
A BORDER AMBASSADOR
I started to catch up with General Wood to go with him for
an inspection of the Mexican border along its whole length,
but I failed to overtake him until he reached Naco, Arizona.
I had my older son, Captain Hunter Scott, with me still and
picked up my younger son, a mining engineer with the Copper
Queen at Bisbee, Arizona. General Wood and I were met and
welcomed at El Paso by Mr. U. S. Stewart, president of the
City National Bank of El Paso, one of the builders of El Paso
and a good and powerful friend until his death some years
later.
General Wood left us here for Washington, while I went
out to Fort Bliss, Texas, and took over the command of the
border from Fabens, Texas, to California. This included sev-
eral regiments of cavalry and infantry with several batteries
of artillery stationed in strategic positions for the defense of
the border.
Porfirio Diaz, the grand old man of Mexico, had controlled
Mexico for thirty years with great skill and efficiency for the
first time in its history, and we may say also for the last time,
for Mexico has never been so well governed as under Diaz,
and has never enjoyed the respect of the world in as great a
degree. He had a tremendous task to keep order over that
enormous territory with an ignorant people, 80 per cent. of
whom were unable to read or write and were mainly of Indian
blood. To be sure, we can all look back, in our superior wis-
dom, and see where we think we could improve on his adminis-
tration in the way of more education for the Mexican people.
496
Some Memories of a Soldier
It is not at all certain, that we could have improved on it, or
even have done as well, but it is very certain that no one has
ever done so, before or since.
Diaz, like Benito Juarez, was an Indian of Ouaxaca, and
belonged to that coterie of strong men that included Luis
Terrazas, long overlord of Chihuahua, and Luis Torrés, gov-
ernor of Sonora. During his time he endeavored to cultivate
pleasant relations with the United States, and was wise enough
to perceive that without our friendship and support no admin-
istration can endure in Mexico. He enjoyed the respect of all
foreign countries in a high degree and he was without doubt
one of the few great men of his time.
At the latter part of his rule he was more than eighty years
of age, and had allowed himself to be surrounded by a corrupt
coterie of younger men who took advantage of his age. His
army had degenerated and had become unreliable-much of
it a paper army-when he started to lean on it, it was not
there. He was easily upset by Madero, to the surprise of every-
body, and he left the country, an exile, to die abroad.
Madero was soon elected president of Mexico. As a reformer
he was to do away with all the abuses. He surrounded himself
with many of his relatives, some of whom were soon charged
with wrong doing. He was a brave and honest man, but a
dreamer who lasted but a short time. General Bernardo Reyes
and Felix Diaz revolted against him. Reyes was killed.
President Madero and Vice-President Suarez were arrested
in the Palace by their trusted subordinate, General Huerta,
commanding the army, who arrested and confined in the same
apartments with the others General Felipe Angeles, well know-
ing that he could not be corrupted from his fidelity to his
president. The president and vice-president resigned under
duress, by no means a legal resignation. An officer appeared
in the apartments with orders to remove Madero and Suarez.
He took them out into the street where they were both assas-
Washington and the Border
497
sinated, and Huerta came to the presidency. Angeles begged
to be taken out with the other two but the officer, having no
orders to take him, refused to do so, thereby saving Angeles's
life.
The adherents of Madero then revolted against the illegal
President Huerta, and Mexico was once more in the throes of
anarchy. Carranza, governor of Coahuila, had supported
Madero in his revolution against Diaz, but soon revolted against
Madero, moved, it was reported, by a demand made upon him
by President Madero to account for 200,000,000 pesos, gov-
ernment money, for which he had failed to account. He joined
the revolution against Huerta, apparently determined to op-
pose everybody.
Carranza was a man of some education, whereas, the gen-
erals of the revolution were mainly illiterate. It was agreed
among them that Carranza should be called the First Chief
of the Revolution for the Restoration of the Constitution of
1857, until victory could be secured, after which the victorious
generals would elect a provisional president who should call
a general election in Mexico in a constitutional way.
The administration of Huerta was recognized by a few
countries, but our Government refused its recognition and was
followed in this refusal by a number of other foreign countries.
Huerta controlled the southern and eastern part of the coun-
try. With the exception of the mountains about Mexico, con-
trolled by Zapata, Huerta's power extended up the Central
Railway to our border.
Carranza, finding Coahuila too hot to hold him, fled across
Mexico to Hermosillo on the Pacific, where he occupied him-
self in dancing and dining, far out of harm's way.
Shortly before my arrival at El Paso, the town of Juarez
across the Rio Grande had been attacked and taken by the
Huertistas, during the battle for which many citizens of El
Paso had congregated near the Rio Grande to watch the battle,
498
Some Memories of a Soldier
resulting in loss of life on this side by Mexican bullets from
across the line.
One of my first acts was to call on Mr. Stewart, at his bank,
and request him to introduce me to the mayor of El Paso,
through whom I wanted to get control of the police during the
next battle across the river to prevent any more loss of life on
this side. I knew the police force was too small to control the
populace and I did not want to put my troops in direct contact
with the crowds, but if the police were placed in direct con-
tact, backed up by the military, they could accomplish much
more. Mr. Stewart said: "I will introduce you to the mayor
some other time, and will do better than that for you now.
I will send for the man who controls the mayor."
This individual soon arranged for a municipal ordinance to
be published warning the people away from the danger zone,
and it was agreed that I should control the police in the next
emergency.
Mr. Stewart then sent for the general manager of the rail-
way to come to the bank and it was soon arranged with him
that troops coming to the defense of El Paso should have the
right of way on the railroad whenever asked for, and he agreed
to place a train of coal cars along the river bank that would
keep many of the Mexican bullets out of the city. I was then
ready to act and sent word to both belligerents to keep their
bullets on their own side of the Rio Grande or they would be
returned with interest.
A fire control station was established on top of a grain
elevator, defended from bullets by sand bags. From this eleva-
tion an observer could look right over into the barracks and
down into the heart of Juarez, and our artillery was placed so
as to render Juarez untenable should this become necessary.
Other troops were disposed so as to guard the water supply
and light plant of the city, and still other troops were camped
near at hand for the swift taking of Juarez-all this because
Washington and the Border
499
of an anticipated attack on Juarez by Villa, who was then some
distance west along the border at Janos and Palomas Springs.
Villa took my warning-not to endanger El Paso very
much to heart. He captured Juarez by a brilliant stroke of
genius unlooked for from him, a coup of which any soldier
would be proud. He seized a railway station some distance south
of Juarez, capturing the telegraph operator and substituting his
own. He sent false messages to the commander at Juarez,
which kept him reassured of his safety. He also captured a
train, put his men in it and took Juarez during the night while
the garrison was asleep. There was some little firing in the
morning but Villa had so arranged it that his line of fire was up
the river and none went across into El Paso.
While Juarez was still under Huerta control, I was at dinner
one day with Colonel West, commanding Fort Bliss, when
a telephone message was received from our commissioner of
immigration at the Rio Grande Bridge, asking for help. One
of his immigration officials had been decoyed across the line,
where he had been arrested by Huertista soldiers, who con-
ducted him around the town to the place where executions were
usually held. Believing that they were about to execute him,
he attempted to escape and was severely wounded, put in the
Mexican guard-house without medical attention. The commis-
sioner was afraid the man would bleed to death. I told him this
was a matter far outside of my jurisdiction and belonged to
the State Department. He was advised to call upon our consul
at Juarez. He answered he had done so without result, and now
if I would not do something the man would die. I then called
up our consul at Juarez, who informed me that he could do
nothing-the man had been charged with misdemeanor and
the law was taking its course. The Mexican consul in El Paso
told me the same thing-the law was taking its course, but
in the meantime the man was bleeding to death. I was not then
allowed to cross the border lest something happen to me, or
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Some Memories of a Soldier
I could have gone at once to the Mexican commander and
brought away the man.
However, a carriage was ordered and, leaving our dinners,
my aide and I drove the five miles into El Paso, and went first
to the international bridge to get a full understanding of the
facts, and thence to the house of the Mexican consul who had
gone to bed. He was induced to get up, take my carriage over
to Juarez and bring away the wounded man, who was put in
the hospital in El Paso before daylight and eventually recov-
ered, though he might have bled to death while I was obliged
to lose time in telephoning. I could have done far more for
our people in Mexico if I could have freely crossed the border.
Both General Villa and Obregon, the latter still governor of
Sonora, took an interest in me and sent me many kindly mes-
sages. They later sent large signed photographs of themselves
which I still have.
Villa asked to be permitted to visit me at Fort Bliss, Texas,
but under the conditions then prevailing I was obliged to tell
him that if he came over to our side of the line I would have
to arrest him. He then invited me to visit him in Juarez, but
he was informed that my government would not permit me to
cross the Mexican border. So he asked me to meet him in the
middle of the International Bridge over the Rio Grande at El
Paso, to which I assented.
MEETING WITH VILLA ON BRIDGE
We met in the middle of the bridge one dark night and sat
on the back seat of his machine for two hours in the darkness.
I took Colonel Michie, my aide, and an orderly, while Villa
had quite a guard waiting at his end of the bridge. This was
a short time after he had killed, or caused to be killed, the
Englishman Benton for talking to him in a way he did not like,
and there was great terror of him in the Rio Grande Valley.
Washington and the Border
501
Villa had become quite temperamental in the use of his gun,
which he carried always, pulling and using it suddenly, not
always with sufficient cause, and the question was sometimes
asked if his mind was functioning normally. It was "shoot
first and ask questions afterward" with Villa, due probably to
the hunted life he had always led as a bandit, guarding himself
like a wolf.
There is nothing that men like Villa respect so much as
truthful, direct, forceful statements, no matter how unpalat-
able. Like a child or a dog these primitive people know well
with whom they are dealing and are impressed accordingly.
Although the way Villa was talked to on this occasion might
be considered undiplomatic in the light of the recent fate of
Benton, in reality it captured his respect and good will, which
survived some very rude shocks and lasted as long as he lived.
My directness has served the same purpose many times in the
Indian country and in the Philippines, but any sign of weakness
in its employ ruins everything and may cost one's life, as it
did Benton's.
Villa spoke no English and after we had become somewhat
acquainted, I told him, "Civilized people look on you as a tiger
or a wolf."
"Me," he exclaimed in great surprise.
"Yes," I told him, "you."
"How is that?" he asked.
"Why, from the way you kill wounded and unarmed pris-
oners. Didn't you kill a hundred and twenty-five unarmed
prisoners the other day at Cases Grandes?"
"Why, those were my enemies," he exclaimed, as if that was
what enemies were meant for.
"There it is," I said. "Civilized people don't do that. You
will only bring down on your own head the execration of civ-
ilized people when you do that."
He answered, "Well, I will do anything you tell me."
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Some Memories of a Soldier
"Stop that, then," I told him. "You injure your own cause
by it, in the minds of all foreigners."
I gave him a little publication sent me by General Wood,
written by the General Staff of the British Army on how to
treat prisoners and conquered peoples. He had it translated
into Spanish, put it out among his troops, and was guided by
it himself to the extent of refraining from killing the next
four thousand prisoners that fell into his hands. This shows
him susceptible to good influences, even if this was only tem-
porary.
Mr. Carothers of the State Department traveled in his
private train with him, and his influence over Villa softened
the lot of many Americans in Mexico. The influence of Felix
Summerfield, a former soldier of the German Army, was ex-
erted often with success in the same direction. He also retained
the confidence of Villa until his death. I owe him gratitude for
services to our Government in Mexico when I was not allowed
to cross the border, which he freely and faithfully rendered
without thought of compensation, as a duty to our Government,
and in friendliness to me.
Villa was quite illiterate, and when I first knew him could
do no more than write his own name. Later I saw him slowly
puzzling out some printed matter with apparent difficulty, but
could not tell how much of it he understood. His letters were
always written by his secretary on a typewriter and signed by
himself, "Francisco Villa." The name Francisco is often called
"Pancho" in Mexico, and hence many called him "Pancho
Villa."
He had dark curly hair and was thought by some to have
had negro blood, which I do not believe, and never heard it
asserted by anybody likely to know the truth. He was said to
have taken to banditry because he had resented the treatment
of his sister by a young Rico and had to flee for his life. He
always impressed me as a man of great force and energy and
Washington and the Border
503
willing to do right when directed by those he respected. After
all, he was a poor peon without any advantages in his youth,
persecuted and pursued through the mountains, his life always
in danger; but he had the cause of the peon at heart. He was
fully aware of his own deficiencies and even at the height of
his power had no desire for the presidency, well knowing that
he could not maintain himself in that position. But he did want
it for Felipe Angeles, who could have changed the whole his-
tory of Mexico. I heard Villa declare several times, "there have
been too many dictators in Mexico and there never shall be
another as long as I am alive."
Some time before this, dissatisfied soldiers of our army on
the border would desert the service, join Villa's and be safe
from arrest, but when three cavalry men deserted near
Palomas, took their horses and arms and joined Villa's forces,
I asked him to arrest and return them, which he promptly
did. These men were tried on charges of desertion and stealing
arms and horses, and received a sentence of twelve years in
prison. The idea became prevalent that my arm was long
enough to reach American deserters on both sides of the line
and after this incident there were no more desertions on that
border.
Taking advantage of my excellent relations with Obregon,
governor of Sonora, although I had never seen him, I asked
him to take care of the American canals and ditches and other
property in the delta of the Colorado in Mexico. The owner
of the "Los Angeles Times" had much property there. This
did not belong under my jurisdiction, which ended at the Cali-
fornia border. It fell in the district of the commanding gen-
eral at San Francisco. Obregon promised to do his best and
did it, for I never heard of any of that property, or property
in the Imperial Valley, being injured.
I made a report to the War Department of my meeting on
the bridge with Villa. The press got hold of this in some garbled
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Some Memories of a Soldier
form and thought this meeting was to be held some time in the
future. The crowd of newspaper men then on the border dogged
my footsteps for two weeks in order to be present at this sup-
posed meeting and I took great pleasure in leading them astray,
evening up matters for the many times they put something
over on me in a friendly way.
Soon after the release of General Angeles by Huerta, who
had nothing against the former but his honesty and fidelity,
he joined Villa as his chief of artillery. Because of his education
in the Ecole Polytechnique at Paris, his previous experience as
commander of the military school at Chapultepec, and the
great esteem and respect he enjoyed among all factions in
Mexico, he proved himself a valuable assistant to Villa in his
revolt against Huerta. Villa went down the Central Railway,
driving the Huertistas before him and arming himself with
their artillery, while Carranza, still dancing and dining, came
up to our border at Nogales, thence gradually to Juarez where
he was in no sort of danger.
PEACE IN MEXICO
When Huerta abandoned Mexico by way of Vera Cruz,
Villa and Carranza obtained possession of Mexico City. But
during 1915 the turmoil in Mexico, with consequent injury to
American interests across the line, as well as on our own side
of the border, seemed interminable. Mexico made no pretense
of protecting our territory from Mexican aggression, and we
had to maintain a military patrol twelve hundred miles long
at an expense of millions. In fact, Mexico has been a bad neigh-
bor ever since the ending of the Diaz régime, without desire
apparently to do her part.
A scheme was worked out with Mr. James Garfield, one-time
secretary of the interior in the Roosevelt cabinet, and with
Mr. Rhoades of Los Angeles, that gave great promise of
stabilizing conditions in Mexico, provided our State Depart-

MR. W. S. STEWART, GENERAL FRANCISCO VILLA AND GENERAL SCOTT
Washington and the Border
505
ment would give its consent. The plan was based primarily
upon the fact that a member of Madero's cabinet, then living
quietly in Mexico City with the respect of all parties, had
never resigned after the deaths of President Madero and Vice-
President Suarez, and the succession made him the de jure
president of Mexico. It was proposed that both the Villista
and Carranzista factions be brought to agree that he be recog-
nized as the de facto as well as de jure president with a bi-
partisan cabinet, half Carranzista and half Villista, and that
our State Department immediately stabilize this composite gov-
ernment by recognition and allow it to import arms and muni-
tions of war with which to maintain itself.
Villa agreed to this, and it remained to secure the adhesion
of one or two men-General Obregon or General Pablo Gon-
zales. The power of Carranza rested upon those two men
balanced against each other by Carranza, and the patriot-
ism of the one that had it, or both, could be appealed to
with the promise that they would be taken care of by the
new president in the cabinet or in the army. The matter
would have to be kept secret from Carranza, who had
determined to become president himself at all cost. This
plan, of course, would leave him out in the cold, where he
belonged.
The matter was submitted to the State Department with the
proposal that since the Villistas had agreed to the plan, I be
authorized to approach General Obregon and General Gon-
zales secretly, assuring them that they would be taken care of
if they would agree and carry out their agreement; otherwise
there would be an American gunboat in every Mexican port
to prevent the landing of arms and munition of war to the
Carranzista. I felt certain that I could secure the adherence
of one or both of these generals if permitted to try, which
would bring immediate peace to Mexico, but the State Depart-
ment would not say either yes or no, and all during the month
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Some Memories of a Soldier
of July, 1915, I almost had nervous prostration, feeling like
a dog tied up in the back yard, longing for my collar to be
taken off.
While in El Paso in August, authority came for me to see
Obregon, but I was obliged to reply that the attitude already
adopted in Washington had destroyed all prospect of success,
and the matter had to be dropped. Mr. Garfield believed in the
feasibility of the scheme, as did a number of the prominent
business men of El Paso, who were thoroughly familiar with
conditions in Mexico, who were anxious for a stable peace, and
who were consulted beforehand. The mistake I made was in
not going directly to President Wilson for there was every-
thing to gain and nothing to lose.
During 1914-1915, while I was in Washington, the revolu-
tion in Mexico was running at full blast with much danger to
our people on this side. Part of that time Villa stayed in
Mexico City while Carranza was living on the dock at Vera
Cruz with a steamer fired up ready to take him suddenly to
Jamaica out of harm's way.
GENERAL FELIPE ANGELES
General Felipe Angeles had been educated in the Ecole
Polytechnique at Paris and before the war was in charge of
the national military school of Chapultepec. He was an up-
right loyal gentleman who had the respect of all factions of
Mexico. His loyalty was so well known that when Huerta
revolted against his president and seized the government of
Mexico, he arrested Angeles, at the same time with Madero,
aware of his inability to corrupt him and confined President
Madero, Vice-President Suarez, and Angeles in the same apart-
ments in the palace in Mexico City.
When the officer came to take the president and vice-presi-
dent out to their deaths, Angeles begged to go with his chief;
but the officer, having orders only for the first two, would not
Washington and the Border
507
allow it, which was the only thing that saved his life. He was
released after the death of Madero, joined the revolution, and
was chief of artillery for Villa on his victorious march toward
the City of Mexico against Huerta.
After the split between Villa and Obregon, Angeles remained
with Villa, his immediate chief, who was driven back toward
our border. But it became dangerous for Angeles to stay with
Villa's staff, several members of which proclaimed their desire
to kill him because of his aloofness from their carousing and
his influence for good on Villa, and he decided to come over
and farm on our side of the line.
When he came up to Washington later, the press stated that
he was bringing me a car-load of Mexican blankets as a present
from Villa, and my friends wondered if I were going into the
mercantile business, but this car-load dwindled on his arrival
to two blankets, one having the coat of arms of Mexico woven
into it with the name of General Francisco Villa, and the
other bearing the coat of arms of the United States and the
name, "General Hugo L. Scott," but the colors clashed so that
they could be heard at a greater distance than the creaking of
the old Red River carts in Minnesota, which is saying a good
deal.
Angeles farmed for a while below El Paso on the Rio
Grande and later got a position in New York as inspector of
ammunition for the Allies, but at a call for his presence again
with Villa he rejoined and was captured by Carranzistas and
executed.
This was a great pity, for Angeles was the most cultivated
and loyal gentleman I have known in the history of Mexico and
he was Villa's candidate for president, as he was mine so far
as I had a right to have any.
Villa always disclaimed to me any ambition to be president,
being fully aware of his disqualifications, and he thought
Angeles the best man in Mexico for the position. Had this
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Some Memories of a Soldier
triumph been possible, Mexico would long ago have entered
into her own.
General Maytorena, (Villista) governor of Sonora, had Gen-
eral P. Elias Calles, now president of Mexico, and General
Benjamin Hill choked up against our border at Naco, en-
trenched in a half moon while his own forces were entrenched
about eight hundred yards away. General Bliss was encamped
on our side with a force to prevent the use of our soil by the
Mexicans and any violation of the neutrality laws.
The Mexicans had done great damage to the town of Naco,
having fired into transcontinental trains and killed or wounded
fifty-four persons on our side of the line, and the people of
Arizona were becoming very restless, asking for arms to de-
fend themselves and talking about taking their defense on
their own hands and invading Mexico. The control of such a
situation was in the hands of the State Department whenever
a telegram was received by the War Department with informa-
tion of the killing of our people. A copy would be hurried right
over to the State Department, but for all the attention it re-
ceived it might as well have been put in the fire.
A telegram arrived one day in Washington with information
that a citizen of Naco, going after his mail in his home town
post-office, had been shot through the heart and killed by a
Mexican bullet from across the line. This sent the blood to my
head, and seizing the telegram I broke into Secretary Garri-
son's office in a great rage, saying:
"I can't stand this any more! If Mr. Bryan won't do any-
thing I'll go down there and drive those Mexicans away my-
self!"
The idea that I could drive two armies away from the border
all by myself caused Secretary Garrison much merriment and
he asked me how I got that way. I told him that if he did not
want me to go I would drop the matter, and it was forthwith
dropped for two weeks.
N

International Film Service, Inc.
ON THE INTERNATIONAL BRIDGE OVER THE RIO GRANDE, GENERAL OBREGON (SECOND
FROM LEFT) GENERAL FUNSTON, AND GENERAL SCOTT
Washington and the Border
509
Mr. Garrison was exceedingly careful to keep the army
away from contact with the State Department, apparently
wishing it to avoid being embroiled with Secretary Bryan who
had a dislike for the army, which he evidenced on many occa-
sions. Two weeks later, however, the secretary, coming over
from the White House, said, "the President wants you to go
down and drive those two armies away."
I said, "All right.”
"When will you start?" he asked. I replied that the train
would leave in the evening and I would be on it, and taking
Colonel Michie and Randolph, my orderly, we went to Naco.
I saw Generals Calles and Hill at the border who told me
their troubles and I made out an agreement, as just as possible
to each side, calling for the immediate evacuation of Naco,
giving Calles a port of entry at Agua Prieta, opposite Douglas,
Arizona, and giving Maytorena the port of Nogales, Sonora,
of which province he was governor, but ordering both of them
to leave Naco and stop injuring our border people.
Calles and Hill, being the under dogs, signed at once to save
their lives. But Maytorena refused point blank to sign, saying
that more than eight hundred of his men had been killed there
and he was not going to ignore that sacrifice. He had Calles
just where he wanted him. He and his counsel, Morales, were
very violent and vindictive and could not be budged from their
purpose, in which they were supported by Maytorena's brother-
in-law, Bonillas.
It was very difficult for me to deal with them since I was not
allowed to cross the line and they would not come to see me
and all my efforts with them had to be carried on through third
parties. Finally, however, Maytorena met General Bliss and
myself on the line at Osborn, Arizona, where we had a little
wrangle at which he agreed to stop fighting on the border and
to move his car back ten miles from the line, but he would not
sign any agreement nor allow Calles to move.
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Some Memories of a Soldier
That was all very well but I did not want to stay all winter
on the border to keep him away from it, and sent for Villa
to come up from Mexico City to Juarez for a conference.
Morales heard that Villa was coming and went to Juarez and
far down the line to meet Villa and poison his mind against
me. He was so bitter against me at the last meeting that I took
him for a personal enemy although I had never seen him
before.
Michie and I went to Juarez where we met Villa in a large
room with about two hundred Mexicans. I sat down across the
table from Villa, my second meeting with him, and stated my
case. I wanted him to order General Maytorena to sign my
agreement to keep the border safe. Morales jumped up to an-
swer me and start an opposition going, and I said, "General
Villa, I came here to talk with you and not with that man. If
you don't want to talk to me I am going home." Villa turned
on Morales and ordered him to sit down. This caused Morales
to lose face before the crowd of Mexicans and he sat down in
a fury, I thought myself fortunate that I was not near enough
for him to stick me with a knife.
Villa did not want to give the order to Maytorena to sign
and we two locked horns there, like two bull elk, for two hours
swaying now this way, now that, until his neck at last got tired
and he agreed to make Maytorena sign. I jumped up at once
knowing, as every man in that room knew, that Villa would
carry out his promise once he had made it. I shook hands with
him and took my leave.
A traveler for Naco leaves El Paso in a sleeper at night and
reaches Douglas, Arizona, early in the morning and changes
there to a café car where they serve simple meals, and goes on
to Naco. Entering the car with Michie to get breakfast I saw
Mr. Morales just sitting down at a table, and I said, “Oh,
Señor, come have breakfast with us." I paid fifty cents for his
breakfast and got more value for that half dollar than for
Washington and the Border
511
any I ever expended in my life. We chatted on the affairs of
Mexico but made no reference to our own. He showed me a
Mexican geography which I examined, interested in seeing
what they taught the children of Mexico, and noted on the fly
leaf that he had paid $2.50 for it. When we parted he insisted
on my keeping the book which I have yet with his inscription.
I could not go to Maytorena's car and he would not come
across the border so I had to send my agreement for him to
sign, according to Villa's orders, through Felix Summerfield.
When the latter went to Maytorena's car he found it full of
Mexicans all opposed to signing my agreement, but Morales
had agreed to the signature and told Maytorena, as his counsel,
that he must sign it. Maytorena declared that he would never
sign it for me or Villa or anybody else, that he was going to
kill Hill and Calles if it was the last act of his life. When every-
body got tired of talking they all sat around with their heads
down. Morales turned on Maytorena, saying sharply, "When
are you going to sign that paper?" Maytorena then seized the
pen roughly, signed the paper, and threw the pen down on
the floor with all his might, breaking into tears of rage and
mortification. Morales seized the paper before he could recant,
and handed it to Summerfield who left immediately to hurry
it to me at Naco. All this I got for fifty cents and a little
politeness. The Latin-American is very susceptible to polite-
ness. He is very polite himself and wants you to be also, but
doesn't expect much from an American whose brusqueness
rubs his fur the wrong way. But one won't get far in Mexico
without it-there or in any Latin-American country.
Both forces evacuated Naco in accordance with the agree-
ment and no hostile shot was fired over that border for eight
months or as long as that political situation endured. May-
torena and I became great friends afterward. He went to live
in Los Angeles and every time he came to New York he always
stopped in Washington to see me. The result of my trip pleased
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Some Memories of a Soldier
Secretary Garrison immensely and he wanted to hear every
detail. He had not believed it possible for me to make those
two armies go away from Naco. I felt I could make them do
it if allowed to try but could give no reason for my belief. And
I cannot justify it now, unless it is that one is usually able to
do what he feels he can do even if he has no reason for his
belief.
General Bliss had kindly invited me on arrival at Naco to
stay in his tent, where we used to sit late around a stove after
meals. When Maytorena agreed to move his car back ten
miles we congratulated each other that the firing into Naco
would cease and our men might come out of their bomb-proof
of baled hay. Notwithstanding this, pandemonium broke out
in the night soon after, in which rifles, bombs, and cannon were
all employed, and it sounded as if all Mexico was attacking
us. The chief of staff rushed in to notify us of the attack but
I would not get up, enjoying the excitement. I asked finally
what day and what time it was and it dawned on everybody
that the racket was being made over the celebration of New
Year's-December 31, 1915, 12 o'clock midnight. The Mexi-
cans must have fired off thousands of dollars' worth of ammu-
nition into the air, where we were willing to have it go rather
than across our border.
The evacuation of Naco reassured the people of Arizona and
talk of invading Mexico ceased. One day Villa drove me about
Juarez and during the drive told me that he had just been
approached by an envoy of Japan in Mexico who asked what
Mexico would do in case Japan made war on the United States.
That interested me very much and I asked his reply. He said
he answered, "If Japan makes war on the United States you
will find all the resources of Mexico against you." This may
be compared with the intrigues entered into with Zimmermann
by Carranza during our war with Germany. Villa said also
"there can never be another cause of friction on this border
L
763
Yer
and
bout
been
wher
„JTS
SE
221
APCH
al
order
Ejército Constitucionalista
DIVISION DEL NORTE
GENERAL EN JEFE
TELEGRAMA:
De C. Juárez a Nogales, Son.- Enero 9 de 1915.
MUY URGENTE.
Sr. José Ma. Maytorena, Gobernador del Estado.
Participo a Ud. para su conocimiento que en las
conferencias celebradas ayer y hoy, en El Paso, Tex', y en esta
ciudad, con el Gral. Scott, acordamos después de maduras dis-
cusiones que Ud. firme el convenio propuesto por el Gral.
Scott, por lo que se servira Ud. Hacerlo desde luego para de-
jar solucionada la situación de Naco. Ya en su oportunidad
comunearé a Ud. más detalles sobre el particular.
contestación de enterado y salúdolo afectuosamente.
El General Jefe de Operaciones
Francisco Villor
Espero su
TELEGRAM FROM GENERAL VILLA TO GOVERNOR MAYTORENA, JANUARY 9, 1915
Washington and the Border
513
if you and I can get together, and I will come up from Mexico
City any time you send for me."
Maytorena kept his agreement most scrupulously as a man
of honor, even after I was far away. I have lately seen some of
the published telegrams of that time to his own people in Mex-
ico, which prove his high sense of honor in carrying out this
agreement. In fact, none of those Mexicans ever broke his
word to me, and my association with every one of them was
very agreeable to me except with Carranza, Salza, and Fierro.
I got on well with them all but respected none of the three.
Incidentally, Fierro was said to have had thirty-four Mexicans
in a house in Parral to have gone about killing them one after
another with his own pistol because the act gave him pleasure.
EL PASO AGAIN
Early in August, 1915, I was sent for by Assistant Secretary
of War Breckinridge to meet him in the office of Secretary of
State Lansing where I met also Mr. Paul Fuller. Secretary
Lansing told me that he was in dire trouble; that Villa had
ordered the managers of the mines of North Mexico to come
to his office in the city of Chihuahua on August 9, 1915, and
to bring power of attorney from their companies to give him
what money he should demand, or he would destroy their
mines, and he was not going to be stingy with himself in his
demands.
The secretary asked if I would not help him. I said, "I will
help you very soon, Mr. Secretary, if you want to invade
Mexico." He said, "You know we can't do that.” I asked him
how he expected me to help him then; Villa was a wild man
who needed funds for his operations and was going to take
them as all the other belligerents were doing. All I could do
was to go down there and ask him please not to do it, which
Mr. Lansing could do himself.
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Villa might say, I argued, that he did not like the length of
my nose or the way my ears were set and tell me to go back
home, and I would have to go. "There are about thirty bright
young newspaper men in here searching for news every day,"
I added. "Who can tell but that I might come back to
Washington like a dog with his tail between his legs, and be
held up to ridicule all over the United States. Is that what you
want to push me into?"
The secretary said, "No, but those mining men are on my
back. I cannot get them off and I don't know what to do.
What are your relations with Villa, anyway?"
I told him what Villa had said at our last meeting: that there
could be no cause of friction on the border if he and I could
get together and that he would come up from Mexico City
any time I sent for him. "Won't you please go then?" the sec-
retary asked in such a pitiful way that I had to say "yes," but
now I wish I had not done so.
It was too near the date of Villa's meeting to reach El Paso
before the meeting and I telegraphed Villa not to do anything
until I could see him. We met in the house of Mr. Joe Williams,
vice-president of the City National Bank, El Paso, and after
some discussion Villa agreed to revoke his order about the
miners.
I was then asked to rescue property Villa had confiscated
of the Japonera Company, south of Torreon, to the amount
of $1,600,000, which was being carted away by the trainload.
My old friend, Juan Brittinham, was the manager of the Q
Company which was owned mainly by French and English stock-
holders. Villa agreed to give that up. Then I was asked to res-
cue merchandise that Villa had confiscated to the amount of
more than three million dollars, the property of foreign mer-
chants of Chihuahua. In all, there was more than six million
dollars for which I had no equivalent to offer Villa or promises
Washington and the Border
515
to make, and he gave them up because I asked him; no more
and no less.
They gave me the directors' room in the bank to receive
visitors where I was appealed to by General Luis Terrazas,
formerly overlord of Chihuahua, to get his son, Luis Chico,
away from Villa who had him locked up in Chihuahua, refused
to give him any liquor, saying that he was going to cure him
of his had habits, and had already hung him up and let him
down several times, forcing him to divulge the location of
half a million dollars he had hidden away. I was sorry to have
to tell the general that I could not intervene between Mexicans
lest I lose all influence with Villa in taking care of American
interests. There is only a certain amount of interference a
wild man will stand and Villa's limit was nearly reached.
All the generals of the revolution confiscated property
wherever they found it, just as Villa did, but many were far
more selfish about it, building up a private fortune for them-
selves. I was told by the banker who handled his money that
Villa had no fortune put away; that whatever he got he spent
right away for food, clothing, and ammunition for his men,
whom he took care of to the best of his ability. I never heard
that Villa took part in the looting of Mexico City, but I did
hear that Carranza did, sending trainloads of furniture to his
home in Coahuila. I don't suppose, however, that Villa sat
idly by at a looting.
Villa never drank or smoked and he would close all the liquor
shops at the taking of a town, in order to keep his men under
control. He had about him a wild, lawless lot of bandits who
were difficult to manage, and he felt he could keep discipline
only with the revolver, which he always carried; if he caught
a man disobeying his orders he had no hesitancy in pulling
and shooting, and disobedience soon became unfashionable.
We hear gasps of horror at the idea of such a man, but he
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was no worse than many of the others who staged executions;
they all did it more or less. Villa had been brought up in that
atmosphere and did not know any better. A hunted man during
a large part of his life, he was as unmoral as a wolf; neverthe-
less he had some fine qualities if you could reach them, and
with all his faults I considered him to have a far better char-
acter than Carranza. He never violated his compacts with me,
although they were made without consideration, not even with
the traditional "one dollar."
Villa once told me that he had begun that revolution with
nine men. It was no ordinary man that could start with nine
followers and rise to the command of forty thousand men and
to control of Mexico City. Carranza became jealous of him
while he was still fighting Carranza's battle, and cut off his
supplies of ammunition and coal through his control of the
only port of entry at Tampico, and of the coal mines of
Coahuila. Villa soon started downhill to his ruin in consequence.
While sitting in his house in Juarez I got a message from the
mine managers asking whether I could arrange an interview
for them with Villa. He said, "Bring them in," and he told them
that he had been going to use their money to buy coal and
showed them that it was to their benefit, as well as to his, to
keep the trains running. They ended by presenting him with
a thousand tons of coal. They told me that this was the first
time they had ever been able actually to talk with Villa; that
he used to pull his pistol and give his orders, and no one re-
monstrated or disobeyed.
Had I been able with former Secretary Garfield to establish
peace in Mexico while Villa was still in Mexico City, I had
intended to put the latter in school at Fort Leavenworth where
he might learn the rudiments of morals. I went to call on the
President upon my return from the border to make my report,
and told him that there were rumors that he was going to
recognize Carranza and urged him not to do it. He did not
Washington and the Border
517
reveal his intentions then but he recognized Carranza in a few
months, in October, 1915. I never knew why. I asked the
officers of the State Department, junior to the secretary, why
such a thing had been done and they said they did not know,
for they had all advised against it, a month previous to the
recognition. That information has always made the President's
step even more of a mystery to me.
The recognition of Carranza had the effect of solidifying
the power of the man who had rewarded us with kicks on every
occasion, and of making an outlaw of the man who had helped
us. We permitted Carranza to send his troops through the
United States by our rails to crush Villa. I did what I could to
prevent this but was not powerful enough. I had never been put
in such a position in my life. After Villa had given up millions
of dollars at the request of the State Department, expressed
through me, they made him an outlaw. He was a wild man who
could not be expected to know the difference between the duties
of the State and War Departments, and might very well have
thought that I double-crossed him, had he not had the con-
fidence in me that he did. No white man, no negro, no Indian,
no Moro nor any person, however humble, ever had as much
right as Villa to believe I had turned against him, yet he
telegraphed a mutual friend in New York that General Scott
was the only honest man north of Mexico-he had once in-
cluded the President but now he dropped him out altogether.
He never lost confidence in me to the day of his death. The
first thing he would ask when meeting Americans was after
General Scott, although when he sent an emissary to me in
Washington I refused to have anything to do with him until
I had proof from two Americans that he had cleared himself
of his attack on Columbus. I have always believed he was too
wise to make such an attack willingly.
It is certain that a member of the Associated Press made
arrangements for Villa to come to Columbus with a view of
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Some Memories of a Soldier
conducting him to Washington, until Mr. Melville Stone, direc-
tor of the Associated Press, quashed the plan. Anyway, I have
always believed that Villa came up to the border for the pur-
pose of going to Washington, and found the plan quashed,
that his men there, hungry and naked, got out of hand and
started to loot the town against Villa's will. I am further guided
in this belief by a surgeon of Albuquerque, N. M., who said
that a Mexican boy, whom he took into the hospital and kept
until he was well, told him that he had held Villa's horse while
the raid was on, and that neither of them went into the
town.
After matters had somewhat settled the Mexican Govern-
ment placed Villa and his followers on some rich land in Du-
rango with eight hundred mules and carloads of harness and
agricultural implements. He started farming on a large scale.
He gave two thousand dollars to the church and he made a
tremendous outcry when some bad bandit stole some of his
mules. He drove up one night to a house, where he was ac-
customed to go, in an automobile with some of his friends. He
was received by a volley that killed all the party. The report
was that the murder was done on the instance of the Mexican
Government, but that I have never heard proved.
Villa was a great sinner but had been greatly sinned against.
He had the germs of greatness in him and the capability of
higher things under happier circumstances.
IN SUPPORT OF PERSHING
Secretary Newton K. Baker was appointed as the new sec-
retary of war early in 1916. He had been offered a portfolio in
1913 but had declined, saying that he had put his hand to
the plow as mayor of Cleveland and could not leave it until
he had finished the furrow; now that his furrow was done,
however, he might accept. If I remember correctly, the Presi-
Washington and the Border
519
dent brought him over to the War Department to introduce
him personally.
It is the custom for the Chief of Staff to resign as such on
the appearance of a new secretary or president, to allow him
to have a chief of staff of his own selection. I told Secretary
Baker that it was by no means necessary for him to take
Secretary Garrison's leavings; that the whole Army was open
to him from which to choose a chief of staff, and if he
would give me the name of his selection I would order him
there in ten minutes. The secretary put his hand on my
shoulder and said that he did not want a new chief of staff.
"I am going to look up to you as to my father," he told
me. "I am going to do what you advise me, and if either of us
have to leave this building, I am going first." This put us on
relations of confidence at once which I am happy to say nothing
ever occurred to alter.
Secretary Baker was but a short time in office when
Columbus, New Mexico, was raided by Mexicans in the mid-
dle of the night. The garrison, commanded by Colonel H. J.
Slocum, Thirteenth Cavalry, was attacked at the same time.
It turned out at once and after a battle in the streets in the
dark our troops drove the Mexicans out of town, and were
followed far into Mexico by Colonel Frank Tomkins, inflict-
ing heavy loss upon the enemy. Having turned out so suddenly
in the night without rations or equipage, Tomkins was obliged
to return to Columbus to refit and get something to eat.
In Washington the secretary came over from the cabinet
meeting next day and said, "I want you to start an expedition
into Mexico to catch Villa."
This seemed very strange to me and I asked:
"Mr. Secretary, do you want the United States to make war
on one man? Suppose he should get on the train and go to
Guatemala, Yucatan, or South America; are you going to go
after him?"
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Some Memories of a Soldier
He said, "Well, no, I am not,"
"That is not what you want then. You want his band cap-
tured or destroyed," I suggested.
"Yes," he said, "that is what I really want." And after his
approval the following telegram was sent to General Funston
at San Antonio, in which it will be seen that no mention is made
of the capture of Villa himself.
War Department Telegram
Official Business
Washington, March 10, 1916.
TRANSLATION.
Commanding General, Southern Department,
Fort Sam Houston, Texas.
Number 883.
You will promptly organize an adequate military force of troops
from your department under the command of Brigadier-General
John J. Pershing and will direct him to proceed promptly across the
border in pursuit of the Mexican band which attacked the town of
Columbus, New Mexico, and the troops there on the morning of the
ninth instant. Those troops will be withdrawn to American territory
as soon as the de facto government of Mexico is able to relieve them
of this work. In any event the work of these troops will be re-
garded as finished as soon as Villa's band or bands are known to be
broken up. In carrying out these instructions you are authorized
to employ whatever guides and interpreters are necessary and you
are given general authority to employ such transportation, including
motor transportation, with necessary civilian personnel as may be
required. The President desires his following instructions to be care-
fully adhered to and to be strictly confidential. You will instruct
the commanders of your troops on the border opposite the state
of Chihuahua and Sonora, or, roughly, within the field of possible
operations by Villa and not under the control of the force of the
de facto government, that they are authorized to use the same tactics
of defense and pursuit in the event of similar raids across the
border and into the United States by a band or bands such as at-
tacked Columbus, New Mexico, yesterday. You are instructed to
Washington and the Border
521
make all practicable use of the aeroplanes at San Antonio, Texas, for
observation. Telegraph for whatever reinforcements or material you
need. Notify this office as to force selected and expedite movement.
MCCAIN.
As General Pershing was at El Paso near by, the troops for
the pursuit were being taken from his command, and I recom-
mended that he be the one to go in charge of the punitive ex-
pedition, which Secretary Baker approved, and the force was
then launched in pursuit. Secretary Lansing returned from the
same cabinet meeting and was met by the press correspondents,
searching for news. He told them, "We are sending an expedi-
tion into Mexico to catch Villa."
This was what went out to the country. But we never did
catch Villa, because circumstances halted the expedition before
it could do so, and anyway there was nothing in the order about
catching Villa himself. Our troops captured and killed many
Mexicans, and brought some up for trial on the border in
New Mexico. The band has never reassembled since. Pershing
made a complete success in the accomplishment of his orders
from the War Department point of view but the State Depart-
ment, by putting out erroneous information, spoiled the effect
in the minds of the public. Neither the State Department nor
the Press, moreover, has ever corrected this unfortunate im-
pression; in fact, this is, in all probability, the first correction
that has ever been publicly made.
I ordered General Funston to send his inspector-general to
Columbus at once to investigate all the circumstances con-
nected with the raid. He exonerated Colonel Slocum from all
criticism in the matter; we were at peace with Mexico, and a
garrison is not expected to be constantly on guard against a
friendly neighbor. The Mexican line barred him from search-
ing out the near-by country and most anything could be pre-
pared over the first hill south of the line. At his own expense,
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Some Memories of a Soldier
he did send a messenger to look into rumors, who came back
and reported no danger imminent. Notwithstanding this he had
sent an additional troop of cavalry to the line to be certain, but
the country is so vast that he could not have stopped the
Mexicans from crossing the line in the darkness even if he had
had every man in his command guarding the border. The
inspector-general's report was approved by General Pershing,
as well as by General Funston, and I sent it to the inspector-
general of the army for review, who returned it to me "ap-
proved"; I signed it approved and it was finally approved by
the secretary of war which is the record now in the War
Department.
While Pershing was still in Mexico, Obregon began to talk
about taking San Antonio in two weeks, knowing nothing more
about conditions in the North than did General Weyler of
the Spanish Army, who talked of landing at Charleston, S. C.,
and marching through the South, gathering up recruits with
which to overwhelm the North, because the North and the
South had once been at war, and the South would like to assist
Spain in overcoming the North. But things were beginning
to warm up again on the Mexican side. I advised the President
to call out the militia and put them along the border. He
opposed this, saying that such action would only have the
effect of provoking the Mexicans. I told him that I thought
it would have the opposite effect.
"The people of Mexico," I argued, "are ignorant and un-
traveled; they see a thin line twelve hundred miles long and
believe they can break through it, as they easily can, but they
have no idea of what will happen afterward, and you are
tempting them, through their ignorance, to try to break
through. Of course, the militia cannot operate in those deserts
-they would kill themselves in a short time if they were
to try to march through them-but they can wear a uniform,
carry a rifle, and occupy towns so as to release the regular
Washington and the Border
523
troops for mobile purposes. Should Mexico actually try to
occupy Texas in force and attack San Antonio, you will have
a real war on your hands that might easily have been averted."
But the President did not want to provoke the Mexicans
by a show of force on the border, as he did not want to pro-
voke Germany by preparation, which seemed to me to be a
pernicious doctrine.
As time went on, however, and war became more and more
imminent, I was surprised one day to receive an order to
call out the militia for service on the border.
That body had impressed upon Congress their desire for
active service. Now that they were getting it they didn't want
it, and many organizations had great difficulty in getting the
requisite number of men to fill their quotas, and some never
got them, although a regular house to house canvass was made
at home and the Government needed men badly.
Fifty thousand were at length placed at Nogales, Arizona,
fifty thousand at El Paso, Texas, and fifty thousand at Browns-
ville, Texas. The plan was to invade Mexico on three lines,
along their main railways, should it become necessary. Of
course, all the important points on the border were guarded,
besides.
After the militia once appeared where their numbers could
actually be seen we heard no more talk of taking San Antonio.
Mexico knows well now just how far she may go in the matter
of baiting Uncle Sam, and although we allow her to go too
far sometimes, because few of us understand the conditions,
she doesn't want war any more than we do. Our effort in the
World War surprised everybody, and Mexico knows to-day
that she would not be a mouthful if we were to turn crusty.
The militia was sent to the border with remarkable celerity,
thanks to the arrangements Colonel Chauncey Baker had
made with the various railroads some time before. The troops
and their politicians at home made a great noise over the fact
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Some Memories of a Soldier
that they were not all sent in tourist sleepers, but there were
not enough in existence to take all of them. Those who could
not be given tourist cars traveled in coaches, two and three
men to two seats, the best that could be done for them. The
same men were glad enough to travel in horse cars in
France.
It began to look as if some overt step would be taken in
Mexico that would cause us to invade, and it was agreed
with the secretary that General Funston was to command
the eastern column, General Pershing the central, and General
Sage, then stationed at Nogales, the western. The question re-
maining was: who should command the whole? My staff said,
"This is the opportunity of your life; take command yourself
and come back another Scott, Conqueror of Mexico." I said,
"No, I am not going to take advantage of my position in that
way," and went to the secretary to select a commander for
the whole. He asked whom I recommended and I said Gen-
eral Wood.
He said, "Why do you pick him?"
I told him, "General Wood is the ranking major-general
and the ablest we have."
He directed me not to do anything about it until he notified
me, but a week went by with no selection made and I began
to get uneasy. I told the secretary that time was passing
rapidly and I had no commander yet.
He said, "Do you want to change your recommendation?"
and I answered "No, sir." He then told me that this selection
was not possible, for the President had directed that I should
take command myself. Thus had we invaded Mexico I would
have commanded the whole, which would have suited me very
well since it had proved the wish of the President; at the same
time I would not have taken advantage of my position to
seize that command myself.
Washington and the Border
525
The A. B. C. proceedings halted all that, however, and the
invasion was never made. The militia remained on the border
until the President thought matters quiet again, when he
ordered it home.
The militia considered itself abused when its desire for
Federal service was taken at face value, and charged that
the move had been made to show up its deficiencies, which
were many and great. As a matter of fact, a broader benefit
than imagined had been afforded by their very faults; and the
mere fact that their quota was never filled made it plain to
the meanest intellect that conscription must be resorted to in
the next war or failure faced. The experience had an invaluable
effect in the training of officers for the World War; this was
true in the regular service as well as in the militia, in the line
as well as on the staff.
Naturally enough, the Mexican Government was very much
upset at the presence of Pershing and our troops in Mexico.
In April, 1916, I was directed to go from Washington to San
Antonio for a conference with General Funston and while
still there we were both ordered to El Paso to confer with
General Obregon, then secretary of war of Mexico. We met
in the Aduana at Juarez where General Funston allowed his
real sentiments to be expressed so brusquely that he lost his
influence in those conferences, and he thought it best for him
not to attend any more. The emphatic actions that accompanied
his words were seen through a window by Mexican newspaper-
men, whose interpretations of the matter were broadcast all
over Mexico. Little more was done at this conference than to
ask Generals Obregon and Jacinto Trevino to dine in our car
that was parked on a side track in the El Paso yards, ready to
take us in any direction.
A few days after General Obregon asked me to meet him
in the Paso del Norte Hotel, El Paso. There were about thirty
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Some Memories of a Soldier
press correspondents in town watching events with a camera
constantly near each end of our car. Our departure from the
car was telephoned all over town, and our every movement
watched.
I wanted to get into Obregon's room at the hotel without
the knowledge of anybody else, for delicate negotiations can-
not be successful in a crowd. I started up town in a direction
opposite from that of the hotel, making small purchases here
and there for an hour until I thought suspicion allayed, then
I stopped a covered laundry wagon, got in it, and asked to be
put down at the service entrance of the hotel, and was taken
up on the baggage elevator to the proper floor. Thus far my
rôle as a heavy sleuth had gone well. I knew the number of
Obregon's room, but I got in the wrong corridor, and suddenly
a Hearst correspondent, coming out of his room unaware of my
presence, spied me and called out "I got you." It was only a
few minutes before there were twenty-seven newspaper men
in the corridor before Obregon's room, but I got in the general's
room, shutting the newspaper men out.
When we began to talk I asked General Obregon who was
the Mexican secretary of war-if he still occupied that post
with full powers. He said "yes." I had not been informed upon
whose initiative the conference was called, but I regarded the
subject matter to be discussed as a modus vivendi―and our
object an agreement satisfactory to both Governments. It was
my problem now to obtain Obregon's, signature to an agree-
ment that would permit Pershing to stay in Mexico as long
as our President wanted him there, without his being assaulted
by Mexicans, who were reported as contemplating an attack
by seventeen thousand men held in the Pulpit Pass of Sonora,
ready to cut Pershing's line of communication and shut him
off from his base; we understood another attack would proceed
at the same time from the south. I had no sort of anxiety about
Pershing's ability to take care of himself, but a real battle
Washington and the Border
527
would culminate in a war, which the President did not want
and which, as a loyal soldier, I must prevent.
Such an agreement was formulated for discussion, paragraph
by paragraph. I thought that as each was decided upon it
would be put aside as settled and the next one taken up, but
we would agree amicably on two or three paragraphs, which
I considered as put out of the discussion, only to find to my
surprise that their points were brought into the discussion of
the next, as if no previous decision had been arrived at at all.
I was reminded of the web of Penelope, which was knitted
in the day only to be undone at night. That must be the Latin
way, for I read of President Wilson's difficulties in Paris where
he evidently encountered the same thing.
We began at a quarter to twelve in the morning and I
didn't get Obregon's signature until half past twelve at night—
twelve solid hours of mental struggle. I had not known how in-
tense my concentration had been until it was over and I began
to relax, to find that every muscle was taut, my fingers clenched
and my teeth likewise. Both hands and jaws ached with the
intensity of the effort and I could see that Obregon was the
same way, so I let him go as soon as he signed.
Our meals were served in the room at the proper times, dur-
ing which hours business was put aside. Everything was most
affable but my talk was frankness itself. I told him that if he
wanted to lose his country, the surest way for him to do it
would be to attack Pershing. I mentioned General Nafarete
over in the Province of Tamaulipas, who was encouraging the
building of a bandit force for an attack on Brownsville with
support from Carranza. I said:
"No doubt you want Pershing to leave Mexico, but if you
don't change all that and stop those preparations in Tamauli-
pas, instead of getting rid of Pershing here, you will have
another Pershing over there in addition, and who knows then
if either will ever come out of Mexico? Those are matters for
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Some Memories of a Soldier
you to consider very carefully before you reject this agree-
ment."
The agreement contemplated that Pershing draw back to
Namiquipa, his most southerly detachments, that were coming
back anyway for food and to refit after an exceedingly long
and rapid chase-while he himself would remain at Casas
Grandes, 125 miles south of the border. Obregon struggled to
have a date fixed for the evacuation of Mexico, but the agree-
ment left that to the President. After each meal the struggle
would be renewed "pull Dick, pull Devil" until he signed.
How I kept Obregon from leaving I have never known. He
was the secretary of war of a friendly power, and he could not
be struck on the head with a sandbag and kept locked in a
closet until he signed. At any time he could have thanked me
for a pleasant visit and asked to have his car called; why he did
not I do not know to this day. My effort was to make it so
pleasant he would not want to leave and there may have been
present in his mind a realization of the consequences of a rup-
ture. Anyway, he stayed and signed. I looked out in the corri-
dor when he was ready to go and there were the twenty-seven
tired, hungry, thirsty, newspaper men lying about in every
attitude on the floor, worn out with their vigil, afraid to go
away lest some news be missed. They were told that an agree-
ment had been reached; and that they must apply to the secre-
tary of war at Washington for details.
My Government approved the agreement, but Carranza did
not. This made little difference, however, since everything
went on as if agreed upon by all. Pershing remained in Mexico
for almost a year, or until the President was good and ready
to bring him back, and no attack was made either upon him
or on Brownsville.
Obregon, who, by the way, told us in the car that he had
Irish blood of the O'Briens, from which name his own was de-
rived, told the correspondent of "The New York Times" in

GENERAL SCOTT IN COUNCIL WITH PAIUTE INDIANS, UTAH, 1915
Washington and the Border
529
Chihuahua that he "could not understand how General Scott
could be so honest and yet a politician."
In July, 1916, Secretary Baker, coming from the White
House one day, informed me that there was in contemplation
a commission, with Secretary Lane as chairman, to meet with
a similar commission from Mexico to discuss and arrange mat-
ters in which the two governments were at variance, and he
added that he wished me to be a member.
I demurred somewhat at this, saying, "You will do me a very
great kindness, Mr. Secretary, if you will leave me off the
list." The secretary seemed somewhat surprised at this and
said, "You are wanted on the commission because of your
knowledge of Spanish and experience with the Spanish speak-
ing peoples. Why don't you want to be a member?"
"It is because of that experience to which you refer that
I know now the outcome of that Commission," I replied. "Sec-
retary Lane will be the chairman and because of his position
as a cabinet officer he will completely dominate it, and my
views will receive scant consideration. Secretary Lane is
entirely without experience with Latin American peoples—
their peculiar psychology and how to deal with them—and I
will be at variance with him all the time. I have known in the
past how to treat such questions successfully when I have
had them to myself, but I know now the futility of this Com-
mission. Those Mexicans have been trained in a school our
people know nothing about. The Mexicans are past masters in
drawing red herrings across the trail if you allow them to do it
-leading you away from the point at issue, into a wilderness
of words—and you end up where you began, nowhere. Those
Mexicans are going to play horse with Secretary Lane all sum-
mer, and after it is all over no one will be proud of having been
on the commission. I will take it as a very great kindness, Mr.
Secretary, if you will omit my name from the list." And he
very considerately did so.
530
Some Memories of a Soldier
The Commission sat all summer at New London, Conn., at
a summer hotel, later moving to Atlantic City for a change,
and last of all to Washington. The Mexican contingent, with
their families, passed a delightful summer far from war's
alarms.
They sat all the autumn and through the winter until Jan-
uary 1, 1917, when the commission broke up without agree-
ment. Cabrera telegraphed to Mexico City January 6, 1916,
stating, in part, that "el protocolo fue publicado expresando que
no se llegó a ningun convenio en las conferencias" (the pro-
tocol was published saying that no agreement was arrived at
in the conferences). This after six months of words.
After the launching of General Pershing into Mexico, the
secretary of war returned to Cleveland to get his household
goods. He had been getting rather rough treatment for a new
secretary, becoming involved with Mexico before he could
bring his furniture to Washington. Pershing's advance parties
were soon four hundred miles south in Old Mexico when the
President halted him, actuated, I suppose, by the opposition
of the Mexicans to the invasion of their territory. He did not
want to involve more than the band of raiders on whom Persh-
ing was making relentless and successful war, killing them and
scattering them all over Mexico. We were supplying Pershing
by the Casas Grandes Railway from El Paso. Suddenly Car-
ranza took it upon himself to forbid further use of the road.
I took this matter to the State Department, saying that if
Carranza got in my way I would run over him, but was told
I would not be allowed to do this. I said this was the only way
we had to supply Pershing. Shoulders were shrugged, and I
was told that the supply of Pershing was not the affair of the
State Department; that that body was truly sorry to discom-
mode me, but that Carranza's orders must be respected about
the railway. I was so angry at such callousness about our troops,
four hundred miles south in Mexico, that I could hardly find
Washington and the Border
531
my way back to my office, and so appalled at the inevitable
consequences to our men, if not supplied with food and am-
munition promptly, that I could have burned down the State
Department with everybody in it.
I rang for General Sharpe, the quartermaster-general, with
whom the following conversation took place:
Q. Have you enough trucks to supply Pershing from Colum-
bus, N. M., with food, clothing, and ammunition? A. No.
Q. How much would it cost to get them? A. Four hundred
and fifty thousand dollars.
Q. Have you got the money? A. No.
Q. Then send right out and buy these trucks, with the neces-
sary traveling garages and mechanics; put a chauffeur on every
truck and send them by express to Columbus, and start food
and ammunition to Pershing at the earliest possible moment.
A. Yes, sir.
Should the Mexicans have risen against Pershing at a time
when his food and ammunition were low, the consequences
would have been appalling. When the secretary returned I
said, "You will have to use your good offices with the Presi-
dent, Mr. Secretary, to keep me out of jail." He asked what
I had been caught at now. I told him I was going to confess
before being caught; that I had just expended $450,000 of
public money that had not been appropriated by Congress,
which was a pentitentiary offense. "Ho!" he said, "that's noth-
ing! If anybody goes to jail I'll be the man-I'll go to jail for
everybody."
By this prompt and energetic support he won the confidence
and affection of the War Department in one stroke. He had
not been long enough in command of the War Department
even to receive his furniture from Cleveland and it might well
have given him pause to be told that he had been poked into
a $450,000 hole with Congress at the very outset of his career
as secretary. A lesser man might have thought that if his chief
532
Some Memories of a Soldier
of staff couldn't keep him out of such holes, it might be well
to consider getting a new chief.
Instead he felt I was alert and willing to take any responsi-
bility to prevent the impending disaster, and I felt he was
willing to assume any to protect me. What a joy it was to
work with a man having a mind and courage like that!
Congress ratified the expenditure later without a word or
question; in fact, I was never called on to defend it, and the
incident was never mentioned again in my hearing. A general
law cannot cover every particular case and when a great disaster
is impending somebody must take the responsibility of violat-
ing it, no matter what the risk to the individual; but his judg-
ment of what constitutes a real emergency must be sound, or
he won't last long.
While General Pershing was stationary with his headquarters
in Mexico, reports came to the President that he was disloyal
to the administration in his remarks about the President's
policies. Secretary Baker informed me about this and I asked
him to take no steps until I could look into the matter.
I wrote to General Pershing in Mexico, informing him that
enemies were working against him. He wrote me back a frank
manly letter which I asked the Secretary to hand to the Presi-
dent, from whom I got a message that he was satisfied by the
letter.
This episode doubtless played a very important part in the
destinies of the nation, for knowing President Wilson as I did
I am satisfied that if this matter had not been cleared up,
Pershing would never have received the supreme command in
France for which I recommended him to the secretary of
war. But the President would never have given it to him, no
matter how strongly I urged it, if his mind had not been cleared
up on this subject.
No one confides his important policies for execution to any
Washington and the Border
533
one he feels is out of sympathy with them. How fortunate
for us all that Pershing was able to clear up this matter.
ARREST OF THE PAIUTIES
1
On one Sunday morning in February, 1916, Mr. Lane, sec-
retary of the interior, accompanied by Mr. Cato Sells, Commis-
sioner of Indian Affairs, came out to the house of the chief of
staff at the top of the hill at Fort Myer, Virginia, the secretary
in something of a fury over the criticisms he had read in the
newspapers while coming from California.
They said that there had been a battle near Bluff, Utah, be-
tween some Paiute Indians and the United States marshal of
Utah with a large posse in which the latter was worsted with
loss of life on both sides. The secretary said he had no one he
could send to settle the matter, which was still fraught with
danger, and wanted to know if I could help him and go out
myself.
I demurred a little at this saying, "You have just sent some
very stiff letters to Germany and England. There is no peace
in Mexico and I don't know whether the secretary of war
wants to have his principal assistant wandering about in the
snow and sagebrush of Utah at a time like this. It all depends
on his wishes." Secretary Lane said he would go at once to
Secretary Garrison.
The latter brought up the question on his arrival at the
office the next morning, saying Secretary Lane had asked to
have me go West and settle the matter. Secretary Garrison had
asked if he couldn't send some one else but Secretary Lane
had asked, "Who can that person be?"
Secretary Lane had told the secretary of war that the Paiutes
were related to the Utes of Colorado, and had intermarried
with the Navajo tribe which contained some thirty thousand In-
'See Appendix, letter of April 2, 1915.
534
Some Memories of a Soldier
dians, many living close to the great cañons that run down into
the Grand Cañon of the Colorado; a war with them would be a
long, drawn-out expensive affair of which no one could predict
the end.
Secretary Garrison asked if I would mind going. I told him
I would be very glad to go if he wished it and he then said
I had better go, and asked how large a body of troops I wanted
to take. I told him I did not want to take any.
"What!" he said, loud enough to be heard out in the cor-
ridor, "don't want any?"
I said I wanted to take Colonel Michie, as an aide and
Sergeant Randolph, my orderly, and it was soon arranged
for me to see the assistant attorney-general, Mr. Charles
Warren, who ordered the United States marshal at Bluff to
take no further steps until my arrival, when I would give him
further orders. We left that night for Denver. I had told
Secretary Lane that in case I should go West I would want
two things. He had said, "I will arrange for anything you ask."
I wanted to have food for the Indians lest they fall under the
influence of some one else while searching for food. Moreover,
I wanted old Bizoshe, the Navajo whom I had arrested at
Beautiful Mountain several years before, sent to Bluff, Utah.
I had never seen the Paiute Indians and Bizoshe could in-
troduce me in a way the President of the United States him-
self could not.
After the affair was all over I got a letter from the clerk
at the Navajo Agency, who had been sent out fifty miles to
notify Bizoshe. Bizoshe replied, after some reflection, "I am
an old man and that is a far country (more than one hundred
miles of rough traveling) and a country of strangers, but my
brother wants me and I will go." He started at once for Bluff
with his two sons in a wagon.
Our train got stuck in the snow in the middle of Nebraska
and the delay caused us to miss our train out of Denver. We
1
Washington and the Border
535
utilized the delay consequent to waiting for another train by
conferring with the United States District Attorney and the
marshal of Colorado who told us what the Paiute fight had been
all about. It appeared that the trouble in Utah began over the
murder of a Mexican in Colorado with which a Paiute named
Stenegat, or Hatch, was charged. He had run off to join his
Paiute relatives in Utah near the Mormon town of Bluff.
The Colorado authorities made application to those of Utah
for Hatch's extradition for trial. The matter had run along
for a long time without result and the demand had been lately
renewed. Several posses had gone to Bluff to make the arrest
and had returned empty-handed, considering it too dangerous
to attempt. Then the marshal of Utah, under the pressure from
Colorado, gathered about seventy-five gunmen as a posse, and
had gone down to Bluff. Being afraid to negotiate with the
Indians, he had surrounded the camp of a portion of the band
before dawn. The Indians awakened to find themselves sur-
rounded by an armed band of strangers and concluded that
they were being attacked by a large band of cowboys with
whom they were constantly at war over the occupation of the
range. A clash resulted. Each side accused the other after-
ward of firing first. The truth will never be known. The posse
gave no warning of their approach or intention. Blood was
shed on both sides, the posse was defeated, and some of its
scattered members were lost for days, wandering somewhere
back of Monticello.
Six Indian boys of eighteen or twenty years gave them-
selves up at once to the marshal without fighting, not knowing
what it was all about. These were shackled and put in a room
under guard. One of the young men, who could understand a
little English, heard something that made him think they were
going to be killed. He tried to escape by breaking the window.
He was shot and killed half in and half out of the window
which was entirely unnecessary because he was unarmed and
536
Some Memories of a Soldier
could have been taken back into the room without danger
to anybody-in reality, he was murdered which was sup-
posedly justified on the plea that he was attempting to escape.
The others, shackled, were taken under heavy guard
to Salt Lake City, before our arrival. They were entirely
innocent.
Michie and I with Randolph left the Denver & Salt Lake
Railway at Thompsons, Utah, and made our way south 180
miles as best we might—one stage over comparatively smooth
country as far as Moab, a little Mormon town, in an auto-
mobile. The next morning, at four o'clock, we crowded into a
two-horse mail hack built to carry three men and a driver;
there were five of us together with our bedding rolls, the mail,
and express. The weather was bitter cold in that high altitude
and we rode cramped up in that open stage until eight o'clock
at night. Next day we had to go on in a sleigh. We had to get
ahead to avert further bloodshed.
The marshal reported at Bluff and asked for orders. I told
him to send home those seventy-five gunmen immediately.
He expostulated at this, saying the Paiutes would capture
the town. I told him that that was no longer his responsibility
but mine, that I would take care of the town, and that the
gunmen must go. Bizoshe also reported with his two sons and
asked what I wanted of him.
I told him the Paiutes were said to be twenty-five miles down
the San Juan River and I wanted him to go with me and bring
them back. He demurred strongly at this saying, "I am afraid
and my two sons are afraid." Then he began a legend of the
first Paiute's meanness and said they had all been mean ever
since. I ridiculed him for half an hour refusing to believe that
a Navajo and a marshal could be afraid of a Paiute who lived
mainly on roots and grasshoppers. He succumbed finally to
the ridicule, and said he would go provided it were promised
that when we were both killed we would be buried together,
Washington and the Border
537
side by side. Colonel Michie agreed to attend to this and the
matter was soon settled.
Bizoshe had made no request for compensation for the ser-
vices of his two sons, himself, and four horses, but had come
away willingly, serving as a friend. I asked the marshal before
leaving Bluff if he would do me a favor. He said he "would
be charmed at the opportunity." I inquired what he had been
paying the members of the posse. He replied five dollars a
day and expenses. Then I asked him to put Bizoshe and his
two sons on his pay-roll from the time of their departure from
home until their return, which was done and they were each
paid quite a sum, which the old man well earned.
The Paiutes were reported to be at Mexican Hat, a city of
one building twenty-five miles down the San Juan from Bluff.
We drove down there accompanied by Mr. Wetherill from
Kayenta, a gentleman who knew those Indians well. We located
at Mexican Hat in the only building, a store about twenty feet
square. The trader's wife was at Kayenta, about fifty miles
away, so we were given his bedroom while he slept on his
counter. Information came to us that the Paiutes had left for
a stronghold at Navajo Mountain, about a hundred miles west,
toward the Grand Cañon. We searched the neighborhood for
hostile Indians without result until Mr. Wetherill brought in
a Paiute from Kayenta where he had gone to trade. I induced
him to stay a night and sent him the next day with a message
for his people, asking them to come in and see me, and with
food and blankets for them.
Several days went by without any occurrence. Finally he re-
turned saying the Paiutes would be in next day. They came in a
few at a time after hiding among the hills watching our camp
with a glass lest some trap be laid for them. We gave them
more food and blankets and made them all comfortable. Next
day they told us their troubles, and I allowed them to simmer
all night. I felt them out gently next morning and decided to
538
Some Memories of a Soldier
risk a refusal. But when the question was put point-blank,
"what are you going to do," they said, "We are going to do just
what you tell us to do."
The whole tribe agreed to surrender and go to Salt Lake
City on the one condition that I should go with them. This I
readily promised but said the marshal only wanted four-
"Old Poke," "Posey," and one other besides Hatch, who would
have to be tried for murder in Colorado. We soon started for
Bluff, Colonel Michie going ahead to procure food and a warm
place for the prisoners to sleep.
The Mormons at Bluff had said they knew those Indians
and would not believe they were coming with me until they
saw them. The Mormons were having a good deal of fun,
behind our backs, of course, all down that 180 miles from the
railway, over those "swivel-chair men from Washington"
thinking they could do anything with these Indians. The whole
country-side was expecting an attack by Indians and would
not believe anything else. Some time afterward Mr. Sniffen of
the Indians Rights Association told me they had informed him
they had been ready to wager a thousand dollars that nobody
could get them.
We started up toward the railway next day taking the mar-
shal with us to whom I was most polite, desiring his influence at
Salt Lake City. At first we were all crowded in the mail-hack
with our property. Later we got a few horses. My problem was
to prevent those four Indians from being legally murdered.
White men had been killed and the trial would be in the hands
of white men, possibly prejudiced against the Indian, whose
land incidentally was wanted. There would be a cloud of white
witnesses although I believed that the white man had been the
aggressor. This could only be proved by Indian witnesses whose
word would not be taken against that of white men.
We telephoned ahead to Bluff asking for a warm room and
food. Every time they asked, "Don't you want a jail?” we re-
Washington and the Border
539
plied, "No." When they asked, "don't you want a guard?" we
replied, "No! We want a warm room and food." An automo-
bile came out on a short piece of good road to take me into
Moab. Everybody was curious to see those "bloody Indians"
and asked where they were. "Old Poke" was pointed out sitting
in the hack and I said the others were coming along on horse-
back. Several persons said to me, "We know those Indians
better than you do you'll never see them again." I replied
I was willing to risk it, and it was not long before they came
jogging in on their horses.
The next twenty-five miles brought us to the railroad which
they had never seen before and I had to go and pull them off
the track at the approach of a train. Here Buffalo Bill Cody
telegraphed us from Denver that a dinner was to be given for
us by the governor of Colorado and three hundred citizens of
Denver. A similar invitation by telegram came from the gover-
nor of Utah at Salt Lake City, which was accepted as affording
an opportunity to gain friendship for the Paiutes. The general
manager of the Denver & Salt Lake Railway telegraphed he was
sending his special car and came with it himself to take us in.
I told the marshal en route that the Utah papers had been
giving him pretty rough treatment over being defeated by the
Paiutes and he had lost a great deal of face at home, but in
order to help him get some of it back I said I would turn the
prisoners over to him, and let his townsmen see him conducting
them into the streets to jail. Michie and I were not known in
Salt Lake City and we would jump off the rear end of the
train and go quietly up the hotel without being seen by any-
body. This pleased him immensely.
I made an appeal for the prisoners that night at the banquet,
which was published all over Utah, and went next morning to
see the United States District Attorney and asked him, "What
sort of a case have you against the Paiutes." He said he had
a very strong case of murder against them. They had resisted
540
Some Memories of a Soldier
the officers of the law and killed some of them. "Let us talk
about that a little," I said. "Who served the subpoena on
them?" He had to go out and ask the marshal about that
and returning said, “Nobody.”
"Did anybody tell them they were marshals?" I asked.
"No."
"Did they have uniforms to indicate they were marshals?"
"No."
"Then where is your case?" I asked.
"I reckon I haven't got any," he said.
Going to say good-by to the marshal he carefully locked the
door, put his chair near mine, and whispered, “What do you
want done with those Indians?" I whispered back, "Let them
go," and so it was. They were all sent home except Hatch, who
was tried for murder at Denver and acquitted, and it was not
long before they were back among their own tribe.
Peace continued there for seven years notwithstanding con-
stant effort to get the Indians away from the land where they
and their ancestors had been born. "Old Poke" and Hatch died
in their beds in 1923. The papers later recorded another diffi-
culty with the Paiutes and various posses. I offered to go again
and try to save the lives of those Indians but was told it was not
an important matter, though I would be asked to go should
it become important. It resulted, however, in the killing of
Posey and some of his band. Later the Indian Department
took sane measures for the prevention of such warfare that I
had recommended seven years before, without result. I feel
certain that if I had not gone in person with those Indians
to Salt Lake City some of them would have been legally mur-
dered by trial and conviction, with one side only represented.
I am never afraid of what the Indian will do in such flare-ups—
if I can reach him in time. I am always afraid of what the white
men do-legally.
How sweet it is to look backward over the years and re-
Washington and the Border
541
member the gratitude of those simple, sincere, and humble
people, both red and white, for the salvation of the women
and children of that country-side is worth far more than any
military glory that might have been won in bringing about
their subjugation and punishment by force of arms.
PART VII
Washington and the War
It is necessary for me now to go back two years to indicate
circumstances prevailing which had a vital bearing on our part
in the World War.
In April, 1914, on the eve of the World War, I received an
order while on the border to report to Washington to relieve
General William W. Wotherspoon as assistant chief of staff. I
preferred to remain on the border, where the adjoining Mexi-
can disturbances were not yet over, but General Wood urged
me against acting on this preference, lest I be denying myself
a more useful career.
I proceeded to the capital and Mrs. Scott later joined me,
bringing our family and household effects from the border.
My life in many ways was very pleasant-in its contacts
with inspiring men-but I did not care much for the duties of
assistant chief of staff. That office carried little prestige and
responsibility at the time, yet was just as confining as are
all positions in the War Department. My time was mainly
occupied in helping to solve knotty questions for the chief of
staff. But no experience is valueless-however irksome at the
time.
In retrospect, therefore, this period has great interest for
me because I was in a peculiarly good position to know how
unprepared we were for the ensuing conflict. Moreover, my irk-
some duties were of value as providing me with an intimate
knowledge of the duties of the chief of staff, which office I was
to occupy seven months later.
542
Washington and the War
543
EUROPE AFIRE
The months of August and September, 1914, were a time of
tense anxiety for the friends of France and England, and my
sympathies were with them every moment from the first day.
We had all grown accustomed to the passing over of war clouds
and many believed that war would never come again; yet here
it was once more, like the wolf at the door, ravening for blood,
soon affecting every human being in the world.
Germany had started out on her program, long discussed in
that country, of "world conquest or downfall," having torn
up the "scrap of paper" which guaranteed the neutrality of
Belgium and with it her own honor. France had relied once
too often on the national honesty of her powerful neighbor by
placing her heaviest forces on the opposite flank in the belief
that the "scrap of paper" would protect Belgian neutrality,
which she herself had no wish to violate.
Lord Roberts had pleaded in vain with his countrymen for
seven years to prepare and Germany was the only nation ready
for the conflict. She had built up a great military steam roller
which she drove across Belgium, flattening everything in its
path.
The military world gave the Belgian forts credit for power
to delay the German advance at least for a time but the high-
angled fire of the new mobile Austrian guns smashed the iron
forts of Belgium into fragments while the world looked on
with astonishment and dismay. The forts at Liége and at
Mons seemed hardly to resist at all, and then began the heart-
rending retreat of England's "Contemptibles"—of glorious
memory-before the great German machine rolling on to
Paris.
Day after day the press of the world recorded the allies as
544
Some Memories of a Soldier
retreating, though in compact formation, with the world hang-
ing on the despatches. The German pursuit was steady and
relentless; the loss of life among the French and among Eng-
land's best and bravest men appalling. All of the allies seemed
to be retreating to their doom. We had no means of measuring
the amount of inevitable demoralization that had occurred
from such a steady retreat; but it seemed to us over here as it
must have to those who left the French capital for Bordeaux,
with whom our ambassador refused to depart, that it was only
a matter of a few days until the kaiser would be eating the
dinner he had ordered for himself in Paris.
Then suddenly it seemed that a miracle was happening; the
answer to the prayers of millions. The German pursuit began
to slacken. Von Klück began to retire, and then the whole
German army was retreating beyond the Marne, and France
was saved. It was long before the world learned the causes of
this apparent miracle but all rejoiced at the results.
The swift destruction of the Belgian forts by large mobile
guns of high-angled fire made a very deep impression on me,
and I began at once to agitate for the procurement of some
of these mounted on railway carriages for ourselves, but found
a strange apathy on the subject in the War Department, born
partly of the belief that the United States would never again
be involved in any war. This illusion created a false sense of
security in the minds of some, particularly in Congress, almost
up to the very declaration of a state of war. No such security
was felt on the general staff, however, where the country was
seen to be drifting rapidly into war, broadside on. Unfortun-
ately, though, while all possible was done within that body
itself, few open steps could be taken toward preparing.
THE ARMY AND CONGRESS
All the different staff corps had long had plans for imme-
diate expansion arranged with the general staff; the quarter-

70/-Gen
Mim Scott
With the affectumate regards of
Loving the Far
Washington and the War
545
master, engineer, and ordnance departments had arrangements
made to close options by telegraph on all foodstuffs, wool,
leather, nitrates, and on all other materials available in the
country used in the manufacture of clothing and other sup-
plies for military service, and agreements had long been made
with the different railways for priority and rapidity of ship-
ment. These plans with all their various ramifications were put
in motion the morning that the President signed the act declar-
ing the United States in a state of war with Germany; an hour
after the secretary of war had signed the first authorization
for the expenditure of fifty millions of dollars, before Con-
gress had authorized the expenditure of a cent. During my
subsequent absence on the United States Commission to
Russia, a certain member of Congress made the erroneous
statement that "the War Department had ceased to function,"
but Congress did not begin to function until weeks had passed,
while all the time the War Department was working at a
higher rate of speed than at any period of its history, the re-
sults of which have been a surprise to the whole world.
The business methods of these corps have been criticised
adversely by many persons who have met with rebuff in at-
tempting to do something illegal or who expected to see some-
thing accomplished in an instant for which no preparatory
arrangements were made beforehand. Business men of high
character and success in the commercial world were placed on
the Council of National Defense to facilitate and supervise
purchase and supply. One of the most distinguished of these
gentlemen, Mr. Julius Rosenwald, of Sears Roebuck & Com-
pany, praised the business methods of those departments and
declared that he had no improvements to suggest.
The general staff was by no means as powerful as it is now,
and had to fight for its life. The political element of the army
was against it and influenced a large part of Congress to
destroy it. A law passed in 1916 pointed that way but failed
546
Some Memories of a Soldier
to use the proper language to effect its aim. Other clauses
operated to cut down the membership materially and provided
that no more than half the membership could be stationed in
Washington at any one time. The chief, assistant chief and
head of the War College had to be counted in that number
although engaged mainly in administrative work, not strictly
pertaining to the general staff; so that when the war broke,
there were less than a dozen general staff officers available for
use in laying the foundation for our participation, at a time
when they were most needed-at a time, moreover, when
France and England had each more than five hundred regular
general staff officers, employed with many more detailed from
the line for general staff duty. Our army has had approxi-
mately one hundred since the armistice, necessary in time of
peace, without any legal limit to their number now that I
know of.
The law of 1916 was submitted to the law department for
interpretation which seemed to me to be erroneous, so far as
the language of the law was concerned, as it would operate
to destroy the power of the general staff and send us back-
ward to conditions prevailing before the Spanish war. I told
my staff that I believed the interpretation was wrong, and that
I would fight it as long as I could stand on my feet. I made
a brief of the law as I read it and carried it to Plattsburg when
I accompanied Secretary Baker on a tour of inspection, and
showed it to General Wood who agreed with my view.
The brief was given to Secretary Baker on our return to-
gether with a copy of the law and the interpretation of the law
department. I said:
"Mr. Secretary, I am handing you a case that will be the
most important decision that you will ever have to make in
that chair. Your verdict may spell victory or defeat for our
armies. You are a lawyer yourself and are accustomed to inter-
preting the law. There it is, and there are the interpretations—
Washington and the War
547
I submit them both to you. I am not going to argue with you
or to nag you about them. I leave them with you in the
hope that you will realize the significance of your decision to
the army and to the country."
The secretary took the papers home with him and kept them
for more than a month when he finally decided in favor of my
brief. He came to Camp Dix after the armistice with General
Peyton C. March, then the chief of staff, and they invited me
to ride with them in their limousine the eighteen miles to
Trenton. We all three sat on the rear seat talking about old
times in the War Department and I asked the secretary if he
remembered his decision on the law of 1916 as affecting the
general staff. "Indeed I do," he replied.
"Where would you be now?" I asked, "if you had decided
the other way?"
The secretary twice thrust both fists emphatically upward
to the full extent of his arms and exclaimed, "lost-lost!"
It was the same age-old struggle over the command that
caused General Winfield Scott to remove his headquarters from
Washington to New York, and General Sherman to remove his
to St. Louis; that embittered the last moments of General
Sheridan, hamstrung General Miles and hobbled the adminis-
trations of Generals Chaffee, Bates, Bell, and Wood, and sent
us into the World War with a crippled general staff. I believe
this conflict is now over and done with as a result of the war,
which appears to have established the unity of command and
to have put the general staff where it belongs.
As soon as I became Chief of Staff in November, 1914, I
began to work, as mentioned before, for the procurement of
large guns with high-angled fire mounted on railway carriages,
and called a meeting of the general officers of the technical
staff in the War Department to consider the matter, proposing
to use at first the guns of six- and eight-inch caliber and ten-
inch mortars, then being taken out of the seacoast batteries
548
Some Memories of a Soldier
as of obsolete caliber, because we already had them, and
could thus make an immediate start, fabricating larger ones
in the future. These guns could be run up and down both
coasts on railways to drive hostile ships off shore and destroy
attempts to land beyond the reach of guns in our coast de-
fenses. I got absolutely no support, for it was declared im-
practical and unnecessary; such guns could not be mounted
on railway carriages.
I had photographs of similar guns mounted on railway car-
riages in France and would not be persuaded that it was
impossible over here, and later saw them in operation over-
seas myself.
I have always thought that the reason for this indifference
and opposition was that the giving of advice on artillery mat-
ters by a cavalryman from the Indian country, even if he
was chief of staff, was resented by real artillerymen, irre-
spective of its truth.
I asked Secretary Garrison to intervene and throw the
weight of his authority to compel action, looking to the pro-
curement of guns of large caliber with high-angled fire mounted
on railway carriages. He replied that he did not have the tech-
nical knowledge to meet the contrary arguments, telling me to
furnish them to him in a brief.
I furnished such a brief with the photographs I had of such
guns, mounted on railway carriages in France and others
showing the damage done to the Belgian forts by high-angled
fire, and the secretary took this home with him for study, kept
it some time but resigned from office before taking action. He
sent me the following letter after his resignation:
One Thousand and Fifty-three Fifth Avenue, New York.
February 13, 1916.
Dear General:
I have been inexpressibly touched by what you and Mrs. Scott
and others of my friends have felt and said. To find such solid,
Washington and the War
549
whole-hearted and vigorous support at such a crisis reveals the
finest thing life holds for any man. My heart aches when I think of
leaving my position with the Army. I grew to have such admiration
and affection for it and to know its hopes, aspirations, needs and its
fine essence. Now leaving it causes me continual distress.
And you men about me-what men. Each of you loyal, whole-
souled, champions and unselfish colleagues. How I shall miss you.
Life doesn't call for greater sacrifices. However, it may have a com-
pensatory side. It may result in the Nation getting what it would
otherwise not have gotten. Please convey my feeling to all my asso-
ciates in the building and say I will see them in person so soon as
I return.
No time fixed yet to come back. Very busy here with personal
matters.
Affectionately yours,
LINDLEY M. GARRISON.
The brief on mobile guns of high-angled fire was next handed
to Secretary Baker with the same request, and he directed that
estimates be submitted to Congress for the fabrication of six
such large guns. Congress appropriated the funds for one
pilot gun but at too late a date. We went into the war without
guns of that sort and we suffered the extreme mortifica-
tion later seeing large guns mounted on railway carriages
landed in France by the navy for use with the army, notwith-
standing my three years' effort. ("The New York Times" of
January 30, 1928, states the Ordnance Department is adopt-
ing large guns of high-angled fire on railway carriages.) Many
officers of the line have long been of the opinion that our army
should be organized like the French, without a permanent ord-
nance corps, segregated and out of touch with the line which
uses its products; that this department should be formed mainly
of artillery officers detailed for a period to ordnance duty to
return later to their own arms, as do officers of the general
staff. In this way they never would lose touch and the men
who make the munitions would be the men who use them, as
in the army of France.
550
Some Memories of a Soldier
ENTRANCE OF THE UNITED STATES
News of the final entrance of the United States into the
War created a profound impression throughout the world.
This great peace-loving nation had at last decided to throw the
whole weight of its influence on the side of civilization and
right.
While I personally would have liked to have had this step
taken when the Lusitania was sunk, I can see now that the
course of the President was far wiser. He realized, as I did not
at that time, that our nation was composed of so many diverse
elements that we could not have entered the war any sooner
and still remain a united people.
There was great rejoicing among the allies when the move
was finally made. They believed however that our military
contribution would be confined to the placing of three hun-
dred thousand armed men in France, and many doubted our
ability even to do that, considering our regular army too small
to count for much and our citizen forces a vast untrained mass
which could not be turned into a military force until the war
was over.
Both England and France sent commissions composed of
their most distinguished men to confer with us upon how we
might best coöperate with them. Mr. Arthur Balfour, former
premier of England, came through Canada with Major-General
Tom Bridges of the British Army, joined by Mr. Foster of
Canada and other distinguished Canadians.
M. René Viviani, former premier, with General Joffre,
marshal of France, and Colonel Tardieu came by way of
Fortress Monroe, where I was sent to meet and escort them
to Washington on the president's yacht, the Mayflower. In the
party were Mr. Franklin Roosevelt, assistant secretary of the
navy, and several admirals.
Washington and the War
551
The French commission arrived on a French liner which we
boarded and found everything battened down and dark inside
to avoid hostile submarines on the way. The darkness and want
of ventilation seemed to have had a depressing effect upon the
spirits of our guests who appeared quite downhearted. This
feeling soon disappeared, however, before the warmth of our
reception on the Mayflower, where they were immediately
taken. Marshal Joffre told me afterward that they were all
overwhelmed with the cordiality of their reception; that their
morale had indeed been at a low ebb coming over, due to com-
plete ignorance concerning our sentiments over here, and they
had not known what to expect.
The secretary of state was waiting at the dock of the Navy
Yard with Mr. Frank Polk, counsellor, and Assistant Secretary
William Phillips, Jules Jusserand, ambassador from France,
and Sir Cecil Spring Rice, ambassador from Great Britain,
with Mr. Foster and other distinguished Canadians, to wel-
come the French Commission. The secretary took M. Viviani
in the first car. After placing the marshal in my automobile,
I was about to enter when I noticed that M. Jusserand was
not provided for so I put him in my seat beside the marshal
and rode in the middle seat.
The procession started with an escort of mounted troops.
We followed the secretary of state in the second car, but
Marshal Joffre received by far the greater part of the ovation
rendered by the people of Washington who were lined up
many deep for miles on both sides of the street waiting to see
and to cheer the hero of the Marne.
While our car was passing slowly through the gate of the
Navy Yard, some woman thrust an American flag in my face,
very rudely, saying, "Here, you kiss that!" evidently mis-
taking me for the marshal, and I was greatly relieved that this
discourtesy had happened to me rather than to our guest.
The British and French commissions divided up into com-
552
Some Memories of a Soldier
mittees and each element conferred with its kind; the financial
element with our secretary of the treasury, the political with
our secretary of state, while I took the military to the War
Department and the War College, where we had many con-
ferences over ways and means of coöperation.
Both commissions were anxious for an American force, no
matter how small, to go over at once for the effect that the
American flag would have by its mere presence abroad. I
opposed this on the ground that the small force would belittle
our effort; was undignified and would give a wrong impression
of our intentions. I held out for at least a division to show the
quality of our troops and command respect for our flag.
The commissions were both anxious also to have our men
not only rushed over at once, unorganized and untrained, but
used to fill their own organizations which were losing man-
power at a fearful rate. But nobody over here would consent
for a moment to allow our men out of our own control and the
fostering care of their own officers, and such an idea was
never seriously contemplated for a moment.
The foreign visitors were warmly received and entertained
by the President and people of Washington. The night that
Marshal Joffre and General Bridges dined with Mrs. Scott and
me at Fort Myer, our little grandson was standing in the front
door when the Marshal entered. He put up his little hand to
salute and called out "Vive la France!" which so pleased the
Marshal that he stooped over and kissed him.
The formal dinner given to the visitors by the Ambassador
of France and Madame Jusserand was the most interesting
of all the dinners I have ever attended, and the most difficult
to seat. How to arrange so many personages of such high dis-
tinction must have given gray hairs to the State Department,
whose business it is to attend to the seating at dinners. In the
first place, there were the two former premiers, the ambas-
sadors of England, Italy, and Spain, the marshal of France,

Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
MAJOR GENERAL TASKER H. BLISS (LEFT) WITH MAJOR-
GENERAL HUGH L. SCOTT, WASHINGTON, D. C., 1917
Washington and the War
553
a major-general of the British Army, the chief justice of the
United States, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, chairman of the
Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate, and the chiefs of
the army and navy, any one of whom would usually be con-
sidered important enough to be guest of honor. There has
always been a controversy in Washington as to precedence be-
tween members of the Supreme Court and of the Senate at
dinners, and many of one faction will not go to a dinner where
a member of the other is invited. Some go so far as to ask for
a list of guests before accepting an invitation and Chief Justice
White and Senator Lodge were among the most insistent upon
the rights of their respective colleagues. I sat between the chief
justice and the marshal of France, and said to the former,
"How is it, Mr. Chief Justice, that I see you sitting here so
comfortably with Senator Lodge on the other side of the table
right forninst you?" and he replied, "Oh, I told Madame
Jusserand that she might put me in the cellar, if she wanted
to." This was an indication that all claws were sheathed and
rights waived for that important occasion.
Chief Justice White was always delightful with his kindly
humor and his gentle courtesy. Sitting on my right, the dishes
were handed to him first but he always helped me before he
helped himself, and insisted upon peeling a pear for me.
When he passed away, the army mourned his loss sincerely.
Mrs. Scott and I were invited to go with the two Commis-
sions and a brilliant company on the Mayflower as guests of
the secretary of the navy to visit Mount Vernon. There we
saw something epoch-making which none of us had ever seen
before, but all hoped to see again. We saw Mr. Balfour, the
one-time premier of England, trembling with the importance
of his mission, place a wreath as a tribute of admiration and
respect from the British Government on the tomb of Washing-
ton. Surely no one would have been more surprised at this than
Washington himself.
554
Some Memories of a Soldier
When Balfour had stopped speaking, a similar tribute was
rendered by M. Viviani and the marshal of France. To my
mind, this event was one of infinite importance to the whole
world as marking the ushering in of a new era, when old
animosities would be forever buried; and with the eyes of the
mind I saw George Washington standing there hand in hand
with the premiers of England and France, symbolizing a matter
I had often discussed with the British ambassador during his
frequent visits to the War Department: the riveting of the
bonds of friendship and coöperation between all the elements
of the English speaking world and the French nation-for
upon the strength and durability of those bonds rest the life
of civilization and the hope of humanity.
Mr. Balfour was visibly moved by the solemnity of this
occasion; and Mrs. Scott and I, with all that splendid com-
pany of statesmen, soldiers, sailors, and diplomats, were
touched to the depths by its significance.
All Washington was aflame with patriotic fervor. The Presi-
dent marched down Pennsylvania Avenue on foot at the head
of a column of many organizations of women, among them a
contingent commanded by Mrs. Scott, then camped near Chevy
Chase while being trained for duty overseas. Societies of
women were being organized for all sorts of patriotic purposes.
Our daughter, Blanchard, was in training to drive an am-
bulance on the other side. She and her chum enlisted in the
Red Cross as soon as possible and went at once to France,
getting further forward with their little canteen at Flirrey
than any women in France. They were bombed out three times
and on one occasion reported that they had placed their
canteen on what had been No Man's Land the day before, and
had furnished hot food and drink to many truck drivers and
troops passing half starved and frozen by the crossroads at
Flirrey.
Our younger son gave up his position on the Mexican border
Washington and the War
555
upon the declaration of war and telegraphed for duty in
France. Mrs. Scott declared that I must see to it that they all
got overseas if they wished to go, although three were too many
for us to expect to get all safely back out of that maelstrom.
Our eldest son, a captain of cavalry in the regular army,
went over with General Pershing, served all through the war
until after the armistice and returning on the Leviathan as a
lieutenant-colonel and G,3 of the Twenty-Seventh Division,
was stricken with pneumonia on board and we got him back
only to lose him on arrival in New York. We almost lost our
younger son, as well, of pneumonia in France and although
not even yet recovered, he fought at Soissons, Château Thierry
and the Argonne, and we got him back with his sister some
time after the armistice.
Congress seemed but little moved by all this patriotic fervor,
hanging back for weeks after declaring us in a state of war
and not giving us a dollar of money or a law by which we
could build up an army, and leaving us in great uncertainty.
There were three major points upon which I was unalterably
determined in the building of this army; first, that those mis-
takes committed in all our previous wars-inseparably con-
nected with volunteering and politics-must not be repeated in
this. This must be a military and not a political army. In this
view I was strongly supported by the President and Secretary
Baker without whom nothing could have been accomplished.
Second, that this army must be raised by conscription, the only
equitable, certain, and proper way to raise an army (American
report, Chief of Staff, June 30, 1916, p. 9). Third, that the
new officers must be commissioned only after making good
physically and every other way at some one of the various
officers' training camps.
Many thought for some reason that the President and secre-
tary of war were averse to the Plattsburg camps. It would,
however, have required but one word from the President, the
556
Some Memories of a Soldier
secretary or the chief of staff to put an end to them completely
had it been so desired, for no subordinate commander could
run one a single day without the approval of these officials.
Actually, men and means were provided for these camps by
Washington. The approval of Congress was secured with ap-
propriations for their support and the camps were forging
ahead on both sides of the continent as fast as the people and
Congress would permit. By that is meant that the people did
not take advantage of the facilities offered as fully in some
localities as in others.
While these camps did not by any means provide a finished
military education to fit an officer for war in the short time
possible, they were the utmost that could be provided under
the circumstances. Their establishment enabled the sorting out
of the unfit, and an enrolment and organization. It gave an
opportunity to place men in the positions which they were best
fitted to fill and gave an inkling of discipline and the life of a
soldier. Many of the products of these camps came back from
France in a critical frame of mind, under the impression that
the war had been won by their own personal intelligence and
training, whereas it would never have been won by us at all
had it not been for the adequate system built up by the
regular army after the Spanish War.
The high condition of instruction, efficiency, and experience,
the initiative, directing force, and informing spirit of the regu-
lar army formed the backbone and framework about which
the new army was built up as a nucleus, and without which
those four million men would have only been an armed mob.
In this, as in other wars, the regular army received but scant
credit.
THE PACIFIST MENACE
I had felt for many years that the country was very unpre-
pared, and had done what I was able to correct this condition.

U.S.
GENERAL SCOTT WELCOMES MARSHAL JOFFRE TO AMERICA, 1917, WITH M. JULES JUSSERAND,
FRENCH AMBASSADOR
Washington and the War
557
The general staff felt in 1916 that the nation was rapidly drift-
ing into war and Congress was asked for a million men which
action caused much hilarity. "What do you want to do with
a million men?" they demanded. "The United States will never
be at war with anybody!" Six months later the same Congress
passed the act declaring the United States to be in a state of
war.
Lord Roberts' voice pleading preparedness for seven years
in England, had been but "a voice crying in the wilderness."
The pacifists had control and exercised it but at what a cost in
the blood of Great Britain's best and bravest, shed all the way
from Mons to the Marne. The Pacifist utters the same owlish
cry after every war. "This is the last! There will never be
another!" and is willing to gamble on that with the lives and
fortunes of his countrymen, ignoring completely the lessons of
history. He proclaimed that all wars were ended at the Crystal
Palace in London after the conflict in the Crimea but war
flamed out again before the delegates reached home. The
pacifist can never be made to understand that although he may
be averse himself to war, this is not enough to secure peace;
the other side, over whom he has no control, must desire peace
also. Most of us are quite averse to being murdered but still
the murders go on notwithstanding all we can do to prevent
them, and the only sound doctrine upon which we can rest
the safety of our country and the lives and fortunes of our
wives and children, comes down to us from the past: "Trust
in God and keep your powder dry" or "Be prepared."
I took Lord Roberts' book first to Secretary Garrison with
the request that he read it as pertinent to our condition, and
later to Secretary Baker with the report by General Emory
Upton on the military policy of the United States or rather
want of policy. My annual report as chief of staff for 1916 con-
tained a discussion on the equity and necessity of compulsory
training. This was just what was needed to crystallize the
558
Some Memories of a Soldier
editorial opinion of the whole country and before count was
lost brought out 792 favorable editorials on conscription from
all parts of the nation. I would take these editorials, one or
two at a time, to the secretary each day with my papers with
some such remark as: "I have here an editorial from your
home paper, 'The Cleveland Plain Dealer,' Mr. Secretary. I
would like you to read it." And the clipping, left without more
words, would be found later in my basket without comment.
This went on all winter with editorials from every section
of the country showing how wide was the feeling for con-
scription, and thus my convictions were urged quietly and
steadily without discussion or acrimonious argument. Although
I had no idea of the effect being produced, if any, I made no
effort to find out, fully recognizing that it would not be to the
secretary's advantage to move faster than the President and
risk a separation. All the time, however, I had full confidence
that the good sense of both would bring them along with me
in the end, as the secretary eventually did bring the President
along with him, in a way he would never have been able to do
had he attempted to force him.
Secretary Baker had taken up the war portfolio as a pacifist
some time before the war was declared, but he changed his
mind after coming to the War Department, as he was great
enough to announce in a public speech. When he did fall in
with our plans, and had the full support of the President,
they were invincible. No President or secretary in all our
history ever waged as great a war and waged it so directly and
so quickly to a successful issue as they did, and history
cannot avoid awarding them this credit.
A large element of Congress tried in every way to avoid
conscription, wishing to send us into war with the same old
political mistakes as were made in our previous wars. The
Speaker of the House threw the weight of his office and per-
sonal prestige against the measure, saying that he could "not
Washington and the War
559
see any difference between a conscript and a convict." Mes-
sages came to the secretary of war from Congress asking him
to compromise on this point or on that but back went his
answers like a bullet: "I will not compromise on one comma."
It was his firm attitude and that of the President that in the
end forced the draft from an unwilling majority.
The battle waged over this point was the most curious I
ever saw over any bill. Conscription was the policy of the
Democratic President, yet the Speaker of the House, the floor
leader and the chairman of the Military Committee, all Demo-
crats, would have none of it, leaving the policy of the
Democratic President to be carried through the House mainly
by the patriotic efforts of a Republican Jew born in Germany,
Mr. Julius Kahn, the member from California, for whom no
honor can be too great. May he rest in peace with the eternal
gratitude of his adopted country.
When the battle over conscription began the secretary of
war called a council of his advisers in the War Department
and asked their opinions on the advisability of pressing the
issue. They one and all advised against it as a waste of time,
saying that while it would be a very valuable thing to secure,
were it at all possible, it was not in accord with American
practice and psychology. The people would refuse to respond,
and it was thus not practicable. Look, they argued, at what
happened during the draft riots of 1862 in New York.
When it came my turn to speak, I said:
"Mr. Secretary, conscription is the only equitable, proper,
and certain way to raise an army. I have faith that with the
law once passed, the American people will respond to make it
a success. England started without it but was forced to come
to it. We must start right in this before we are forced to it,
when it may be too late. It is my opinion, Mr. Secretary, that
if you do not secure conscription now, you will already have
lost this war."
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Some Memories of a Soldier
The secretary and the President put their shoulders to the
wheel and got it, winning over a timid, irresolute, and un-
willing majority of Congress, devoid of vision. Truly has it
been written that "without vision, the people die." Conscrip-
tion is now generally recognized as one of the major elements
in our success and there will never be another large American
army raised in any other way, but what folly not to have the
law for conscription ready on the statute books to avoid delay
and bickering. It cannot be expected that France and England
will stand a second time between us and our enemy for a year
to allow us to prepare.
I proposed very feebly the conscription of labor in the last
war but was absolutely without encouragement from any
source. This was too great an innovation and I perforce had to
be satisfied with conscription for the army, a triumph in itself.
We can look back now, however, and see the many evils from
which labor conscription would have saved us.
In order to survive, the whole power of the nation must be
exerted in these modern wars, and in the next war I expect to
see conscription not only for the army and labor but also for
capital.
The better informed officers of the old army had long been
aware of the physical deterioration of the race in modern times,
as proved by the draft statistics, and they long wished for com-
pulsory military training to counteract it, but no determined
effort was ever made to secure it, partly because of the cost
of the necessary plant. We had hopes, however, that Congress
would utilize the twenty-seven great training camps after the
war for such a purpose, and were encouraged in these hopes
by the widespread recognition in the press of the many bene-
fits observed among our youth after a short period in those
training camps. Compulsory military training for youth would
be worth-while for the physical and mental uplift which it
would produce; worth-while alone as a fact in increasing the
Washington and the War
561
Americanization and amalgamation of our foreign population;
worth-while alone for the discipline enforced, with consequent
respect for law and the diminution of crime. But the oppor-
tunity to secure all these benefits for the coming generation
was allowed to pass, because there was neither vision nor
courage.
But we hear again, "Why prepare? There will never be
another war." Let us hope there never will be. But what sort of
a mind, I ask, can any one have who is willing to disregard
the teaching of experience; to gamble on the truth of theories
many times disproved, risking the highest interests of his
country.
We can account for one class of pacifist-he who is certain
there will be no more war because he himself is so lacking
in character that there is no principle of duty or honor for
which he is willing to fight, and he believes everybody to be
of the same caliber. He wants to do away with national and
municipal police and turn civilization over to the murderer and
the thief. unwilling, he says, to use force for any purpose, not
even for the protection of his wife and daughter. But these
types are beyond my comprehension.
ROUGH RIDERS AND THE INDIANS
A letter came to Washington soon after the declaration of
war, from Theodore Roosevelt, requesting authority for him
to raise a division of volunteers and conduct them to France.
When my opinion was asked by Mr. Baker, I replied:
"No, Mr. Secretary, it will not do at all. In the first place,
Congress has not given any authority to raise volunteers and
I hope it never will. This is an unwitting proposition to con-
tinue the same old mistakes we have made in all our previous
wars by raising a political army. This war is for the life of this
republic and we must build up a military and not a political
562
Some Memories of a Soldier
army. Mr. Roosevelt's request cuts directly across our policy
for conscription which we must insist upon in order to win
the war, the same policy that England had to come to, after
making many mistakes, when it was almost too late. We must
begin with it, instead of being forced into it too late.
"Mr. Roosevelt proposes also to milk the regular army of
all its best officers for his one division, to form of the preferred
stock the Rough Riders of this war, leaving the great army of
millions to be less well instructed and on an inferior status.
Our army, Mr. Secretary, must be commanded by a trained
soldier, the best you have got. You will never be able to look
in the faces of mothers of sons lost in battle that you have sent
over under any but the best trained and most experienced
soldier you can possibly secure. Mr. Roosevelt has not given
this the consideration it deserves. He is very honest about it
but he is not a trained soldier in any respect, although he
thinks he is, and if sent over in command, would do as he
himself considers best, which would not be what you think best
and you would have small control over him. Consider what
a ridiculous figure you would cut, attempting to punish Mr.
Roosevelt by court-martial! No, it would never do, Mr.
Secretary; France and England would feel that you are not
serious in this war and your promise of help would be dis-
believed. This proposition goes directly athwart our plans for
raising a real army."
The secretary came out strongly, saying: "He will not go.
This army will be commanded by a trained soldier." And so
it was. Nevertheless the proposition, because of the political in-
fluence behind it, almost killed our plans for conscription and
held back the action of Congress for weeks. It prevented us
from raising any army at a most dangerous period and if
France and England had not been between us and Germany,
our country might now be lost.
Secretary Lane had a plan for raising a separate division
Washington and the War
563
composed of Indians and when my opinion was asked by the
Secretary of War I had to say again, "It won't do." He asked,
"What makes you talk that way? You have always been the
friend of the Indian and once had an Indian troop of regular
cavalry that did well. Why do you talk that way now?" I
replied that I was just as good a friend of the Indian as
Secretary Lane, or anybody else was, but that we must not
build our army of special corps; that this time there should be
no Polish, Armenian, or Russian regiments, as in the Civil
War; no "fought mit Sigel," no "sons of Garibaldi"; nothing
but homogeneous American troops. The separate negro or-
ganizations we cannot avoid.
"Suppose, Mr. Secretary," I said, "you had an Indian divi-
sion decimated on the first line. You would have to pull that
division back out of the way, and send back over here for
new Indians to fill the ranks, and meanwhile your decimated
division would be worse than useless. On the other hand, by my
plan you could fill your divisions overnight. I know the Indian,
Mr. Secretary. He can serve harmoniously as an individual,
in any white organization, and will do himself credit and you,
too. But please do not allow the Indian or anybody else but
the negro segregated in our army. I would like much to have
the negro, too, serve as individuals in white organizations, as
we see in the navy, sometimes, but unfortunately that can-
not be."
The decision of Secretary Baker in this matter gave umbrage
to Secretary Lane but the result turned out as predicted. The
Indian was popular in his organization of white soldiers,
wherever he served, no word of misprision ever reaching my
ears. As a race he played a higher part in the war on the side
of patriotism than the ordinary white man, notwithstanding
the fact that it was but a short time since we were pointing
guns at him. He put aside his long list of grievances against
his white brother, without waiting to be drafted, and of about
564
Some Memories of a Soldier
fifteen thousand men able to pass our military examinations,
ten thousand served in the army and navy, a greater propor-
tion than was furnished by the white man whose war it was
primarily this being one that the Indians did not make.
Although an impoverished race, the Indians bought more
than twenty-five million dollars' worth of Liberty bonds, sub-
scribed liberally to the Red Cross and kindred societies, and
would have done more had they known how to carry out our
money-raising schemes. We may indeed all be proud of our
red race and its records in the World War.
COMMISSIONS
Tremendous pressure was put on Secretary Baker for com-
missions. While I did not know anything about it, I supposed
that the President would have nothing to do with the award-
ing of commissions in the new army, and I never heard of his
interference in a single case. In all previous wars, commissions
were part of the political spoils, and in the Spanish War sena-
tors and representatives with their constituents filled the cor-
ridors of the War Department, making it difficult at times to
get about. General Henry C. Corbin's office was thronged every
time I saw it with another crowd outside the door. I remember
waiting two hours once for a chance to speak to him. This was
all forestalled in this war by the secretary's one answer to all
applications: "Go to some officers' training camp and earn a
commission if you want one." Of course some of the "dollar
a day men," who were especially noted as experts in their line,
were given commissions without service in camps but their
work was to be of a civil nature and the chief of staff had
little to do with them.
Every commission I advised was on a recommendation from
a school. I recommended for a commission Major Robert
Bacon of New York who was over age. The secretary refused

100
for 2
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onds!
ater 3
GENERAL SCOTT'S SONS AT PLATTSBURG
HOCK ISLAND
ARSENAL
Washington and the War
565
to give it, knowing only of his connection with the firm of
J. P. Morgan & Co. I had met him the year before in the
office of Mr. Louis Wiley of "The New York Times" and he
was beaming, having just been made a sergeant at Plattsburg,
and he was more proud of this triumph than when ap-
pointed secretary of state. I told Secretary Baker that I
thought he was making a mistake in his refusal, not only on
account of Bacon's high character and physical fitness but also
because he had once been ambassador to France and a mem-
ber of the firm of Morgan, Harjes & Company, Paris, and no
more influential liaison officer with the French could be found
in all America. The secretary finally appointed him and as I
remember now, with sincere pleasure. When I arrived later in
Chaumont, I asked some one to find a place for us to live and
was told, "You see Major Robert Bacon, town major of
Chaumont; he'll find a place for you." We found the major and
had many delightful walks about his town.
The secretary's close adherence to the policy of making ap-
plicants for commissions earn them in camp, kept our cor-
ridors and offices so free from politicians and their constituents
that it was as quiet in my office as on a Sunday morning in
time of peace. The truth was that intense study had been
given to every phase of the problem before the war broke, and
everything was done that the law allowed, with much that it
did not allow, and all the preliminaries were out of the way or
in process of elimination. Nothing, however, could be done
toward actually raising the army; everything was waiting for
Congress to enact a law by which we could build a force.
ACTION AND WHY POSSIBLE
Immediately upon the passage of the act declaring a state
of war with Germany, I took to the secretary for his signature
a plan, and estimate, authorizing the expenditure of fifty
million dollars without waiting for Congress to act. I explained
566
Some Memories of a Soldier
to him that to expend public money unappropriated by Con-
gress was a penitentiary offense, but that these things must
be done at once. Within five minutes I was back in my office
among a council of the chiefs of bureaus with the signature
of the secretary and said, "There it is, gentlemen; the secre-
tary has touched the button, and the wheels must begin to
move-not this afternoon, but now! Go to it!" They went, and
the wheels began to turn.
While pressure on Secretary Baker was tremendous, he
never allowed it to hurry or ruffle him in the least and the
rest of us tried to imitate him. He met everybody at all times
with his kindly good humor and was considerate as always
of every one about him; he was always ready to accept the
responsibilities of his position with force and promptness, fully
convinced that these were war times and that somebody must
take the responsibility to get action, since Congress would not.
Secretary William C. Redfield once told Mr. Baker that he
needed some clerks for the Department of Commerce and
could not get them from Congress and asked him how he man-
aged under similar circumstances. Mr. Baker said, "I take
them." Secretary Redfield asked how he kept out of jail since
that was a penitentiary offense. Mr. Baker said, “Oh, I am
in about four hundred million to-day; a few clerks don't
bother me a bit." Mr. Redfield laughed and said, "I am not
the magnificent criminal that you are. I cannot do that.”
A certain noble senator at a Roosevelt dinner in New York
made the statement that "the War Department had ceased to
function," when as a matter of fact every branch of it was
working at higher speed than had been ever known before. It
was Congress that was slow to function. Somebody had to take
responsibility and act if Congress would not, even at personal
risk. The former secretary and I have managed to escape jail
so far and we hope to do so for a while longer. That senatorial
statement, despite its untruth, did much damage to the secre-
Washington and the War
567
tary in the country at large among the ignorant and unthink-
ing. He was far too busy attending to his own work to defend
himself from such aspersions or to play up his accomplish-
ments in the press. He was out to win that war, and he won it.
As times goes on, however, the facts of what transpired dur-
ing those troublous times will become known and Secretary
Baker and President Wilson will be recognized as having ac-
complished a heroic work which far excelled any comparable
task accomplished by any of their predecessors in office since
the foundation of the republic.
The proper functioning of the army under the tremendous
bouleversement it underwent in raising itself from approxi-
mately a hundred thousand men to four million was made
possible by three things:
First, an adequate system of military administration. The
whole country became aware after the Spanish War that the
army had gone into that conflict organized to carry on peace,
not war. All of the better informed officers had realized this
but were powerless to change anything since the condition was
the result of acts of Congress passed during a long period of
peace. The system inherited by Secretary Russell A. Alger
destroyed him as it would have destroyed anybody else when
put to the supreme test of war. Elihu Root, his successor, had
the sagacity and the influence with Congress to obtain legisla-
tion by which the army was able to reorganize itself from
within. This reorganization went on from year to year, not-
withstanding the opposition of a certain element of the army
to retard and prevent. This reactionary element had the ear
of Congress through long service in Washington and attention
to the wishes of its members had almost succeeded in destroy-
ing the general staff. The individuals comprising this group
were honest but misguided, and had they been able to send
the system back to what it had been before the Spanish War,
we would never have been able to put two million men in
568
Some Memories of a Soldier
France. The new system was battled for continually by the
general staff and the results have told us that it is the proper
one. I believe that it is now so firmly entrenched as no longer
to need its champions.
Second among factors which made possible our expedition-
ary force was the splendid condition of the regular army,
which was maintained at the highest pitch of discipline and
instruction, and which gained in experience through the con-
centration camp ordered by General Wood at San Antonio in
1911, while he was chief of staff; the concentration of the
militia at the border in 1916 also contributed to our effective-
ness while the punitive expedition into Mexico added much to
the poise and experience of General Pershing. It is my opin-
ion to-day that our officers were the most highly educated of
any body of officers in the world at the outbreak of the war,
and needed only experience in new developments of trench
work to make them the peers of any. General Pershing was
able to hold his own in a foreign country among the greatest
soldiers, statesmen, and diplomats of our time, which would
not have been possible had we all been such dubs as our foreign
allies, who, looking down from their lofty heights, thought us
the Canadian, and the Australian troops, until the results ac-
complished in battle convinced them to the contrary.
The third factor indispensable to our success was conscrip-
tion. This enabled the proper selection of duty for men who
were put in positions which they were fitted to fill, and a
steady flow of recruits was maintained without need of begging
or buying enlistment; and no time was lost devising schemes
to wake enthusiasm for recruiting, which was certain to fail
in some quarters.
Japan and some of the other allies thought that we could
never put more than three hundred thousand men in France.
The achievements of our army and navy contributed much
to the downfall of the empires of Germany and Austria and
G

M. TERESTCHENKO, WITH MR. ELIHU ROOT AND GENERAL SCOTT ON
THEIR MISSION TO RUSSIA
Washington and the War
569
placed our country in the front rank of nations. The tremen-
dous effort we were also able to put forth astonished the
world, including ourselves, and served to make known to all
that the United States will fight if necessary and cannot be
attacked with impunity. This feeling on the part of others
toward us has done much for the stability of peace. When
neither side desires to fight, no causes are given for fighting
and usually there is no war.
Before entering upon another subject I will relate a few
facts connected with the resignations of Secretary Garrison and
Assistant Secretary Breckinridge. In the letter of the President
accepting the resignation of the former it was stated incident-
ally that "it was unfortunate that the chief of staff should
have spoken as he did before the Senate Military Committee."
This gave me the impression that possibly the President would
prefer to change his chief of staff for a new one but this idea
was dispelled, as indicated by the letter in the Appendix under
date of February 14, 1916.
On February 28 the President invited me to sit in the Cabi-
net while secretary of war ad interim, a privilege enjoyed by no
other soldier, at least since the Civil War.¹
I found my own commission as major-general in a batch of
others left unsigned by Secretary Garrison-and I signed it
as secretary of war ad interim with the others, after assurance
of its legality by the Department of Justice. This is said to
have been the only case of its kind in the history of the War
Department and was made possible only by the simultaneous
culmination of many elements. I was treated with much friend-
liness and courtesy by all in the Cabinet meetings and con-
sidered it a most pleasing and remarkable experience, espe-
cially since the President was fully aware that I had been a
life-long Republican. I thought it indicated a rare confidence
in my fidelity and discretion.
¹See Appendix, letter of Feb. 28, 1916.
PART VIII
The Russian Revolution
NEWS of the abdication of the Czar Nicholas following the
Russian Revolution in 1917, was received in the United States
with tremendous joy as the forerunner of the liberation of
the Russian people. Our government was the first to recognize
the Provisional Government welcoming the new Russia with
open arms into the sisterhood of democracies.
I was in Washington serving in the capacity of chief of
staff when Secretary Baker informed us in the War Depart-
ment that the President was desirous of sending a commission
to Russia to emphasize the enthusiasm of America at the
latter's great triumph and to assist in the stabilization of her
new government.
Mr. Elihu Root was to be the chairman of this delegation.
There were to be representatives of the different parties and
interests in America: the Socialist and Labor parties, the
bankers, the manufacturers, high officers of the army and navy,
and Dr. John R. Mott, president of the Young Men's Christian
Association.
When President Wilson asked if I would be a member of the
commission I told the secretary that I did not wish to leave
the United States while we were preparing to go to war with
Germany but that, nevertheless, I was completely at the dis-
position of the President and would do cheerfully whatever he
wished. In a few days the secretary stated that he had given
my message to the President who had replied that he had
known that that would be my answer and he wished me to go.
570
The Russian Revolution
571
I joined the commission on a special train at Washington,
May 16, 1917, with Colonel R. E. L. Michie, of the General
Staff and one orderly, and we started for Seattle where we were
to board a naval vessel for Vladivostok, Siberia.
The plans of the commission were given to the press with the
request that they be kept confidential in order to prevent
knowledge of the commission's route from reaching any hos-
tile submarine that might be operating in the Pacific. We were
met by crowds of press representatives at all the important
places en route across the continent, but not one of them
abused our confidence. This has invariably been my experience
with the members of the newspaper fraternity covering contact
with them during forty years.
Going west of the Missouri and up the Yellowstone River, I
was able to point out places which had figured in my youth,
as well as some of our old camp sites in 1877, when that
country had still been very far from the railway, inhabited
only by Indians, soldiers, a few white buffalo hunters, and
thousands of buffalo and antelope.
We were joined in Seattle by Mr. Cyrus McCormick, presi-
dent of the Harvester Company of Chicago, the representative
of the manufacturing interests of the country, and all went at
once aboard the naval transport, Buffalo, under the command
of Captain Hines, and sailed that night for the Unimak Pass
between the point of southwest Alaska and the Aleutian
Islands, skirting Alaska and Kodiak Island in full view on
the right.
All went well until we neared the Unimak Pass when the
sea appeared to turn itself upside down and the ship with it.
Mr. Root was thrown out of bed to the floor of his cabin,
fortunately without injury. The furniture and fittings of my
cabin and all my property reeled about all night, and I had
all I could do to hold myself in my bunk. Matters improved,
however, once we got through the pass and squared off for a
572
Some Memories of a Soldier
run north of the Aleutian Islands. But after passing the
Pribilof Islands where the seals breed, and the lower end of
Kamchatka, we entered the Sea of Okhotsk, where we ran
into an ice field for which the construction of the ship was
not intended, and the blows of the ice floes against its thin sides
threatened to crush it in until we turned and ran far out of
our course..
We passed through the Sea of Japan around and close to
the south end of Sakhalin, and across the Yellow Sea into
the Bay of Vladivostok where we signaled for a pilot, one clear,
beautiful morning, the ship having been admirably handled
by Captain Hines through the voyage. Receiving no reply to
our signals, the captain worked the ship himself into the inner
harbor of Vladivostok and since no captain of the port would
assign him a berth, he took the most convenient he could find.
Here was a ship of a foreign navy coming into the port in
war time and receiving no notice from anybody. Evidently all
officials had abandoned their duty. We had to send an officer
ashore to find out how to get to Petrograd. He brought aboard
a person who said that the imperial train of the former czar
had arrived to take us across Siberia and we would be in-
formed of the hour it would be ready to depart. Some of us
went up into the city to look at the architecture and the
motley crowds gathered from all the world.
There were said to be many anarchists and criminals from
the United States coming over to exploit Russia, Communists
and German spies, all inimical to the commission and to law
and order, and there seemed to be no government in charge.
It was not known whether the commission would be allowed
to proceed west without an attempt to blow up the train. There
was evidently considerable opposition in town to our leaving,
but we were finally conducted to the train which started after
a long wait, partly caused by the running of a pilot engine out
for a distance lest the track be mined to blow us up, but we
The Russian Revolution
573
got away finally for our journey of ten days across Mongolia,
Siberia and Russia to Petrograd, a distance of five thousand
miles.
At Chita we found a delegation from the Peking Govern-
ment dressed in the full diplomatic costume of the Orient-
frock coats and high hats-waiting for us on the platform with
an invitation to visit their capital, to which we were able to give
only a qualified acceptance, knowing nothing of what the
future would bring forth; it transpired that that government
fell before our return, and the invitation fell through. Those
were dark days for governments.
Here too we met some of the big Sikhs, of the warrior races
of India with their huge white turban and long black beards
that are never cut. They are imported to act as police in many
cities in the Orient; great tall fellows, whose size alone strikes
terror among the little natives.
We had been warned against the native Buriats of this
region, lest they take our train and hold us all for ransom,
but in a few moments of contact I got on good terms with all
we met although we could not understand a word of each
other's language. We found them jolly fellows, as were certain
members of the Chinese delegation who went on with us to
Harbin, some of whom spoke excellent English.
General Horvatch, a tall fine looking Russian officer, with
a long white beard, met us at Harbin and took charge of us
until our train was ready to proceed. He had assumed control
of Harbin probably because there was no one else to do it. He
drove us about while our train was being refitted, showing us
the sights of a most cosmopolitan city, apparently without
government and wide open.
We expected to meet here Mr. John F. Stevens, the famous
American engineer who had come to Manchuria by way of
Japan, with a commission to take over the management of the
railroads of Russia and produce some order out of the chaos,
574
Some Memories of a Soldier
but he had not arrived and as we could not wait we went on
without him.
As an indication of the state of inefficiency at which the
railways had arrived I may mention that there were seven
hundred thousand tons of freight piled up outdoors at Vladi-
vostok and eight thousand automobiles in their original crates
which had been lying there for a year, all greatly needed on the
western front but it was the business of nobody to send them
forward and there were hundreds of locomotives here and there
without mechanics to repair them. We were all agreeably sur-
prised, however, at the excellent condition of the road-bed
which had probably not had time to deteriorate.
While were were passing through the Mongolian desert, it
was interesting to observe the contrast between the old and the
new when a camel train was passed, traveling on a route that
had probably been used for ages.
We crossed the mountains bordering Lake Baikal around its
southern end, and stopped for a while opposite Irkutsk with
the Angara River between. The city was in plain view and we
would have liked to have paid a visit but were obliged to go
on without delay.
A large camp of German prisoners was maintained near by
and some of Dr. Mott's Y. M. C. A. workers in the camp came
aboard our train and we took them along with us as Russian
interpreters.
The imperial train was equipped with everything needed by
the former czar. An electric light plant was ready to furnish
light when the train was parked on a side track, disconnected
from the locomotive, and there was even a butcher shop on
board. One might see a live calf dragged across the platform
and put on board the train. A few more stations and a man
would be seen carrying a calf's hide into the station, and a
little farther on there would be veal for dinner.
Colonel Michie, Dr. Mott and Colonel William V. Judson
The Russian Revolution
575
had the car of the royal princesses, upholstered in silk. I had
the quarters of the chief of staff, upholstered in leather. An-
other car was divided in half, one part a salon, the other the
diner. The salon contained a number of armchairs, a divan,
and the little table upon which the czar had signed his abdi-
cation. There were several icons attached to the wall.
The diner had but one long table that extended along the
center for the length of the compartment. There were excellent
cooks and waiters and every kind of alcoholic drink known to
the civilized world in abundant quantity and excellent quality;
beer, champagne, vodka, Scotch, rye, red and white wines from
the Caucasus-everything to drink and nobody to drink it.
The serving staff obviously thought that we must certainly all
be fools to live amid such liquid opulence and not make use of
it. If we had been Russians, and if stories of the past were
true, we would have been drunk at Vladivostok and sobered
up partly at Petrograd, but nothing more was utilized than a
glass of beer or a pint of wine at meal-time, and I drank a
tablespoon of vodka to find out what it was like.
The population in Siberia seemed very sparse and mainly
grouped at the little stations although there were several good
sized cities, some on, some off the line, visible at long intervals.
The landscape, however, was suggestive of the North Dakota
of early days, with its rich black soil, prairie grass and flowers,
and birch and quaking aspen predominating wherever there
were trees. We crossed many of the rivers familiar to the geog-
raphy of our childhood, the Yenisei, the Lena, the Volga, and
others. We passed through or near Irkutsk, Perm, and Yekat-
erinburg; the train stopped a long while at the last named to
give passengers an opportunity to buy the polished jasper,
agate, and other semi-precious stones for sale here.
Siberia and Manchuria had just as many wild fowl as
primitive America but here the people do not own shotguns.
The Chinese trap a few but thousands of fowl die without ever
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Some Memories of a Soldier
hearing the sound of a gun. On some of the Philippine rivers
the ducks at times darken the sun with none to molest them.
Manchuria and Siberia are ideal places to bring up an Irish
water spaniel or a Chesapeake Bay dog, for here he can give
full scope to his genius.
We were met at all the important stations by enthusiastic
crowds of well-wishers to whom Mr. Root spoke concerning
the expected new government, American participation in the
war, and the welcome of America to the freedom of Russia.
He was always answered with courtesy by the speakers, of
whom there were many. Public speaking was evidently a new
toy and was being played with all along the road. Everybody
wanted to speak and some spoke very well.
While America was in great favor, the people wanted none
of our form of government. They seemed to be well fed, com-
fortably clothed, and were of the blue-eyed, fair-haired Nordic
type of northern Russia, some of them very handsome, both
the men and women.
Quite a number of women were employed by the railroads,
some in watering the trains, some standing at the grade cross-
ings to prevent accidents, holding a little green flag, the symbol
of office, and some as fire women on the locomotives.
The idea that seemed uppermost in the minds of everybody
was freedom; freedom to do anything and everything they
pleased. The revolution had ended their employment with the
government for there was no one to pay the workmen or the
police and we were greatly surprised at the small amount of
crime and the good nature of the crowds. There was some
roughness caused by the trainloads of soldiers coming back
from the front carrying their arms and demanding the right of
way for their trains. We were held up in this way but the
Russians usually gave up the right of way to the United States
Commission to Russia. All being free to do as they pleased,
many wanted to ride in trains, and when some zealous con-

SECRETARY BAKER AND GENERAL SCOTT IN WASHINGTON
The Russian Revolution
577
ductor demanded tickets, he was shown a fixed bayonet and
told that was ticket enough, as indeed it was.
IN PETROGRAD
We were courteously met at the station of Petrograd and
taken to reside in the Winter Palace on the banks of the Neva,
fronting on the side of the city toward the monument of
Alexander III in the middle of a great plaza on the opposite
side of which were the war offices and that of the general staff.
On the opposite side of the Neva was the fortress of St. Peter
and St. Paul where the political prisoners were confined, and
where the emperors and empresses of Russia were entombed
as far back as Peter the Great. I had a little sentimental
interest in the Grand Duke Alexis who hunted buffalo with
Buffalo Bill Cody and who visited West Point in my youth.
He was entombed in an annex.
Mr. Root and I were given suites with a salon and dining
rooms in the apartments of Catherine the Great. The other
members of the commission were quartered in the other end of
the Winter Palace; it required a walk of fifteen minutes
through devious corridors to reach them.
The palace was a damp gloomy structure, built long before
the idea of bathrooms originated, but temporary bathrooms
and sanitary arrangements of an extremely crude nature had
been installed in the corridor. There was a hospital in the
palace containing a thousand wounded soldiers, but the edifice
was so huge and had so many entrances that one would never
have known of its presence unless told of it. There were many
imperial suites, ball-rooms, and audience chambers, furnished
generally in the style of the French Empire; many battle
scenes by eminent Russian painters and many tall vases from
Sèvres, or of lapis lazuli, higher than a man.
We went to service in the palace chapel, where since there
578
Some Memories of a Soldier
were no seats we stood up. We went mainly to hear the imperial
choir which sang without instrumental accompaniment. It was
still holding together and was said to be the finest in Russia.
We heard another famous choir in the Cathedral of St. Isaacs
where the wealth displayed was enormous.
There was a long narrow apartment extending nearly across
the Winter Palace called the Romanoff Gallery. It contained
the portraits of the emperors and empresses since Peter and a
great many Sèvres vases a century or more old. From the
second story of the Winter Palace a bridge stretched over to
the Hermitage Gallery, one of the finest in Europe, full of
the works of the old masters collected by the czars of Russia
for more than a hundred years.
This building joined the barracks of the Imperial Guard,
dating back to the end of the seventeenth century, on inspec-
tion of which I was taken by the commander of the garrison
of Petrograd, a most distinguished looking Cossack of the
highest type. Everything about the barracks was extremely
crude and seemed not to have been cleaned since first occupied,
several hundred years before. The men slept on boards with-
out any bedding, other than the blanket they carried, and their
food seemed insufficient and badly prepared, consisting mainly
of cabbage, soup, and lentils with tea and little meat. This was
the crack regiment of the Imperial Guard; other regiments
were lower in the military scale. The comfort of the men did
not seem of much concern to anybody, the Russian officers
being noted, in fact, for their indifference and their cruelty to
their men whom they were accustomed to kick and beat when-
ever the fancy seized them. I received many applications here
and elsewhere from Russian officers for employment in our new
army but they were not at all capable of maintaining them-
selves with American forces, either by education, training,
or language.
I was taken through the imperial military schools, some of
The Russian Revolution
579
them huge bare structures of the crudest type, with an ele-
mentary curriculum about such as West Point had in 1802.
The cadets lived nearly as roughly as the soldiers and the
equipment of some of the schools was confined to a globe, a few
blackboards, and pens and ink.
The Cossack commander took us to inspect a Cossack regi-
ment and lunch with its officers, and we were shown the
mounted exercises of the Cossacks which in no way compared
with the exercises in the riding hall at West Point. After
lunch some of the men demonstrated the Cossack dances. The
good-will shown us everywhere, especially among the Cossacks,
was very pleasing. One young Cossack officer arose during
lunch and presented me with a little riding whip with a graceful
speech. Some one said that it had been given him by his girl.
After the war, I received a letter from Seattle from this officer,
and wrote back to him but never heard from him again.
I saw only one custom in Russia which I thought worth
adopting into our army. Whenever an officer of rank enters a
barrack room, the men all stand attention and call out in a
loud voice in unison, "Good morning, my General!" and are
answered, "Good morning, my children!"-a custom I liked
very much.
The Russian military service is crude in the extreme from
our point of view and far behind ours in every particular.
The Russian soldier, however, is remarkably brave, patriotic,
and enduring, the Cossack seemingly more loyal and intelli-
gent than the others. Mr. Root remarked one day that he had
seen a Cossack sharpen his sword in the palace courtyard-
the most encouraging sight, he said, he had seen in all Russia.
We were received and entertained by the Provisional Gov-
ernment of which Kerensky appeared to be the head, and
Tereschtenko the minister of foreign affairs, the latter impres-
sive as a forceful, cultivated gentleman with a background.
I saw a good deal of both, finding Kerensky a bit too radically
580
Some Memories of a Soldier
inclined to suit me, the same radicalism pervading the entire
government to a dangerous degree.
Our commission split up into various elements, each one con-
ferring with its kind; Mr. S. R.,Bertron with the bankers, Mr.
C. E. Russell with the Socialists, and Mr. J. Duncan with the
labor element, while I went with my staff to confer with the
chief of staff and the War Office.
An order was promulgated early that the soldier would no
longer be compelled to salute his officer, which was the be-
ginning of the downfall of Russia. It was not long before
remembrance of cruel dealings and other mistreatment received
from officers began to react on the soldiers-in commissions of
murder; soon control of military organizations was main-
tained not by a commander but by ballot of members which
brought about the disintegration of the Russian Army. This
virus of insubordination was stronger at some parts of the
Russian front than at others, being especially strong in the
vicinity of Petrograd where the radical ironworkers were most
numerous and best organized. These organized radical work-
men, together with the tools introduced by Germany, such as
Lenin and Trotsky, were what caused the complete enslave-
ment of Russia.
The discipline of the army was best maintained the further
one got from Petrograd, and still held well down near the
Romanian frontier in Bessarabia and Galicia.
Our conferences with the chief of staff and the secretary
of war were mainly about methods by which the United States
could best coöperate with Russia in prosecution of the war.
I was immensely disturbed over the great number of armed
men who had left the front without authority and were travel-
ing all over the country in leaderless crowds by the trainload.
They were peaceful and harmless if not interfered with, and
remarkably few were committing crimes; nevertheless they
were a great menace to peace and order, and, worse still from

U. S. COMMISSION TO RUSSIA, 1917; MR. ELIHU ROOT AND ASSOCIATES, WITH D. R.
FRANCIS, AMERICAN AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA, AND CHARLES R. CRANE,
AT THE WINTER PALACE, PETROGRAD
The Russian Revolution
581
my point of view, their absence from the front marked the very
serious disintegration of the Russian Army. My principal
efforts were directed toward repairing this disintegration and
keeping Russia in the war, principally because the breakdown
of Russian resistance would release about 200 German and
Austrian divisions from the Russian front for the reinforce-
ment of the German front in France, which I considered would
be a calamity of the first order.
The discussions on coöperation always turned about two
subjects: first, an American loan to Russia, and second, rail-
way transportation. Everything reverted to these.
I declined to discuss the details of the railway transportation
referring them always to Stevens, of the railway commission,
who had come to Russia for that purpose. But munitions and
supplies with means of procuring and paying for them were
fully discussed, and all their needs were submitted in writing
and reported to the State and War Departments of the United
States upon our return.
In all these conferences nothing was said by the Russians
about fighting and the continuance of Russia in the war. On
the other hand, the newspapers had much to say about "peace
without annexations" and "peace without victory" which
sounded most disquieting to me.
Russia was evidently tired of the war and we did what we
could to combat the propaganda inspired doubtless by German
agents. Russia is such a great sprawling nation that its right
hand never knows what its left hand does. While its popula-
tion is largely illiterate, still the newspapers are read to audi-
ences in far away places on the railways and listened to with
eagerness by large crowds, and propaganda can be made very
effective. To offset all this, we launched our own in the limited
way that our resources would permit, and that it was having
effect was shown by the tone of the press and the fact that
the tide of leaderless troops coming in from the battle-fields
582
Some Memories of a Soldier
had turned, and more men were going back to the front than
were leaving it.
The fact of the turning tide was most encouraging, and I
thought it an opportune time to promote some action to im-
press the Germans, so that they would keep those 200 divisions
on the Russian front. The question was put directly at a
conference in the war office.
"In case you get these loans, what are you going to do with
them? Are you going to continue in the war and fight?”
This had the effect of a bomb-shell exploding in their midst.
They looked first at each other and then at me, with some
perturbation, and answered finally, "Yes, we are going to
fight."
"If that is true then," I said, "I would like to see you do it."
They then promised to arrange for an advance at which I
might be present, saying they would notify me of the time to
go to the front.
While awaiting this notification, I went with the commission
to Moscow. Here meetings were held with city and provincial
authorities and prominent men of Moscow, addressed by Mr.
Root and the civil members of the commission.
I was somewhat shocked on calling upon the military
governor of Moscow to find that he was an enlisted man
without education, appointed to the position by Kerensky-
an indication of the demoralization of the Russian Army, now
governed by councils rather than by commanders.
The commission also made a visit to General Brusiloff, com-
mander of the Russian Army at Mohileff, the former head-
quarters of the czar, where we conferred again with Teresch-
tenko.
Taking our leave of Moscow we returned to Petrograd where
we were soon notified that arrangements had been completed
to take us to the front.
We were provided with a special train on which we lived,
The Russian Revolution
583
but not the imperial train that had brought us from Siberia.
We were taken first to see General Brusiloff again at his head-
quarters at Mohileff where we dined once more with him and
his chief of staff, General Lukomski, who has since made me
a visit over here after a miraculous escape from Russia with
his wife and family. We went to Kiev and thence to Tarnopol
in Galicia, arriving there near daybreak where we were awak-
ened by a pandemonium of cannon fire and exploding bombs.
Rushing out without dressing under the impression that the
train was being captured, we learned the racket had been
caused by an airplane which had been trying to bomb the
train, but which was driven off without casualty.
We left the train at Tarnopol and were taken down toward
the front in cars by a Russian liaison officer, through army
and corps headquarters to that of a division at a peasant
village eight miles from the front, and we were billeted in a
peasant's cottage, occupied mainly by flies and a huge brick
stove. Each one of us was given a hospital cot and blankets
saturated with formaldehyde. Death was all about one here,
sensible alike to the eye, ear, and nose.
We were allowed to proceed next morning under a pledge
that we would not go into the front trenches, the Russians
fearing responsibility lest we be captured by the enemy in case
of a reverse.
AT THE FRONT
The first notice we had of our proximity to the front was
the rumble of artillery from a distance. Next we saw a line
of war balloons stretching out of sight in both directions. Both
going to and returning from the front, my speeches urging the
continuance of the war and the holding of the German and
Austrian divisions at the Russian front were received with
acclaim. We heard here that the Austrians were very tired of
the war but their divisions were arranged alternately with
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Some Memories of a Soldier
German divisions so that it was impossible for them to with-
draw.
When we reached a little village under the fire of the enemy,
we were told we must leave our cars and go forward on foot.
Everything looked very peaceful and quiet; the children were
playing about on the edge of the village, but just as we were
getting out of our cars a big gun was fired apparently almost
under our feet. It had been camouflaged so cleverly that none
of us suspected its proximity, and one does not associate war
with the presence of children, with women working quietly in
the fields, with beautiful cornflowers and singing larks. We
were told that we might only go one or two at a time to the
observation post of the division commander, hidden away in
the hills. A few days before, the enemy had poked shells here
and there in search of this post and had poked one right into
it which had killed the chief of staff without the Germans'
knowledge, and they had gone on searching elsewhere.
Startled every now and then by the discharge of great guns
so remarkably well camouflaged in a near-by wheat field that
none had been aware of their presence, three of us waded
through a long trench without revetment or duckboards, filled
knee-deep with greasy clay water that plastered us from head
to foot every time we slipped and fell. The ramifications of the
trenches were very confusing but we arrived in time at the
observation post, a little cubby-hole the size of a dry-goods
box, with a slit across the front, two inches wide, through
which the line in front could be surveyed with a glass for
twenty miles in both directions. The division commander was
summoned and soon he and the corps commander appeared
out of fox holes on the right and left. The post was much
crowded by the three of us and a Russian interpreter.
The Russians were most courteous and obliging. We dis-
cussed their plans for a battle and the points of interest along
the line were pointed out with the information that the in-
The Russian Revolution
585
tensity of the bombardment then going on along a forty mile
front was to be doubled at four o'clock in the morning and the
infantry was going over the top at nine o'clock.
We were advised to go back eight miles to our formaldehyde
cots for the night as there was no place there for us either to
eat or sleep, and we might come back at seven or eight o'clock
in the morning in time to see the advance. Acting on this
advice, we left the post one at a time and sat down at a
distance to watch the bombardment until time to return to
our village. Then we went back in our cars to our antiseptic
stretchers which were not antiseptic enough to banish the flies
that were thick over everything, due to the proximity of the
peasants' farmyard.
The wind during the night was blowing toward the front
and although we knew the bombarding was going on all the
time, we could not hear the slightest sound of it although we
could feel the vibrations of the earth through the legs of the
cot. Back in the observation post at eight in the morning we
found the bombardment in furious progress from both sides,
aeroplanes manoeuvering overhead.
Several of the balloons were shot down and some planes lost.
We could look down on a hill before us with ravines running
to the rear where it seemed that our reserves would naturally
be hidden. It was most interesting to note the skill with which
the enemy searched out those ravines, dropping shells with
great regularity down their course from top to bottom. This
did the Germans and Austrians no good, however, for the
reserves were elsewhere.
The Russian infantry went over the top promptly at the
zero hour and after adequate preparation. In comparatively
short time thereafter we could see great streams of men com-
ing back, which appeared to indicate a severe reverse but they
turned out to be seven thousand Austrian and German prison-
ers just captured in the front trenches, who were glad to risk
586
Some Memories of a Soldier
any fate rather than remain in those trenches as they had for
two days, with little food, fastened where they were by a con-
stant barrage.
The observation post was very small and cramped for room.
We were made very welcome but these general officers were
fighting a serious battle and I thought that we had better leave
and give them room, especially as our presence seemed to dis-
turb them a little; so thanking them for their hospitality and
kindness, we took our leave. We stopped at the edge of a wheat
field and sat down to watch the battle again, but soon heard
a cry of alarm from an artillery brigade commander hidden
somewhere underground in the wheat field, asking us to go
away as the enemy was getting our range and he was afraid
his wires would be cut by shells. So we moved again, this time
to a battery 75° nearer the front where the commander told
us that his battery had fired two hundred rounds per gun that
morning and it was only eleven o'clock. Some irreverent
American remarked that if the military committees of our
Congress were present to hear that account of the expendi-
ture of ammunition their members would suffer heart failure.
We went then to inspect a column of prisoners who were
being conducted to the rear. They had been kept close to their
trenches for two days, unable even to stick their heads up, and
were glad to get anywhere alive. Most of them were young
Austrians, well fed and adequately dressed.
The bombardment forty miles in width was terrific, with
three lines of guns only a few yards apart and arranged in
three lines according to caliber, the .75s nearest to the front.
During all that commotion an old gray horse was quietly
grazing behind the line, paying not the slightest attention to
those noisy humans while destruction raged all about him.
He was still grazing there unharmed when I saw him last.
Watching such bombardment here and later in France where
the air seemed swept continually for long periods with flying
The Russian Revolution
587
projectiles, one wondered how a single sparrow could remain
alive.
After the battle we got safely back to our train and made
a visit to the headquarters of General Kormiloff, the famous
Cossack general, who had lately made a remarkable escape
from a prison in the interior of Austria. He had a great reputa-
tion as a soldier and we came to regard him as the hope of
Russia. He received us in a most cordial manner and had us
shown everything we wanted to see. Kerensky afterwards be-
came jealous of him although he was a simple, loyal, patriotic
soldier. The last I heard of him he had been taken off a train
somewhere and shot and his head kicked about like a football;
and there has been no hope for Russia since.
ROMANIA IN DESPAIR
We made our way through Bessarabia into Romania to
Jassy where the court and Government had established them-
selves after being driven from their headquarters by the raid
of General Mackenson. Here we were received with more en-
thusiasm than anywhere on our journey. We were quartered
in the palace of the Metropolitan of Jassy and I was asked to
speak to the Romanian senate.
When we arrived at the senate we found that the other house
had adjourned in order to be present and we received a wild
ovation as representatives of their new ally. I was blessed by
the Metropolitan of Jassy there in the senate chamber amid
great excitement.
We had conferences with the chief of staff, General Averescu,
now premier of Romania; dined with Jon Bratiano, then
premier; were presented at court and dined with the royal
family, and later attended reviews with the king.
The Romanians were very anxious for an American loan,
pointing out the fact that they could not last the winter with-
588
Some Memories of a Soldier
out food and clothing for fifteen divisions. I told Premier
Bratiano that it would be difficult to ask the Jews of America
to support a loan to the government of Romania which had
treated its Jewish brethren with such hardship. It was promised
that this hardship would cease and that full citizenship would
be granted the Jews as soon as it could be legally accomplished.
General Berthelot, of the French Army, was then in Jassy
overseeing the reorganization of the Romanian army. He was
an old friend of Col. Mott who had the greatest confidence in
him. He said that the morale of the Romanian army was ex-
cellent. The forces had been promised some artillery horses
and big guns by the Russians who had neglected to deliver
them. I reported this at Petrograd, urging immediate fulfil-
ment of this promise, but encountered a curious jealousy of
their ally and got no hope from the Russians that their promise
would be kept.
The situation of the Romanians was desperate. Unprovided
with supplies for the coming winter, the country could not be
reached from the south since all approaches were in the hands
of the enemy. The railways from Vladivostok and Archangel
were inadequate for the Russians and nothing could be trans-
ported to Romania except over Russian railways. The Roman-
ians were occupying Bessarabia, a source of great friction with
the Russians who claimed it as Russian territory, and how to
keep those fifteen Romanian divisions in the war at fighting
strength was difficult to see.
Returning to Mohileff by way of Kiev, we were met by a
telegram from Mr. Root asking us to return to Petrograd and
prepare to leave Russia with the commission.
After my return to Petrograd I walked five miles through
the tremendous plant of the Putilof Iron Works there on an
intensely hot day, made much more so by the red hot blooms,
castings, and furnaces encountered everywhere. The manager
was a Russian military officer who took us through the works
The Russian Revolution
589
which were running then at less than fifty per cent. capacity.
When he attempted to pass through a certain door, it was
closed in his face with the statement that the workers were
having a meeting inside and he could not enter. The workmen
arrived in the morning whenever they felt like it; at ten
o'clock or eleven, and some even at two in the afternoon, and
they were demanding that their pay be doubled.
We met Stevens with his railway commission in Petrograd
but were able to see but little of them. We dined again with
our ambassador, Mr. D. R. Francis, of St. Louis, whom I had
known earlier as secretary of the interior in Washington. He
was bravely maintaining himself against odds that threatened
his life. Later he had to leave Petrograd for Vologda with the
diplomatic corps and they finally left Russia.
At the time we were in Russia there was a self-appointed
body called the Council of Workmen, Soldiers, and Peasants,
sitting in Petrograd, overseeing and criticising the work of the
Provisional Government. These were in the main good-natured
honest people who had influence with the army, and so it was
necessary to reckon with them. I thought too much attention
was paid them, and I believe that if the agitators among them
had been arrested and either deported or executed, all would
have been well with Russia.
The psychological time to have done this was at the cul-
mination of the Grimm incident. Grimm was a German spy
sent into Russia by Germany to preach sedition and anarchy.
He was deported by the Provisional Government and forced
to leave Russia, and the government was then called upon to
explain to the Council of Workmen, Soldiers, and Peasants its
action in deporting a worker out of Russia.
A LOST CAUSE
The Provisional Government made its defense and the coun-
cil approved of the action by a vote of approximately 625 to
590
Some Memories of a Soldier
125. Lenin and Trotsky were then hiding like rats in Petro-
grad. The Government knew very well where and what they
were: creatures of Germany in Petrograd for an evil pur-
pose. In a conversation with Kerensky in the war office, I told
him that now was the psychological moment to deport and
execute about a hundred of these men. They had the precedent
and approval of the council in the Grimm incident, and I have
always believed that if he had taken this action he might have
saved his country and millions of the lives of his countrymen.
·
But he was so permeated with radicalism himself and so
lacking in the real qualities of a leader that it was not in him
to save anything but his own neck, which he did by running
away after he had lost his country. If he had brought General
Kormiloff's army into Petrograd and executed the element
organized for trouble, the Provisional Government could have
had an orderly election of delegates from every part of Russia
to form a stable government. The only obstacle in the way of
this was an organized band of workmen of Petrograd, who
would soon have scattered after the leaders were executed.
Russia would have come into her own. It is far better, from
my point of view, to execute one or two hundred spies and
criminals in order to save a million law-abiding citizens, than
to permit criminals to destroy a nation.
The fighting continued at the Russian front. The last news
we received from Tereschtenko, as we were leaving Petrograd,
was that the Russians had penetrated the enemy's lines forty
miles into the interior, capturing thousands of prisoners and
more than two hundred guns. The troop trains moving from
the interior toward the front were now much greater in number
than those going home. The press was rejoicing in the victories
and the spirit of battle was in the air. It seemed as if the efforts
to keep the Germans occupied in the Russian front were
successful, and the commission thought it best to hurry back
and make report to Washington,
The Russian Revolution
591
We left Petrograd on the imperial train for Vladivostok to
take the Buffalo back to the United States. We were detained
some time by the burning of a bridge at Vologda which, it was
freely charged, was burned by the Bolsheviki to prevent our
passage. An ice-house was also set afire, the wind sending the
flames against our train until we withdrew from the yards.
The bridge was repaired within a day or so and eventually we
reached the ship.
Getting into the Sea of Japan the ship's wireless picked up
messages to the effect that agitators sent into the country by
Germany had so rotted the morale of the Russian infantry that
some were induced to lay down their arms and permit the Ger-
mans to penetrate the Russian front. The artillery remained
loyal and General Kormiloff shelled his own infantry to stop
the rout but it was too late. The poison of German agitators
spread everywhere and it was the beginning of the end.
The commission devised a plan to hold the country stable
after conferring with all the Russian patriots who could be
reached. Mr. Root cabled this plan to the State Department
at Washington but received no reply. A second cable was sent
with the same result. It would seem that a person of Mr.
Root's importance were entitled to the courtesy of at least a
"yes" or a "no," but no reply ever came although other mes-
sages were received.
Rushing across our continent without losing a train after
landing in Seattle, in order to render our report to Washington
at the earliest moment possible, we were received by the Presi-
dent with great interest and cordiality and referred to the
State Department. But it seemed to us that the State Depar-
ment was not interested in us. When later urging some action
for the relief of Romania, the report was sent for, and found
to have been lost, and I had to lend the State Department my
personal copy, which it still has.
The commission was invited to New York to be received
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Some Memories of a Soldier
by Mayor John P. Mitchel and the City Council of New
York at the City Hall, where Mr. Root was presented with a
civic medal and the commission disbanded here. We were
thanked heartily by President Wilson and Colonel Mott and I
made representations to the Treasury and State Departments
on behalf of Romania until we sailed for France. We got a
relief ship ordered once but the interference of the Russian
legation caused us to lose it.
While we did our best to save Russia and failed, due mainly
to the weakness of Kerensky and his Provisional Government,
I at least derived much advantage from the journey. I saw
many thousand miles of Russia and mingled freely with her
people, besides visiting Romania, Siberia, and Mongolia. I saw
the Russian soldier at his best in driving back the Austrian
army near Tarnopol, and I saw enough to permit me to under-
stand much about the Russian people and the Communist
Soviet.
But I believe that the greatest advantage I derived was the
privilege of sitting next to Mr. Root at meals three times a
day for almost three months. I had known him in a distant
way as a junior officer of the army knows the secretary of
war and had had some communication with him in Cuba, and
later when he was secretary of state and senator from New
York, but this trip gave me an opportunity to know him at
close range and hear him talk freely among his friends.
He invariably appeared in the morning in the best of humor
with something kindly to say to everybody. Not once did I
ever see him out of sorts. His views on life, on the purpose
of our mission; his reminiscenses of old New Yorkers like
Joseph Choate, and the like if there were ever such, and of the
life of New York were most delightful, and although I had
been in contact, at one time or another, with different Presi-
dents and with many of the most famous public men of the
day, I parted with Mr. Root in New York feeling that I had

GENERAL SCOTT IN THE WINTER PALACE AT PETROGRAD, 1917
The Russian Revolution
593
had the rare privilege of close association with the most far-
seeing and sagacious man I had ever met; and I hereby
classify him-in my mind-as the foremost citizen of the
Republic.
PART IX
France and England
On my return to Washington I took over once more the duties
of chief of staff until I was retired by statutory law at the age
of sixty-four, September 22, 1917, relieved by my old class-
mate General Tasker H. Bliss. The President thereupon placed
me on active duty the same day for the remainder of the war.
Secretary Baker offered me the choice of command of any of
the big camps, suggesting Camp Meade, Maryland, as offering
a chance for more frequent conferences, but I told him I
wanted to stay away from Washington, well knowing that
those conferences would soon array me against the new chief of
staff who would consider that I was interfering with his pre-
rogatives, which I had no wish to do. I had been brought up in
New Jersey and intended to go back after the war to live
among my own people, and I told him that I would therefore
prefer the command of the Seventy-eighth Division preparing
for France at Camp Dix, to which the secretary consented. He
directed me first, however, to go to France to study the latest
developments of war before taking command, and I sailed for
Liverpool on the Cedric with Captains Cootes, Fenton, and
Col. T. Bently Mott of my staff early in October.
Each of us was equipped with a rubber submersible suit
to use in case the Cedric should be torpedoed by a submarine.
There were twenty Red Cross nurses aboard who also had
rubber suits.
We landed for a short stay at Halifax, then made straight
across for Ireland. The captain was most secretive and would
594
France and England
595
tell us absolutely nothing about our location or course until
nearing the Irish Channel, when he told us to expect a fleet of
destroyers at eleven o'clock next day coming to escort us
through the danger zone. They appeared exactly on time and
were a gallant sight as they breasted a heavy sea, covered over
by spray and buffeted by enormous waves.
We made a good passage into Liverpool, whence we went
directly to London by rail. We reported to our ambassador,
Mr. Walter Page, and to the British War Office and were de-
lightfully treated.
I asked Lord Derby, the British secretary of war, about
Major-General Sir Tom Bridges, lately wounded in France,
whom we had all come to know and like in America when he
had come over with Mr. Balfour, and whom I helped at West
Point. Lord Derby assured us that he was doing very well.
A shot had taken off his leg while commanding his division.
They put him on the operating table and coming out of the
influence of ether, he asked the surgeon, "What have you been
doing to me?" They told him that they were very sorry but
had been obliged to take off his leg. "That's all right,” he said,
"I have a pet lion cub that hasn't had any meat for a long time;
give it to him." We both agreed that he still had his spirits and
nerve with him, even if he had not a full complement of legs.
I met a number of friends in the War Office who had served
in the United States and they took us about. We met the
chief of staff, General Sir William Robertson, and many others
whose names were familiar to us over here.
The solemn rite of five o'clock tea was observed in the War
Office and was a novel experience for an American soldier,
for an important conference was halted when tea was brought
in and everybody seemed to go about it in a businesslike way.
At Washington such affairs are relegated to after office hours
but five o'clock tea in London seemed to be as solid an institu-
tion as the Bank of England and as little interfered with.
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Some Memories of a Soldier
We were taken to inspect the Canadian forces camped on
Salisbury Plain and to witness their bomb throwing, use of
trench mortars and other trench training. We saw Stonehenge
and returning, I caught sight of the towers of Salisbury Cathe-
dral and refused to go on without seeing the whole edifice.
We went to Folkestone to inspect more Canadian troops,
expecting to cross the channel to France the next morning but
no ships were allowed to leave the harbor while a German
submarine was operating in the channel. The Canadians were
giving a dinner that night to Major-General Sam Steele of
South African fame and were good enough to invite us also.
I found myself seated next to the guest of honor and General
Sir Newton Moore, commanding all the Australian forces in
Great Britain, and discovered that Major-General Steele was
the "Sam Steele" of the original body of the Northwest
Mounted Police of Canada, who had marched to Alberta in
1873 from Winnipeg and established law and order.
I spent a very pleasant evening talking about the North-
west to Major-General Steele and I was able to tell him that
the Blackfoot Indians still held him in memory, calling him
"Big Bull" in the sign language of the Plains.
While the ships were still held in harbor pending the dis-
appearance of the submarine a British liaison officer took us to
see the Castle of Dover which we inspected thoroughly. We
were able to make a few other visits before receiving news
that the channel was clear and we might sail for France next
morning under convoy.
IN FRANCE
Although the ship was crowded and every available space
occupied our liaison officer had secured us a cabin. I had often
read of the terrors of the English Channel but found it de-
lightfully smooth. We soon landed at Boulogne and although
the train was filled, a French liaison officer, to whom we had
France and England
597
been turned over in that port. had secured us comfortable
transit to Paris where we arrived in the early morning and
took up our quarters in an apartment which Colonel Mott
always maintained there with a caretaker who made us very
comfortable.
We called at once on General Pershing and later on Marshal
Joffre and renewed our American acquaintance. He seemed to
be rather outside of things, and although he still maintained
his high office, there did not appear to be much in it and he
gave the impression of occupying himself with unimportant
matters. I concluded in my own mind that the politicans were
afraid of his popularity and had taken him out of the lime-
light. He seemed to me, however, to be a simple, straight-
forward professional soldier without any semblance of political
ambition.
General Pershing kindly gave us a car in Paris and negotia-
tions were begun with the British for us to see the line as far
north as we cared to go, to be present at a major battle, and to
spend a month with a British division on the first line. We went
north through Compiègne, Amiens, and Arras to the British
guest house, a château at the head of the Lys, whence we made
journeys in different directions.
Later we took lunch with General Sir Douglas Haig at his
headquarters and found him a compact, muscular man of a
high type, very affable and polished with admirable poise-
as were all the high English officers I met abroad. He spoke
very freely of conditions during a long private conference after
lunch. I asked him for my own information, as I did all the
high officers encountered, both French and English, what
impression General Pershing had made on them; whether he
seemed to have the imagination to foresee and lay the founda-
tion for the tremendous superstructure that must be built;
and was answered, as invariably, favorably.
I asked General Haig also, as I did all officers of high rank
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Some Memories of a Soldier
who had served with the cavalry, including General Korniloff
in Russia, what he thought of the future of cavalry, since it
was not being used in trench warfare, and he, as every one,
agreed with me that the end of cavalry was very far in the
future. General Haig was especially emphatic in this connec-
tion and had us shown through the cavalry camps, saying:
"You can see for yourself what we think of it. We are holding
it for the supreme moment when this trench warfare is broken
to secure the fruits of victory and we would not allow ourselves
to be without it"; to which I heard no dissenting voice in
Russia, France, England, or Romania.
The truth is that this trench deadlock was a particular phase
of warfare brought on by peculiar circumstances of the terrain
and the immensity of the forces engaged. It is one of the im-
portant rôles of cavalry to protect one's own flanks and to turn
those of the enemy. During the retreat of the British from
Mons, the cavalry of both sides on the western flank was
worked to the utmost, in the swing of the flanks down past
the channel ports toward Paris, in rear-guard fights and
saving the other arms in emergency. The cavalry of both sides
arrived near Paris almost exhausted, the English after having
saved the retreating army time and again from the enemy.
But when the line nearly three hundred miles long became
established without flanks, one end in the sea and the other in
the Swiss Mountains, there were no movable flanks to man-
œuver against; the lines were locked in position, and not being
able to go up or to either side, they went down in the ground-
and the cavalry was held behind the lines in readiness for a
break. I do not know of any place in the United States where
such a trench deadlock could take place, for one flank or the
other would always be in the air to be manoeuvered against.
The British looked after their animals better than we did as
they did likewise their harness and wagons. They had a helper
on every wagon which permitted much better care to be given
France and England
599
the leather and horses than where the driver must do it all
himself. The harness was washed every night, at least when in
camp. We learned much from the British and I see the results
now in our cavalry commands. The whole appearance of our
mounted forces is better than it used to be before the war
including the quality of the animals. This latter, however, is
due to the lower price of horses. The same amount of money
now will purchase a better type of horse and the service is
consequently benefited.
THE BRITISH FRONT LINE
General Haig passed us on to General Sir Herbert Charles
Plumer whose headquarters were at Cassel and who was then
engaged in the battle of Passachendaele Ridge. He received us
most courteously and his staff showed us the incoming and
outgoing telegrams regarding the battle, explaining them on the
large map of the general staff, marking the progress of the
battle, and elucidating also their secret service and their sys-
tem of security and information. I felt, however, in spite of
their courtesy that we were more or less in the way at such an
important time, when they ought not to be annoyed with de-
tailing matters to strangers and got them to send us up to the
front where the battle was going on.
Nearing the front our car was stopped as too conspicuous a
target and we went forward on foot with difficulty. The water
table was just under the surface and a crater was no sooner
made than it would fill with water. Sometimes the craters over-
lapped and were deep enough to drown any wounded man un-
fortunate enough to fall into them, and the mud was un-
speakable.
We were allowed to go about as we pleased, everybody too
busy to notice us. We tried to keep out of the way, yet to see as
much of every phase and element of the battle as we could,
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Some Memories of a Soldier
but we were not permitted to go beyond the second line of
guns. We watched the evacuation of the wounded, the service
of the guns, the sending forward of ammunition and food.
We saw much smoke, heard many loose projectiles, felt the
wind of some, but saw not a German. Many men have spent
long periods on the first line without seeing any Germans,
for the latter were hard to see when you wanted to find them,
although they were not far away.
We got a very good idea of the terrain, of what was going
on and how things were being managed, and later spent some
time with the members of General Plumer's staff at Cassel,
studying their methods of exercising command during actual
battle, a most valuable experience for us. Arrangements for us
in this part of the country were made by General Pershing's
liaison officer, Major Quakemeyer, an officer of great distinc-
tion. Still a young officer of great promise, he was recently sent
to West Point as commandant of cadets, but died a few days
after reporting, a severe loss to the army.
Major Quakemeyer made arrangements for us to spend a
month at the headquarters of a British division on the front
line at Arras. Here we remained as guests of the division com-
mander, who took us to the first line of trenches. The first
morning the mud was terrific. It soon became dangerous for
cars and we had to plod through open country for a long dis-
tance toward the front, traveling above ground where it seemed
our party was large enough to attract unpleasant notice from
the other side, the enemy getting our range down finer and
finer until we had to separate and go below ground.
I went one way with the division commander and my staff
went another. He kept asking me, "Do you want to see this?
Do you want to see that?" and as I had come across the ocean
with the purpose of seeing everything I could, I always said,
I did. We kept on and on, wading through the trenches along
France and England
601
the whole front of the division in the first line, doing in a day
what it usually took three or four to accomplish. I thought that
this was his daily routine but learned on our return that he was
just trying to satisfy me.
In some places the revetments had fallen into the bottom of
the trench, partly filling it. The trenches were dug just deep
enough to conceal the top of your head, but when you walked
up on the mud fallen into the bottom of the trench, your head
would show above the ground unless you bent over, and there
were often snipers watching such places for the unwary
through a periscope; now and then they would hit their mark.
The English were far more phlegmatic about such things than
the French who would warn you of the high places, but the
English said nothing to me, and struggling through the trench
I was warned several times by the spat of a bullet in the mud
alongside my head.
On this tour there was a thin cold rain falling and the mud
and water in the trench were often knee-deep, the duckboards
afloat when there were any, always slippery with the greasy
mud; one needed a cane to prevent falling.
The men were muddy and wet but we found them cheerful,
laughing, and joking with each other. They were being fed
hot soup and other rations, as well as circumstances would
permit, and were being changed at that time every day, spend-
ing but one night in the front trench where there was no place
to lie down. Altogether it was not a life to be envied. We spent
a month of cold rains in this way, not so strenuous as the first
day, yet strenuous enough.
Our quarters in Arras were on the second floor of a medieval
house, the side of which had been blown out by a shell, but
it was the best they could give us. We were always in range
of a large gun some distance back of the German line which the
British guns could not reach. It dropped shells about in a very
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Some Memories of a Soldier
careless manner in different places, harboring an especial ani-
mus against the railway station which it had once destroyed
but could not seem to leave alone.
Our association with the British officers was delightful. War
was an old story to them; they would get up from meals and
each go quietly to his separate duty as though going to an
office every day at home. They knew their business thoroughly;
just what to do, and how, and when to do it without any lost
motion, and it was a joy to watch them at work. I went some-
times to the hospitals with the chief surgeon, sometimes to the
ammunition dump, and sometimes remained at the administra-
tive office, depending where I was invited. I became especially
intimate with the artillery commander and always went wher-
ever he wished to take me although one big gun looked just
like another to me and I had already seen guns too many.
He was especially proud of the way his guns were elaborately
hidden from above, and what troubled him most were the
different paths the men made walking to and from the battery,
and he spent his time hiding these from aeroplane view.
He said one day, "I am going to show you a division salvo."
I remonstrated with him at the expenditure of ammunition for
my instruction, but he replied, "Yes, I want you to see it.
There's a battery over there that is getting too troublesome,
anyhow, and I'm going to put down a salvo on it." He gave in-
structions to an aide to bring it about at 3 P.M. We went into
his observation post at ten minutes to three, located the
obnoxious battery through the glasses and promptly at the
scheduled hour the battery seemed to fly up into the air in
pieces, fully convincing me, if I had needed convincing, that
these artillery fellows were very dangerous ones to annoy.
PARIS AGAIN
At the expiration of our month, Major Quakemeyer appeared
again and after bidding good-by to our genial hosts we started
France and England
603
back to Paris, visiting Ypres to see the damage done and
the remains of the wonderful town hall of which little remained
standing. We went to Amiens, thence to Compiègne and
reached Paris about the time of the arrival of the commission
headed by Colonel Edward M. House. I met Colonel House
at the Hotel Crillon; also Prime Minister David Lloyd George,
General Foch and a whole string of British officers who
had come to Paris for a conference, and last, but by no means
least, my classmate, General Bliss, who was to gain great fame
in the ensuing negotiations and conferences. He held high the
American cause, and brought distinction both to himself and
his country.
General Pershing was living then in the Paris house of Mr.
Ogden Mills with Colonel and Mrs. Boyd of his staff, and I
was invited to dinner there with Colonel and Mrs. House, Ad-
miral William S. Sims and a large party. Colonel and Mrs.
Boyd had served with me in the Third Cavalry at San Antonio
and we were old friends. Mrs. Boyd presented me to a charm-
ing young American lady whose name I failed to catch and
when I asked Mrs. Boyd afterward who she was, she ex-
claimed, "Why, that is Esther Cleveland from Princeton!"
Miss Cleveland had grown up with my brother's children and
mine, but it was so long since I had seen her that I failed to
recognize her. I heard many encomiums on the work she was
doing in Paris with the blind.
As the ladies with the House Commission needed to be
furnished with motor cars, and American cars were then very
scarce in Paris, General Pershing said that he regretted to have
to take my car away from me, setting me afoot in a strange
land, but the inconvenience redounded to my advantage. The
French Government sent me two cars and a French captain to
go with me and my staff as liaison officer into the French sector
we were next to visit. I have always suspected that I owed
those two cars to Major Quakemeyer.
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Some Memories of a Soldier
General Pershing here asked me to give him Colonel Mott
of my staff, a most efficient officer whom I did not in the least
want to give up, but these were war times and I was going
home soon and was aware of the fact that he would be a very
useful liaison officer for General Pershing. He had had several
tours of duty as military attaché in Paris, spoke French like
a native and knew everybody worth knowing in France. He
had gone to the French manoeuvers with Generals Foch, Pétain,
and others when they were all young together and I felt that
it would be wrong for me to take him home. He is now on
duty again as a retired officer in the embassy in Paris, and
several of our ambassadors to France have felt they would not
want to turn a wheel without him for he has many talents most
valuable to his office.
Upon our first arrival in Paris, General Pershing was good
enough to order my two sons to accompany me during my
stay in France. The elder reported at once and we went down
into the Bourbonnais to St. Germain-des-Fossés to see my
daughter, Blanchard, on duty with the Red Cross. She was
very comfortably situated there with her mates in a house
with one of the only two real bathtubs in town.
The French used the other as a receptacle for coal.
On our return from the north we found her on duty in Paris
and then my younger son reported there. When our army got
into full operation my daughter and her friends obtained a Red
Cross canteen with which they got further forward than any
women in France. Later Mr. H. P. Davison, chairman of the
War Council, American Red Cross, told me they were two of
the most valuable Red Cross women in France. My elder son
had charge of the machine gun school at Langes where his
brother graduated and became an instructor. Here the latter
had a very severe attack of pneumonia, the surgeon saying
that he had never seen any one with a case so severe live-he
has not yet recovered from the effects of that attack. He and
to S
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P
Foc
IP
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Cole
ald &

GENERAL SCOTT AND GENERAL BROUSSILOV (CENTER) IN RUSSIA, 1917
GENERAL LUCOMSKI (RIGHT) CHIEF OF STAFF, RUSSIAN ARMY
France and England
605
his brother fought all through Château-Thierry, Soissons, and
the Argonne, and were still in France after the armistice. I
have already told of his brother's death on landing at New
York. He and his sister returned safely some time after hos-
tilities ceased.
THE FRENCH FRONT LINE
But to return to my narrative. As soon as the two French
cars reported, we started eastward up the Marne, going first
to Châlons where I attended a French school for French
general officers who were assembled every three months to
learn new developments of war. I reported to General Gouraud,
one of the most trusted and accomplished officers in France.
He received us most kindly at his corps headquarters and
later assigned us to the division of General Maréchal on the
first line at Suippes for a month. Here we had much the same
experiences as with the British at Arras. General Maréchal
was most kind to us and seemed to take pleasure in showing
us about. Coming out one day on the first line of trenches
where there was a grade crossing, we had to go over an open
space above ground where General Maréchal advised us to
run across rapidly, saying that it was continually watched by
the Germans who had its exact range and, if they saw anybody
walking there, frequently dropped a barrage on it.
General Maréchal told me he wanted to put down a barrage
of 755 for me to see. I remonstrated as before against using so
much ammunition for my benefit, but he insisted that we
must see it. He watched the German line from his observa-
tion post for some time, evidently aware of the enemy's habits;
then, calling me to look through the glasses where he had seen
a German battalion unwarily operating above ground, put
down his barrage and wiped it out. Such chances were con-
tinually watched for, and taken advantage of.
We returned to Châlons and thence proceeded to the new
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Some Memories of a Soldier
American military school being established at Langes, and
went through it meeting many old friends of ante-bellum days.
From here we went to the camp of the First Division at
Gondrecourt not far from the birthplace of Joan of Arc at
Domrémy. We inspected the division commanded then by
General William L. Sibert, formerly of the Engineers. We made
journeys in various directions, one to Domrémy where I was
surprised to find that Joan of Arc spelled her name “Jehan❞
just as the name of the Great Mogul of India, Shah Jehan,
is spelled.
We then went north to Verdun and viewed the various
battle-fields and the tremendous ruin scattered over miles.
What had been but lately a fort relied upon for the safety
of France was a mass of ruin that seemed to have been pul-
verized by Titans and mixed in a churn. We were invited to
lunch in an interior room in the underground habitations be-
neath the eighteenth century fortress of Verdun built by
Vauban, the military engineer of his age, whose house stands
near by. The quarters under the old fort contained heavy guns,
a bakery, and an electric light plant besides living room for
a battalion of infantry. At lunch we felt really safe for the
only time in France when told that we had eighty feet of
earth over our heads and gas proof doors.
Going west, we passed through the forest of the Argonne
which later rose to prominence in our despatches, through
Epernay where we encountered some of our own country-
women managing a huge canteen,-Mrs. Larz Anderson, with
the Misses Lansing of Washington, and Miss Ely of Phila-
delphia, all comfortably housed.
We passed through Soissons, where there was little to detain
us. Many of the buildings had been riddled but this was not
new and we returned to Chaumont. There Town-Major Robert
Bacon gave us a billet, and we saw many other old friends,
among them Colonel McCoy, who as usual had a select mess
Soldier
607
France and England
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which included the Comte de Chambrun, a descendant of
Lafayette who used to be in the French Embassy at Wash-
ington. At headquarters we found our Arizona friend, Jack
Greenway of Ajo, an old Rough Rider of the Spanish War,
Dr. Augustus Trowbridge of Princeton University, my cousin,
Captain Lacey Hall, and many others.
At dinner one night General Pershing said that he was going
to Paris on his special train next day and invited us to go with
him. We had now about completed what we had come for,
having seen the front from Flanders to Verdun under every
aspect, met the generals and their staffs of the high commands
and learned from them what they could tell us, and had seen
the beginnings of an American army. We were anxious now
to get home to train the Seventy-eighth Division for France.
So we went to Paris and started preparations for departure for
England.
Calling upon General Pershing preparatory to leaving Paris
and to thank him for his many courtesies, I asked him where
he intended to attack when his army was ready, and he replied
that he had not yet decided. Pointing out the sweep of the
coast about the channel ports, I asked him if he was willing
to be responsible to the English for the safety of the channel
ports. He replied, "Not for a moment." "Are you willing to be
responsible to the French for the safety of Paris?" I then in-
quired, pointing out the line of the lower Marne. "Indeed no,"
he said. "What is left then," I asked, indicating the section
at the eastern part of the line about St. Mihiel. He made
neither assent nor dissent. Later I learned that he had already
agreed to the St. Mihiel initiative on July 21 at a conference of
French generals, but I suppose he was sworn to secrecy at
that time.
He asked me to file a brief of my opinion concerning the
character of training to be adopted for the American Army,
and I advised no change from our old target practice and close
608
Some Memories of a Soldier
order drill-to regain discipline and poise after losing it in a
tour in the trenches-to be supplemented by the new bayonet
drill and developments of trench warfare as they arose from
time to time. He adopted this course as agreeing with his own
previously formed opinion, and when the break came in 1918
he was ready for open warfare.
Pershing talked long and earnestly about his needs, the
greatest being for more shipping facilities which I promised
to urge before the secretary of war. I then took my leave and
started for London.
LONDON AIR RAIDS
We stayed at the Savoy Hotel where we were narrowly
restricted in rations of bread and sugar, in which London
imposed greater hardships on herself than did Paris, with the
United States holding the record over both. I was proud of
our people when they responded so heartily to the restriction
in the use of gasoline when appealed to by the President, con-
cluding that America was not so effete as so many told us.
While we were in London the Germans thought to paralyze
London. Several nights they sent over aeroplanes to drop
bombs into the heart of the city. The first I heard occurred one
night at about ten o'clock. The noise of the propellers was
plainly to be distinguished overhead but there was no stampede
of the people who seemed to be going about their business un-
moved. I tried to pierce the darkness to get a glimpse of the
hostile airship, but failed and went to bed and to sleep at once,
which was about the effect produced on every one in London.
Little information was carried in the newspapers of the
damage done by the air raid. We went to see what occurred
where a bomb had exploded in the middle of the street near
Piccadilly. It broke all the glass in one square, made a crater
in the pavement, and blew in the fronts of several houses, as

PHOTOGRAPH PRESENTED TO MAJOR-GENERAL SCOTT BY
THE LATE KING FERDINAND OF ROMANIA
France and England
609
we could see for ourselves. Seven men were said to have been
killed that night but we were unable to verify this number.
London is a big place and could have stood a nightly raid of
this kind for some time. The English are a great people, as
everybody who went to that war must agree. The difference
of quality between the English and German people can be
measured by the indifference with which the Londoners greeted
the air raids and the tremendous yowling raised by the Ger-
mans when it was proposed to send raiding planes over their
cities. It is my opinion that England's great tenacity, courage,
regard for fair play, and sporting spirit, and her willingness
to accept defeat at elections, come largely from the playing of
games. Lord Wellington was doubtless thinking of this when he
remarked that the battle of Waterloo was won on the play-
grounds of Eton.
While awaiting arrangements for our transportation to the
United States and the sailing of our ship, we dined again with
our ambassador, also with Colonel Bernard R, James, now of
the War Office, formerly military attaché at Washington, and
went again to the Tower of London, Westminster, took lunch
at the Cheshire Cheese and were sent to Oxford by the War
Office with introductions. We were escorted all over the grounds
and a delightful lunch was given us.
At Liverpool we were filled with horror at seeing the Man-
churia and being told that she had laid there twenty-three
days without unloading. I thought of Pershing, crying so des-
perately for ships.
AMERICAN SHORES
We sailed from Liverpool escorted through the Irish Channel
again by our destroyers. We made a safe voyage home after
a number of false alarms of submarines, which threw passen-
gers into fits when the gun crews manned the forward guns,
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Some Memories of a Soldier
which they were continually doing day and night, firing at what
they took for submarines, sometimes in the middle of the
night or early dawn.
We arranged to disembark without delay by the Customs
for we had nothing but what we had taken over and were in a
hurry to get to Washington to deliver a letter to the secretary
of war from General Pershing, over which the latter was very
anxious. There had been a deep fall of snow in New York
about December 26 which made the streets extremely danger-
ous and we fully expected our taxicab to break its axles in
its rush to the station.
We left for Washington on the first train, where I delivered
General Pershing's letter and took the occasion to inform the
secretary of war of the delay of the Manchuria at Liverpool
and gave it as my opinion that if this did not cease and unless
he got more shipping from the English we were going to lose
the war before we could get an army to France. This gave great
concern to the secretary who sent for General March, his chief
of staff, for immediate consideration of this matter.
But as the expediting of shipping was no longer my affair
and was in the hands of the right people, I excused myself
to hunt for my family. I soon left for New Jersey to take over
command of the great training post of Camp Dix, which con-
tained forty thousand men, including the Seventy-eighth Divi-
sion. The latter was being intensively trained as rapidly as
possible. I hoped to lead it over to France.
PART X
In Command of Camp Dix
ON January 2, 1918, I took over the command of Camp Dix,
one of the twenty-seven great national training camps, near
Wrightstown, New Jersey, eighteen miles southeast of Trenton.
I began vigorously to give the Seventy-eighth intensive train-
ing to get it ready to be the first, if possible, of the new army
to leave our shores. The War Department, however, kept neu-
tralizing my efforts, setting me back time and again in favor
of some other division elsewhere by taking away large drafts
of our officers and non-commissioned officers as soon as they
were organized. I soon began to suspect that they were being
trained for transfer to southern camps. I went to Washington
to protest against this as demoralizing to any organization.
The chief of staff tried to excuse himself by saying that he
could not help it, but he never satisfied me on this point.
He should have acted, for nothing can be more disheartening to
troops than to be set back frequently in this way.
I began my inspection, the first day of my arrival at Camp
Dix, at the hospital, a vast conglomeration of one-story struc-
tures built of unpainted pine that covered many acres. The sun
had dried out the lumber so that it was inflammable as tinder.
Among the forty thousand men there. occurred the usual cases
of accidents but no epidemics. Affairs in the entire camp were
still in a crude condition.
I went first to the operating rooms and made inquiry as to
the sufficiency and adequacy of surgical instruments and was
told that those they had were the property of the various sur-
611
612
Some Memories of a Soldier
geons who had brought them from civil practice. I found that
the hospital walls were of beaver board which had shrunk
leaving great cracks for the lodgement of dust. The floors
were correspondingly rough and unsanitary, and I saw a large
pool of water, waist deep, under two of the main wards. The
patios were covered with trash of every kind, much of which
had long been there, while no one was paying any attention
whatsoever to the garbage either here or anywhere else around
the camp. I felt I could never live long enough to clean the
camp up thoroughly. The task was so huge that it seemed use-
less to attempt it.
Remedial steps were begun, however, that very day. More
than three thousand wagon loads of refuse were hauled to the
dump as fast as possible. The hospital was put in order and I
made a trip to Washington to see my old friend William C.
Gorgas of Cuban days, then surgeon-general of the army, who
promised to expedite the sending of instruments and hospital
supplies, which soon began to arrive.
The stables were being constructed but before they were
ready seven thousand horses and mules began to arrive with
no teamsters to handle them, a terrible sight, from the view-
point of a man who loved horses and mules, accustomed to
their management from youth and fully aware of their im-
portance in war. Special schools were started at once to remedy
this condition, though it takes years of experience to really
qualify in these branches. Anybody can pull a rein but the
knowledge of how to take care of an animal in health and
disease, in all the conditions of field service, is an art that is
not to be learned in a day. The lack of this knowledge during
the Civil War cost endless suffering to animals, enormous ex-
pense, as well as actual failure in the conducting of operations.
The same inefficiency was repeated in the Spanish War and
it should not be repeated here.
Many of the men having been brought up in large cities,

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​GENERALS PERSHING, SCOTT, SHANKS, AND DUNCAN AT DEDICATION
OF MONUMENT, CAMP MERRITT, NEW JERSEY
In Command of Camp Dix
613
engaged in sedentary employment, were unaccustomed entirely
to outdoor life, and the sight of some little clerk brought up
on the pavements of New York unaware of which end of a
mule went first, confronted with a mass of harness and four
huge unbroken Missouri mules that towered over him like a
house, was amusing and tragic at once. All the men capable
of handling animals were sought and put at the task but they
were surprisingly few.
In addition to the schools for teamsters, other schools were
started, and short courses given, for wheelwrights, blacksmiths,
harnessmakers, cooks and bakers; but in the end very little
was accomplished, except with the cooks and bakers, because
of the rapid course of events which took men away to France
before they had time to acquire even a smattering of what
we tried to teach. Their places were filled and the work went
on with new members, hammer and tongs.
Pack-trains were also organized and trained but they never
reached France. A pigeon loft was started and a kennel of
police dogs to carry messages for the division through the
barrages at the front.
Schools were started also for officers in camp sanitation,
drill regulations, military law, discipline, strategy, and every
branch of the military art. Every one went to one school or
another. The whole scheme of instruction was designed to give
each man without it a common school education; to American-
ize the foreigner, to infuse in him a knowledge of our lan-
guage, the principles of our constitution and government, and
a respect for the flag; to enforce personal hygiene, and to
afford every man a trade.
A number of foreign officers invalided in France were sent
over to teach us the newest developments of trench warfare,
and some were assigned to Camp Dix. They invariably as-
sumed our total ignorance of everything military, and started
their course with the most rudimentary subjects. I had to stop
614
Some Memories of a Soldier
this as a waste of time, and told them that our regular officers
needed only the newest developments as they came up, for
they were otherwise as well or better trained than the officers
of Europe. After this they taught us the art of throwing bombs,
the use of flares, and the operation of trench mortars, but the
best thing we got from them was their new bayonet drill. This
method, besides giving great skill in the use of the weapon,
enforced a mental and physical coördination, an alertness valu-
able alike in peace and war, waking up the faculties and pro-
ducing a mental agility needed by everybody. It should be
introduced into every school not necessarily with a bayonet,
but its principles should be made use of by every child, male
and female. It might be made into a most valuable game.
DISAPPOINTMENT
When it was time for the Seventy-eighth Division to prepare
for embarkation, I was ordered with many other general offi-
cers to Washington for examination as to our physical fitness
for duty in France. I was pronounced by the medical board
sound in every respect, with a blood pressure of a man of thirty-
five. I took this report to the War Department in a highly
elated frame of mind but met with a rude shock. Secretary
Baker was then in France, leaving Benedict Crowell, assistant
secretary, in charge. He told me that he had the most dis-
agreeable duty to perform that had come to him in the War
Department, and must tell me that, notwithstanding my
physical fitness, I could not go abroad, for General Pershing
had asked that no general officer above a certain age, much
below mine, and below that of Pershing himself, be sent for
duty in France. It was said that he did not want anybody
abroad who had ever been his superior in rank. It was a tre-
mendous blow to learn that I was not to be allowed to com-
mand in battle the division I had trained for France.
Some of the General Staff advised me to make application
In Command of Camp Dix
615
to the President in person who would certainly send me. I sat
down on the sofa in the office of the chief of staff to consider
the matter, and concluded not to speak to the President about
it. I had advised him long before to do what Pershing asked so
long as he held his confidence. Moreover, even if the President
should order me across against Pershing's wishes, I would
probably not get any responsible duty, but would cool my
heels somewhere in a channel port; and I was rendering more
valuable service at Camp Dix. So with that point in view I
went sorrowfully back to Camp Dix without going near the
White House. General James H. McRae, a much younger man
and a most capable soldier, took the division to France and
made with it there a most enviable record both for it and
himself.
While I remained in command at Camp Dix the Thirty-
fourth Division from New Mexico, commanded by an old
friend, John A. Johnston, came to replace the departed
Seventy-eighth. Other organizations arrived also, including one
of ten thousand negroes.
The plant at Camp Dix was arranged for a maximum of
forty thousand men with shelter, water supply, sewerage sys-
tem, refrigerating plant, and bakery, arranged on that scale,
but the chief of staff told me that he was in a hole and asked
if I could not help him out by taking five thousand additional
men. I might truthfully have replied that our plant was full,
as indeed it was, but that is not what West Point teaches her
young men; she teaches them, whenever the wagon is stuck in
the mud, to get down and take hold of the spokes and make
it go.
A consultation with the supply officers developed that if
we could be supplied with tents from New York we could do
the rest ourselves. The bakery equipment could be enlarged by
the addition of field bakery units, and the War Department
was so advised.
616
Some Memories of a Soldier
It was no small task to receive and take care of five thou-
sand new men. They had to be listed and assigned somewhere,
medically examined, vaccinated, inoculated, washed, and
clothed. Moreover they had to have a place to sleep the very
night of the arrival, and it would not do to wait a week for
their three meals a day-and that meant fifteen thousand
additional meals the first and every day thereafter.
My chief of staff, Colonel George White, and my statistical
officer, Colonel Harker, however were highly trained and
capable men of great energy, initiative, and capacity, and the
five thousand men were soon absorbed although their num-
ber would have been sufficient to fill a good sized town. No
sooner were these five thousand men taken care of, than the
War Department came again with the same pitiful tale, and
we took care of five thousand more, and five thousand more,
until we had sixty-five thousand persons in camp-twenty-five
thousand more than the plant was intended for. The whole
world seemed full of soldiers everywhere but, thanks to the
ability of the staff, the task was achieved in the most satis-
factory manner.
These fellows achieved the seemingly impossible, but every-
body had to carry a heavy load. Every now and then there
came an order to send twenty-five hundred, three thousand or
five thousand men for embarkation for France. Then the rail-
way cars were assembled at the siding and the men prepared
for overseas with clothing and food, their papers made out,
and their money paid; and away they went on time.
HOW THE WHEELS GO 'ROUND
More than a million men passed through that camp one
way or another and it can be imagined that everybody had to
work. If I had more time to receive visitors than any man in
camp, it was due to our wonderful organization. It was seen
ler
1
ie
:
-

Courtesy of President Ralph Budd, Great Northern Railway.
GENERAL SCOTT ADDRESSING MEMBERS OF THIRTEEN INDIAN TRIBES IN SIGN LANGUAGE AT OLD
FORT UNION, MONTANA, 1925
In Command of Camp Dix
617
to that every man did his duty in his own sphere, and in turn
he saw to it that those for whom he was responsible did it
likewise. The authority was delegated according to grade, all
impulse emanating from one head. The elements governing that
impulse were thought out long before and it required but a
whisper or a sign to set it all in motion.
The great business concerns of the country are organized
in the same way but not being bound by acts of Congress are
more flexible and hence are not accused of red tape. An army
officer is just as human as anybody else, a fact nobody seems to
believe, but the red tape complained of is the law we must all
obey; these are rules that Congress has laid down for the con-
duct of military affairs, which only a most important emer-
gency can justify passing by, and then only at one's own peril,
for one must be ready to stand the consequences should his
judgment of the occasion be pronounced poor.
I drove through the camp several times a day with an
aide, seldom speaking to anybody. I have seen general officers,
after witnessing some infraction of the rules, gallop up to an
enlisted man to take him to task in loud tones, but this only
creates dislike. I used only to point my thumb at the derelic-
tion, a note of which would be taken by the aide, and a letter
would go, on my return to the colonel or brigade commander.
The men would then be reprimanded and shamed by their
own officer, with no disturbance nor hatred engendered. This
method served to keep every officer on his toes and applied
to many more than the individual offender. Nobody liked to
get letters for an undue number would cause suspension or
even court-martial and in consequence one might not get to
France. In this way a quiet, steady control was exercised over
the sixty-five thousand men. All I did was to sit on the box,
watch the road, pull a rein now and then or throw the whip,
which kept the wagon in the middle of the road and all mem-
bers of the team pulling equally. I have seen officers unable
618
Some Memories of a Soldier
to delegate their power, who tried to do all the work them-
selves; that is all very well in one company camp but it will
not do with more.
It was a singular fact that I had more trouble to keep the
hospital clean than any other outfit whereas one would expect
the contrary. The trouble was not experienced with the regular
surgeons who were trained in sanitation. I account for the diffi-
culty with the other surgeons by the fact that when in civil
life they operate and treat patients in a hospital managed by
some one else and where the sanitation is attended to by trained
and competent persons, they go directly to see the patient, and
never look in the kitchen or backyard or bath room. But on a
military post, their latrines and garbage cans were not thought
of and their organizations were generally policed worse than
those of the line officers.
There were present always two major causes of constant
anxiety for a commander. First, the buildings were all of tem-
porary structure, unpainted, and the hot sun soon dried them
out like tinder. The hospital alone covered many acres and
held at one time two thousand persons. If a fire got well
started there some night in a high wind a disaster could hardly
be averted. To combat this a water system with good pres-
sure was installed, and a fire department organized and com-
manded by a man from the Fire Department of New York
City; we obtained an engine, ladder, and all the requisite
equipment for every district of the camp, and constructed a
telephone system. The engine crews were constantly exercised
and kept alert by frequent false alarms which turned them out
in the middle of the night unexpectedly, for drill. A fire that
occurred in the operating room was put out without its spread-
ing beyond the room, and fire that occurred in an officers'
mess room was extinguished in four minutes. No buildings were
lost during my stay, but the constant menace of fire was always
on my mind. One of the welfare buildings built of frame near
In Command of Camp Dix
619
Wrightstown was outside of our water service. I refused our
men permission to enter it until a fire escape was provided.
It eventually caught fire. Our engine came roaring to the scene,
but the structure was too far for our hose to reach and it
burned to the ground. Owing to the presence of the fire escape,
however, no lives were lost.
The other major risk lay in the presence of ten thousand
armed negroes and of thirty thousand armed white men from
all parts of the country. We all know what occurred at
Chicago, Brownsville, and Houston, Texas, at which last place
the aftermath to a race riot was the hanging of forty negroes
for murder. The negro is apt to brood secretly over his wrongs
and then suddenly to burst into violence without any regard
for consequences; the results for himself and everybody
around are often terrible. The best way to guard against this,
in my opinion, was to see that he had no wrongs to brood over.
I picked out a negro lieutenant named Grasty, from Cali-
fornia, who had received a law education, and had a strong
desire to be of use and benefit to his people. I had him pro-
moted to a captaincy, placing him on my staff with instruc-
tions to spend his time among the different negro organizations
in search of grievances, and, whenever illegitimate, to explain
them away before permitting them to gain momentum; when-
ever legitimate, to bring them to me at once.
As an example of a case of the latter category, he reported
once that there was a hostile condition in the big Y. M. C. A.
building where the white policeman had been rudely pushing
the negroes. The relations of the two races had become strained
and matters were liable to culminate any night in a battle. The
situation was corrected at once; the officer in charge of the
police disciplined, and the negroes given their own section of
the auditorium with policemen of their own color to look after
them. The result of vigilance of this sort was that no trouble
ever occurred and the service of the negro troops together with
620
Some Memories of a Soldier
the work of the negro trained nurses at Camp Dix, was highly
creditable to the race.
It is well to remark here that when the militia went to the
border in 1916, I explained to the secretary of war the condi-
tions of vice which the regular army had always struggled
against without legal remedy. Whenever in marching through
the country a payment to the troops would occur, every kind
of vice would surround the camp with no legal way to cope
with the situation. The secretary wrote letters to the mayors
of all the towns on the Mexican border who were anxious for
the presence of troops, that unless the vice conditions near our
camps, prevalent during payments, were controlled, the troops
would be ordered from their vicinity. This would have been
the equivalent of a heavy fine for the merchants, and the threat
brought about a much more satisfactory state of affairs on the
border.
In the great war, the secretary of war caused the passage
of an act by Congress giving the commanding officer control
of vice conditions within five miles of his flagstaff. At Camp
Dix there were several hundred agents on the watch; a woman
agent on the platform at the arrival of every train warned
improper women to take the next train away or undergo arrest.
Any one caught with liquor was tried at Mount Holly, N. J.
The consequence both here, and abroad, was that we had the
healthiest, best behaved army the world has ever seen. The
law, however, was passed only for the duration of the war
and Congress looks now with indifference on the old conditions,
seemingly without concern for the health and well being of the
regular army.
The attitude of members of Congress toward the regular
army has always seemed anomalous to me. It is their army,
fashioned and supported under their direction, bone of their
bone and flesh of their flesh, composed of their own relatives,
fellow townsmen and fellow statesmen. It is the bulwark of
In Command of Camp Dix
621
their liberties; yet they often display a jealousy toward it, or
an indifference that some account for by its national, rather
than its local character, together with its absence from the
polls at election. Whatever the reasons, there was a very
marked difference in their attitude toward the citizen soldiers.
THE "FLU"
The return of some organizations from abroad brought a
very virulent type of influenza to the United States. These
troops went straight to Camp Devens and Camp Dix without
quarantine or notice of the infection to the commanding officer,
and spread the disease through both camps. A few sporadic
cases first occurred in different barracks on which a quarantine
was placed, but soon influenza broke out in all barracks. The
quarantine was then lifted inside the camp but placed against
outsiders in order to protect the countryside from infection.
At first it did not seem so disastrous but coming back on
Sunday morning from an absence of twenty-four hours in
Philadelphia, I overheard some one say that twenty men had
died the day before, of which I had received no report. I sent
for the chief surgeon who admitted the report I had heard
was true and tried to excuse himself for not promptly report-
ing such a condition, by saying that the deaths had been re-
ported in the routine way and would come along in the mail on
Monday.
There was a stiff reprimand over this-the fur flew in every
direction that morning, and the chief surgeon soon learned
better. I told my chief of staff to issue an order for the men
each to sleep in a canvas cubicle, their heads and feet alter-
nating, so as not to breathe the infected air. The windows
were ordered kept open day and night. The season of the
autumn rains was beginning and fires were lighted in the bar-
rack stoves to take the chill off the air and enable wet clothing
622
Some Memories of a Soldier
to be dried. Although the time for winter clothing had not
arrived yet, woolen outfits were issued at once and every man
was compelled to brush his teeth four times a day with a proper
solution of iodine and under the supervision of his officers.
A copy of this order was sent by the War Department to each
of the other camps as a model for their guidance.
Notwithstanding all our efforts, the loss by death was
heartrending. In some cases, men apparently well one moment
would be stricken and die within a few hours. Every precau-
tion the medical profession could devise was used and when
the surgeon-general of Washington was asked to suggest
something we might have left undone, he replied that we were
doing everything possible. The disease took such a heavy toll
from our camp that we had to stop funeral ceremonies lest their
number affect the morale of the men. The rest-house had
difficulty in taking care of the widows and bereaved parents
arriving to see their loved ones for the last time in the hos-
pital. Finally the disease wore itself out. No cases got out of
the camp into the neighborhood which became infected later
from elsewhere, when the epidemic was really over at Camp
Dix.
There were some eleven thousand cases of the "flu" within
our reservation which then contained forty-six thousand men,
and we concluded that our precautions had prevented thirty-
five thousand men from catching the disease although some
were doubtless immune to it. The flu spread all around the
world in the most virulent way. All our Indian tribes suffered
great losses and the loss of life from it in India and China was
enormous.
All during the period of existence of the camp the men were
kept busy. The entire day was occupied by drill or other
instruction, leaving no time for the mischief expected of idle
hands. The leisure hours of the men were taken in charge by
the various camp welfare societies organized to provide safe,
In Command of Camp Dix
623
sane and refined amusement in the Red Cross buildings, the
Y. M. C. A., Jewish, Negro, Knights of Columbus, and other
welfare or club buildings, in which the men were provided
with books, papers, periodicals, music, movies, and theatrical
entertainment. There was, in addition, a large camp library.
Every evening young women of good families gave the refining
influence of their society in guest houses and hospitals. Never
before in our history have our young warriors been so sur-
rounded by moral and refining influences. The most eminent
artists of the country gave freely of their time and effort in
maintaining the morale of the men and played to crowded
houses at Camp Dix. I remember particularly Madame Schu-
mann-Heink and Miss Lillian Gish who provided a degree of
art many of our troops had never known before.
The war ended.
END OF THE WAR
When the returning tide of men passed through Camp Dix,
after the armistice, continuous efforts were made to improve
upon the despatch with which men could be received by the
trainload, washed, de-loused, medically examined, and their
physical condition recorded to determine their future pension
status. They were fed and, if arriving late, provided with beds
for the night. Otherwise their individual accounts were settled,
and they were discharged and shipped home the same day.
The record number handled in one day was continually being
broken as our experience increased, until our people were
complimented from Washington on their energy, accuracy, and
speed, and their methods were adopted elsewhere.
When Camp Dix was first established, the neighbors all were
fearful for their daughters, their hen roosts, and young pigs
because of the great numbers of undisciplined men in their
midst. Kipling's "single men in barracks" are indeed usually
not models of behavior in any army, but the good people of
624
Some Memories of a Soldier
Burlington County were so agreeably disappointed that upon
my departure they invited me to a dinner at Burlington where
my good friend Judge Wells of Bordentown, toast-master at
all public dinners in the county, presented me with a beautiful
piece of silver on behalf of my Burlington County friends and
in token of their friendship and satisfaction with the camp.
My more immediate neighbors, closer to Camp Dix, did the
same. Their treatment of me on all occasions to this day has
been so cordial that I always feel as if I had been born in
Burlington County, and I dine in Mount Holly at least once a
year with the Game and Fish Association, of which I have
been made a member.
TO THE QUIET LIFE
Although I was retired from active service by operation of
law at sixty-four years of age, now that the war was fully over
I was retired again on May 12, 1919, and returned to the
home where I was reared and where most of my relatives live.
The secretary of war was kind enough to offer me the com-
mand of the Soldiers' Home in Washington, the most desirable
position open to an officer on the retired list. Mrs. Scott had
made for herself a most enviable position in every department
of Washington society-such a one as the wives of chiefs of
staff do not always attain; but she laid it down, turned her
back on it, and came away without a word. We agreed that we
had better give up the hectic life of Washington and settle
down among our own people for the remainder of our days,
and so we purchased the farm to which I used to drive with
my grandfather, to whom it belonged, when I was nine years
old. The secretary of war held the Soldiers' Home for us for
six months hoping we might want to change our minds but
we thanked him for his consideration and settled down to
enjoy a quiet life on our farm.
OF
c

GENERAL SCOTT AND OTHER MEMBERS OF THE N. J. STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION WITH
CHIEF ENGINEER SLOAN (LEFT)
In Command of Camp Dix
625
Our old friend Mr. Ayer of Chicago, one-time president of
the Field Museum, and active in the promotion of everything
of value in Chicago, had long been a member of the Board of
Indian Commissioners and had wanted to resign for several
years, but would not do so until he could have me appointed
in his place which he effected in 1919, the year of my final
retirement. The board, first instituted by President Grant to
keep him informed of the condition of the Indian tribes, is
composed of ten philanthropists who serve without salary;
their traveling expenses and clerk hire are paid for by Con-
gress. We divide the Indian country among us and make an-
nual tours of inspection of the various agencies; frequently we
are able to stop abuses and work benefits for the Indian and
also for the Indian agents. I was the enemy of most Indian
agents in my youth, but now they are of an entirely different
class of men, among whom I am proud to have many friends,
and together we are sometimes able to save the Indian from
spoliation.
MARSHAL FOCH
Although I had met Marshal Foch in Paris, I could not say
that I knew him then at all, and his visit to Princeton to
receive a degree from the university I welcomed in the hope
of seeing something more of him. He arrived on a special train
with his staff as guests of the United States, under escort of
Colonel Frank Parker, of the cavalry, and Colonel Franklin
D'Olier of the American Legion.
I was privileged to stand near him when he stood on the
steps of Old Nassau in the identical spot where General Lafay-
ette had stood to receive his degree from Princeton, and I was
invited to go with him on his train to Philadelphia where he
went to receive a degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
While at lunch in his car, I asked him why the allies at the
626
Some Memories of a Soldier
end of the war did not take over Germany by military inter-
vention, as we did in Cuba before making peace. He replied
that "no one could take the responsibility for further blood-
shed, when such bloodshed was not absolutely necessary." I
had thought that after the allies had destroyed the German
Government they would be responsible to the world for the
establishment of law and order and of a stable government
in Germany, and would occupy the country until this was ac-
complished, as we did in Cuba. I was amazed when the allies
left Germany to sink or swim or become Russianized by the
Bolsheviki as many feared might happen.
The marshal was very affable, simple, and democratic in
his ways and gave no inkling in his manner that he knew he
was a marshal of France, recognized everywhere as the first
soldier of the world. While at lunch he ate his apple in three
bites, and although there were boxes of cigars of the finest
quality for those who wanted them, the marshal stuck to his
little old pipe.
Later the marshal went on a tour through the West where
Plenty Coups, the oldest Crow Chief, adopted him with great
ceremony into the Crow tribe. These two were both present in
November, 1921, at the burial of the unknown soldier in the
new marble amphitheater at Arlington, where President Hard-
ing and many of the great men of the world were assembled on
the platform. The President, who pinned a medal on the coffin
of the unknown soldier and delivered an address, was followed
by Mr. Balfour of England, Marshal Foch, General Pershing,
and others, and last of all came old Chief Plenty Coups, who
limped up and placed his war-bonnet on the coffin. I made
another visit afterward to Arlington and saw this war-bonnet
hanging in its glass case in the room behind the platform where
all the medals are displayed close to the tomb of the unknown
soldier.
In Command of Camp Dix
627
BUT THE END IS NOT YET
I had settled down to the life of a farmer when four years
later one of the greatest and most unexpected honors of my life
came to me.
Governor George S. Silzer of New Jersey made a speech
before the Nassau Club of Princeton in 1923 saying that the
state of New Jersey had bonded itself for forty million dollars
for the construction of good roads. With the moneys received
from other sources, the total would permit the expenditure of
one hundred million dollars during the next five years. He
wanted this money expended honestly and effectively, without
regard to politics. He had discharged the old highway com-
mission and the first name that occurred to him "out of all
New Jersey for a membership in the new commission was the
name of General Scott."
He appointed four of us. The politicians, loath to give up
control of that amount of money, held up our confirmation
for two months but we were finally confirmed, and have
functioned together most amiably for four years-Mr. Percy
H. Stewart of Plainfield, Mr. Walter Kidde of Montclair, Mr.
Abraham Jelin of New Brunswick, and myself.
There have been enormous problems for solution, such as the
preparations for the traffic to come from the Jersey City end
of the Hudson Tunnel, with its four thousand cars an hour, and
the viaduct through Jersey City; the crossing of the Newark
meadows, the Hackensack, and Passaic rivers, and the by-
passing of Newark, Elizabeth, New Brunswick, and Trenton-
all of which are said to comprise the most complex highway
conditions in the world; and we have also been concerned with
arrangements for care of the traffic which was to come from
the bridge at Camden over the Delaware River.
This money has been spent with results so satisfactory to
628
Some Memories of a Soldier
the people of New Jersey that the legislature has arranged for
the expenditure of $169,000,000 more for the construction of
roads and bridges during the next six years and a half. The
carrying out of this program affords me pleasant employment
in congenial company, brings me in frequent contact with
people in every part of the State from which I went as a boy
fifty-seven years ago, and affords me the high privilege of
serving my own people.
As I look back over the circumstances of my life, I feel
deeply grateful for the friendship, the coöperation and support
I have received from those with whom I have been associated
in and out of the army and in all parts of the world-con-
tacts with the peoples of many races and colors by which our
lives have been filled with joy and gladness, and which have
contributed much to the delightful memories of a soldier's
career.
APPENDIX
The following letters are a few of a large number written to or
about Major-General Scott, dealing with various phases of his career.
TRANSLATION
COLONEL H. L. SCOTT.
Before the departure of General Wood for the United States, for
the purpose of recuperating his health, the Honorable Colonel H. L.
Scott, whose picture the "Figaro" publishes with pleasure on the first
page, was placed in charge of the Military Government during the
former's absence.
In order that the reason may be fully appreciated why we publish
his likeness, we beg to say that he is a Military Officer with a war
record and a polished gentleman, who has mingled in our society
where he is highly esteemed. Colonel Scott, without having, however,
neglected his official duties, has succeeded in winning a great many
friends in Cuba, owing to his genial disposition, his exquisite kind-
ness, and his regard for everything that we cherish.
He should read in these lines, written by one who has never clasped
the Colonel's hand, the most sincere expression of our consideration,
and our wish that he should display in the high position which he at
present occupies, all necessary tact so that he may continue to win
the favor of public opinion.
Dictated by ALBERTINI.
Extract from the first annual report of Major General Leonard
Wood, U. S. Army, Governor of the Moro Province, Zamboanga,
Mindanao, P. I., September 1, 1904:
629
630
Appendix
GOVERNMENT OF THE MORO PROVINCE,
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR.
The Executive Secretary,
Philippine Commission,
Sir:
Manila, P. I.
Zamboanga, Mindanao, P. I.,
September 1, 1904.
District of Sulu
The affairs of the District of Sulu have been handled with excellent
judgment and much tact by the District Governor (Major H. L.
Scott).
The affairs of this district were, at the time of its organization, in
a most unsatisfactory condition. The garrison was practically bottled
up in Jolo. It was unsafe for small detachments to go far outside the
wall and troops moved in considerable numbers. There was no sem-
blance of public order in the island, the Sultan and his principal
Dattos were at war with each other, disloyal to the government and
preying upon the poorer people. The abrogation of the Bates agree-
ment has done much to facilitate the organization of local govern-
ment and the restoration of good order. Headmen have been
appointed and are in most instances performing their duties in a
satisfactory manner. There has been a very material increase in the
output of hemp and other produce. At the time of writing this report
peace and good order exist throughout the district and the natives
are obedient to the orders and instructions of the Governor. Every
proper effort is being made to control them as largely as possible
through their principal men, who have been appointed to fill the
offices of headmen in the various portions of the district.
*
Appendix
631
The Provincial Governor desires to express his appreciation of the
valuable service rendered by the members of the Legislative Council,
Provincial and District officials, as follows:
To Colonel Hugh L. Scott, Governor of the District of Sulu, for
the very able and most efficient manner in which he has handled a
complex and difficult situation.
Very respectfully,
LEONARD WOOD,
Major General, U. S. Army.
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE MORO PROVINCE,
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
Major H. L. Scott,
Sir:
Zamboanga, Mindanao, P. I., April 16th, 1906.
14th Cavalry, Governor of Sulu,
Jolo, Jolo, P. I.
I desire to express to you thorough appreciation of the most able
and efficient manner in which you have discharged the complex and
difficult duties incident to your position as Governor of the District
of Sulu, by far the most difficult district of the Moro Province to
handle.
You have had to deal with the most warlike and most
turbulent section of the Moro people, and although it has not
always been possible to avoid armed conflict, you have by tact,
patience, and unremitting effort avoided in a large number of
instances the use of force. You have accomplished a great work
for the improvement of public order and the relations of the
various Moro leaders with each other, and your work in the
abolition of slavery and the suppression of the slave trade has
effectually terminated these curses of the Moro people.
632
Appendix
I know, from personal observation, and from repeated interviews
with the prominent men throughout the island, that you have the
entire confidence of them all; and that they not only trust you, but
look upon you as one deeply interested in their welfare.
I trust that you will see fit to continue in your present position, as
I believe it would be most unfortunate for the Moro Province to lose
the services of one who has been so successful in handling these
people.
Very respectfully,
LEONARD WOOD,
Major General, U. S. A.
Governor of the Moro Province.
Excerpt from the minutes of the Legislative Council of the Moro
Province of August 27, 1906.
On motion the following was adopted:
BE IT RESOLVED by the Legislative Council of the Moro Prov-
ince that it regrets that the departure of Major Scott to another post
of duty has deprived this province of an official who has served it
most faithfully and well as Governor of the District of Sulu since the
organization of the Moro Province; that the kindness, justice and
courtesy which uniformly characterized his administration has set a
standard for the emulation of his successors and of all other officials;
that his steadfast adherence to the high ideals which should control
the relations of a stronger to a weaker people has done much to
elevate the character of the Moro, and has secured for him both the
respect and love of the people entrusted to his charge; and that,
finally, the honorable wounds which he has received in the service of
this province guarantee to him its admiration and affectionate es-
teem during his future career, in which it wishes him continued
success.
GOVERNMENT OF THE MORO PROVINCE,
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY,
ZAMBOANGO, P. I., August 30, 1906.
G. T. LANGHORNE.
Appendix
633
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
My dear General Scott:
December 16, 1913
If I had not been in bed with the grippe, I would very much sooner
have written you a line to express my admiration of the way in which
you handled the Navajos at Beautiful Mountain. I instinctively
knew that you were the right man to send, and the result has justi-
fied my expectations perfectly. Every one here speaks of what you
have done in terms of the highest admiration, touched with affec-
tionate regard, and certainly I share these feelings to the utmost.
You have done a great public service.
With cordial congratulations,
Faithfully yours,
WOODROW WILSON
Brigadier General Hugh L. Scott,
El Paso, Texas.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
My dear General Scott:
March 31, 1913
I have your letter of March 26th, and have read it with much
interest. Nothing I have done since my Inauguration has given me
more pleasure than the signing of your commission as a Brigadier-
General. My best wishes go with you in your new rank!
I shall be very glad to bear in mind your desire to assist in the
solution of Indian problems.
Let me assure you that I had much pleasure in conveying your
kind message to the ladies.
With warm regards, believe me,
Cordially and sincerely yours,
Brigadier General H. L. Scott, U. S. A.,
Fort Sam Houston, Texas.
WOODROW WILSON
634
Appendix
WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
My dear General Scott:
April 2, 1915
I did not want to impose upon you the duty of coming to report
to me in person. I wanted to know when you returned merely in
order that I might convey to you my warm thanks and sincere con-
gratulations on the success of your mission to the Piute Indians who
had become troublesome. The whole country admires the way in
which you handle these difficult and delicate matters and I wanted
to express to you both personally and officially as President my own
feeling of deep appreciation and genuine admiration.
Cordially and sincerely yours,
Gen. Hugh L. Scott,
WOODROW WILSON
Chief of Staff,
War Department.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
My dear General Scott:
February 14, 1916
I am sincerely obliged to you for your letter of the eleventh
because I know that it was prompted by a desire to relieve me of all
embarrassment; but let me assure you that it is my sincere desire
that you should retain your present position and duties.
I did think it regrettable that in the testimony given before the
Committee of the House of Representatives on Military Affairs your
own opinion and the opinion of others in favor of compulsory
military training should have been made to seem part of the judg-
ment of the Department of War in favor of a "continental" reserve;
but I fully recognized the fact that you were merely giving your
frank professional opinion and that it was your undoubted right to
do so when questioned by a committee of the Congress. I meant no
Appendix
635
personal censure in what I said in my recent letter to Mr. Garrison,
and you may rest assured that you continue to enjoy, as you have
always enjoyed, my trustful confidence. I am glad to be associated
with you in your present capacity as Acting Secretary of War.
Cordially and sincerely yours,
Major General Hugh L. Scott,
WOODROW WILSON
Acting Secretary of War.
WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
My dear General Scott:
February 28, 1916
Thank you very warmly for your full letter of February twenty-
fourth about Captain M. E. Sliney of the Philippine Scouts. I entirely
approve of the course you propose taking and think that it is in every
way the right course.
Cordially and sincerely yours,
WOODROW WILSON
P.S. I hope that you will feel inclined while you are acting as
Secretary of War to attend the Cabinet meetings on Tuesdays and
Fridays.
Major General Hugh L. Scott,
Secretary of War ad interim.
A
A. B. C. proceedings, 525
Abdulla, Hadji, 337, 374, 408
career, 355
character, 356
death, 407
faithfulness, 367, 402, 403, 407
friendship, 355
INDEX
Adams, General Charles Francis, 463
Adams, President, 463
Ade, George, 284
Adrenalin, 446
Aguacate trees, taken to Sula, 386
Ahpiatom (Wooden Lance), affected
by Messianic prophecy, 149, 150
impression on Washington, 201
in disgrace, 150
proposed for Kiowa chief, 158
reward of, 151
Alaska, 571
Albuquerque, New Mexico, 518
Alcatraz island, California, 472
Aleutian islands, 571, 572
Alexander III of Russia, Czar, 577
Alexis, Grand Duke, 577
Algebra, David and Legendre, 13
Alger, Russell A., 567
Alimuddin, Sultan, 371, 375
Allen, Colonel, 60, 61, 73, 74
Allies, evasion of duty to Germany,
235
rejoicing at United States entrance
into war, 550
retreat before Germany, 543, 544
Alligators, King of the, 337
Ambutong, Panglima, 290, 300, 304,
357
trouble with, 369, 370
visit to, 302
America, British, 32
American Fur company, 83
American Horse, 124
Americus, Georgia, camp at, 228
Amiens, France, 597, 603
Ammunition, buffalo, 80
exorbitant sums charged in Indian
county, 72
use in Sulu, 309, 310
Amoy, China, 278
Anadarko, Oklahoma, 131, 147, 167
Ahpiatom's return to, 150
Indian school at, 24, 197, 198
trouble with Indians at, 158 et seq.
Anderson, George, 14
Anderson, Mrs. Lars, 606
Anemones, green and yellow, 46
Angora river, 574
Angeles, General Felipe, 496, 506 et
seq. 503, 504
and the Mexican revolution, 481
arrested by Huerta, 506
execution, 507
Animals, in Camp Dix, 612, 613
in Sulu, 392, 396
natural laws of, 105, 106
prairie, 104
Annapolis, use in Sulu war, 336
Antelope, 55
habits, 81
numbers, 81
Apache Indians
(see
Chiricahua
Apaches and Kiowa Apaches)
Apache Kid, 183, 184
depredations of, 193
expedition against, 194
Appleton, Colonel Dan, 25
Arabian Nights, The, 344
Arabs, 278, 283
Arapaho Indians, Jesus reported with,
149
Messianic hope, 152
scouts, 49
Archangel, Russia, 588
Arctic Circle, 26, 30, 102, 189
Argonne Forest, battle of, 555, 605,
606
Arikara Indians, 83, 84, 87
scouts, 36
customs, 31
637
638
Index
Arizona, Hopi Indian trouble in, 471-
477
Spaniards driven from, 476
Arkansas City, 137
Arlington, burial of the unknown sol-
dier in, 626
Army, British, 21, 121, 553
general staff of, 503
officers of, 169
treatise on treatment of prisoners,
503
Army, French, 588
Army, German, 503
Army, Roumanian, 588
Army, Russian, demoralization of,
582
Army, United States, at opening of
World war, 568
brilliance of Nez Percé campaign,
66
Bryan's antipathy to, 509
compulsory military education de-
sire, 560
condition at opening of Spanish
war, 217 et seq.
conscription delayed by Roose-
velt's request, 562
delayed by Congress in World war,
565
discipline in Sulu, 307
disorganizing effect of politics on,
222
drumming out of service, 45
drunkenness in, 41, 42, 43
expansion of, 425, 567
general staff, 614, 545
generosity of Morgan towards, 74,
75
intemperance in Sulu, 323
law of 1916 regarding general staff,
545 et seq.
life in, 11
method of appointment in Spanish
war, 220
military administration during World
war 567
morale of, 620
near ruin after Indian wars, 177,
178
need of civil jurisdiction, 134
occupation of Cuba, 232 et seq.
political entanglement possible for
President, 469
politics in, 545
Army-continued
professional advantages in, 11, 12
recognitions of, 77, 78, 119, 192, 209
270 et seq.
red tape in, 617
reduced in Cuba, 238
religion in, 225, 226
resentment at Indian enlistments,
170
trouble on cessation of Spanish
war, 226
volunteers during Spanish war, 221,
222
weakness of general staff, 545, 546
World War organization, 555, 556,
607
(see also Cavalry, Infantry and
Divisions)
Army and Navy Journal, visit of
editor to West Point, 423
Arnold, Benedict, 417
Arolas, Governor, accomplishments
of, 286
Arras, 597
British front on, 600
quarters in, 601
Arrows, as weapons, 72
Arthur, President, 74
Asanol, acquittal, 365
capture, 365
Ashurst, Lieutenant, 388
wounding of, 391
Asiatic islands, Chinese merchants of
278
Asiatics, politeness of, 351
Assiniboine Indians, 82
massacre of Nez Percés, 76
Associated Press, Villa and the, 517,
518
Astor, John Jacob, 220
Athabascan family, ugliness of, 189
Athens, Greece, 273
Atlantic City, Mexican Commission
at, 530
Atlantic Squadron, north, 250
Attick, Datto, 279
arrest, 333
reprimanding of, 332
Auburn, New York, 46
Augur, Captain Jake, 138
Austen, Texas, 480
Australia, a West
mended for, 451
Point recom-
Royal Military College of, 453
Index
639
Austrian guns, 543
Averescu, General, 587
Ayer, E. E., 370, 625
Bache, Sarah, 4
B
Bacon, Augustus O., 460
Bacon, Major Robert, 564
Bacon, Town-Mayor Robert, 606
Bad river, 94
Bagsak, Hassanat, 347
Baikal, Lake, 574
Bailey, Captain, 190
Bailey, Senator Joe, 127
Baker, Chauncey, 256
railway arrangements, 523
Baker, Johnny, nephew of Buffalo
Bill, 173
Baker, Newton D., 132, 518, 521, 529,
546, 557, 561, 570, 594
accomplishments, 567
and high-angled guns, 549
character, 566
confidence of War department in,
531
cooperation of, 555, 558
efficiency in World war, 565 et
seq.
friendship, 519
greatness, 558
pressure for World war commis-
sions, 564
settlement in Washington, 530
Baldwin, Captain, 51, 127, 131
Balfour, Arthur, 626
at the tomb of Washington, 553
visit to United States, 550
Bandits, Cuban, 253 et seq.
Bannack trail, 68
Baptists, 256
Barber, Major, 372
Barnegat Bay, 104
Barnett, General, 337
Barong, 283
Baronett, Jack, 60, 61, 63, 68, 73
Baronett's Bridge, 63, 68
Barry, General, J. H., 385
successor at West Point, 459
Batavia, 273
treatment of Arabs in, 351
Batcheler, General, 92
Bates, General, 288, 547
Bates Agreement, 288, 289, 293, 294,
308, 312, 325, 372
abrogated by Roosevelt, 306
trial of Biroa by, 306
Bear Butte, 303
Cheyenne medicine place, 90
Seventh Cavalry camp at, 90
Bear Paw mountain, 75, 77
"color" found in, 93
fight at, 177
Bears, on Kodiak island, 464
Bear's Rib, Chief, 59
Beautiful mountain, 534
Navajo difficulty at, 487 et seq.
Beaver-tail, a prairie delicacy, 39
Belgium, inability to resist German
advance, 543
Belknap, Fort, 75
Bell, General J. Franklin, 547
attitude toward Fort Sill, 185
Belle Fourche river, 92, 110, 113
Belt, R. V., nominated for commis-
sioner of Indian affairs, 204
Bennett, Captain, 295, 297
Bennett, Consul-General, 452
Benteen, Captain Frederick, 27, 52
military methods of, 454
Berlin, 235, 240
Berry, Commander, 361
Berthelot, General, 588
Berthold, Fort, Seventh Cavalry camp
at, 83
Bertron, S. R., 580
Bessarabia, 580, 587
Bible, the, 240
Biddle, Lieut. Williams, 42
Big Bow, 164
buffalo shield of, 164, 165
protected by, 163
victories of, 164
Big Cow, 166
Big Hole, 60, 64
Big Horn river, 46, 49, 55
battle of the, 60
bridge across, 49
country of, 33
crossing of, 47, 48
geological expedition into basin of,
122, 123
Great Crow camp at, 49
horse ranch on, 121
Big Horn river, Little, 46, 47, 48, 125
Custer fight on the, 26
Big Porcupine, 55
640
Index
Bilibid prison, 374
Billings, Montana, 65
Birds, boy, 104, 105
Biroa, 292 et seq., 322, 363
commission to arrest, 304
father of, 305, 310, 311
Moro interpretation of offense of,
298
protection, 310
surrender, 306, 307, 310
Bisbee, Arizona, 487, 495
Bismarck, North Dakota, 25, 82, 93,
IIO, III, 455
description of, 26
end of railway, 83
horses driven to, 38
intoxicated soldiers in, 42
jails, 44
Bizoshe, Old, 491
arrest, 493
friendship, 537
in Paiute situation, 536
loyalty, 534
on Navajo history, 493
Black, Colonel William in Havana,
238
Blackburn, Senator Joe, 181
Blackfoot Indians, 80, 596
Black Hills, 43, 84, 90, 94, 110, 112,
125, 303, 388, 455
exploration of, 124
squadron ordered to, 85
Black Kettle, Chief, 153
Blacktail Deer creek, 63
Black Wolf, Cheyenne scout, 52
Bliss, Secretary Cornelius, 206
Bliss, General Tasker, 231, 385, 396,
508, 509, 603
a chief of staff, 594
hospitality of, 512
Blue Blanket Creek, lunch near, 39
Bluff, Utah, battle near, 533
Mormons at, 538
Paiute situation in, 536
return to, 538
Boer war, horse industry revived dur-
ing, 121
Bolsheviki, Russian, 591
Bombay, India, 273
Bombero, Cuban negro, 268
Bongao, Sulu, 276
Bonillas, meeting with, 509
Bonneville, Benjamin, L. E., 84
Bordentown, M. J., 624
Borneo, 300, 321, 392
capture of Moro kidnappers at,
364
Moro towns in, 285
Borneo, 275, 276, 280, 290, 371, 372,
386, 395
Boston, Mass., 273
Boteler's ranch, 67, 69
Boulak, museum of, 145
Bourbonnais, France, 604
Box Elder river, camp on, 116
floating bridge across, 116
Boxer war, 310
Boyd, Colonel, 603
Brainerd, Minnesota, jails at, 44
Bratiano, Jon, 587
Brave Wolf, Cheyenne scout, 52
Breadfruit, in Sulu, 395
Breckinridge, Secretary, 513
Bridges, Major-General Tom, 451, 550,
552, 595
at West Point, 452, 453
Brigadier-general, appointment as, 471,
481
Taft's appointments, 478
British North Borneo, 274, 287, 322
hospitality of English in, 276
Broadway, New York, 384
Brown, Senator, 428
Brownsville, Texas, 527, 528, 619
filibustering parties at, 480
Brooke, General John R., governor
general of Cuba, 233
Brooklyn, 269
Brunai, oranges from, 394
Brusiloff, General, 582, 583
Bryan, William Jennings, dislike for
army, 509
influence on Democratic policy, 483
Bubb, Colonel, 385
Buchanan, General, 386, 396
Budd Daho mountain, Sulu, 380, 384
fight at, 386 et seq.
fortifications in crater of, 379
Buddha, pity lacking among follow-
ers of, 317
Buffalo, 55
characteristics, 71
countless numbers of, 52
Crow hunts, 56, 57, 58
1883 search for, 124
Grand Duke Alexis and hunting
of, 577
in Big Horn valley, 49
Index
641
Buffalo-continued
Indian hunts, 71, 72
killing of, 123
practical extinction of, 124
rareness of white, 73
running of, 69-74
scarcity around Fort Totten, 104
stampeded,
70
weapons used against, 72
Buffalo, 571
Buffalo Bill, 27, 171, 172-176, 577
appearance, 175
at the Chicago World's Fair, 171
career, 175
character, 174, 177
dinner with, 539
financial success, 172
generosity, 173
in Civil war, 178
visit to Doc Sturm, 179, 180
- visit to Indian Territory, 179
Bullard, Colonel, 325, 326
Bullock, Seth, 92, 93
Boulogne, France, 596
Buriats, Chinese, 573
Burlington, N. J., dinner at, 624
Burlington county, N. J., 624
Burnett, Burke, 131
Butu, Hadji, 291, 351, 363, 374, 403
and Hadji Taib's wife, 290
career, 354
character, 353, 354
knowledge gained from, 392
letter from, 409
son of, 352
Buzbuz, barrio of, 319
C
Cable, electric, effect on Cuban mo-
rale, 234
Cabrera, of the Mexican Commission,
530
Cache creek, mule drowned in, 191
Caddo Indians, 153
knowledge of customs, 106
Messianic hope, 152
Caddo Springs, 141
Cadets, Corps of, in New York, 25
Cairo, Egypt, 145, 273
Holy Carpet in, 344
Calbi, 340, 341, 362, 364, 378, 380,
386, 409
Calbi-continued
faithfulness, 345
promise to get Hassan, 344
search for Tallu, 341
war with people of, 360 et seq.
Calculus, Church, 13
Calcutta, India, 273
California, Mexican border, 482
Callen, George, 168
Calles, General P. Elias, 508
meeting with, 509
Cambridge University, 9
Camden, N. J., bridge at, 627
Camps, World war training, 555, 556
Canada, 30, 124, 550
Northwest Mounted Police, 134, 596
Sitting Bull in, 51
travels in, II
Canadian river, 132, 148
Messiah dance on, 154
Canadian Pacific railway, 243
Cancer, Tropic of, 475
Canton, China, 156
Cañon creek, 65
Canton, Ohio, 205
Capricorn, Tropic of, 475
Capron, Lieutenant, commission in
Spanish war, 218
desire to join Seventh Cavalry, 188
on Apache Kid expedition, 194
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 200
Indian school at, 197
Carlton, Colonel, 98, 108, 131, 146,
158
recognition by, 210 et seq.
Carothers, influence on Villa, 502
Carr, 135
Carranza, Venustiano, 497, 504, 513,
527
and Pershing supply trains, 530
career, 497
character, 497
disapproval of Obregon agreement,
528
government recognized by Wilson,
517
jealousy of Villa, 516
looting habits, 515
power of, 505
Carroll, Dr., and Yellow fever ex-
periments, 261
death of, 261
Carson, Colonel, J. M., 426
Carson, Kit, Ben. Clark and, 178
642
Index
Carter, General, 219, 385
Cartoons, in Havana papers, 236, 237
Casas Grandes railway, Pershing sup-
plied over, 530
Casey, Lieutenant, 154
Cassel, British headquarters at, 599
Catherine the Great of Russia, 577
Catholic Church, 285
clash with, 255, 256
in Cuba, 255 et seq.
in the Philippines, 274
opposition to, in Cuba, 258
Catron, Senator, 482
Cattle, on the Wounded Knee, 95
purchase for Apache reservation,
195, 196
suffering in the Cherokee Strip, 139
trails in the Southwest, 138
Cattlemen, Cherokee Strip strategy,
139
in the Southwest, 131
Cavalry, deserters to Villa recovered,
503
early duties, 32, 33
Indian troop, 207
opinions, 598
prospects for a lieutenant, 12
World War accomplishments, 598
Cavalry, First, 51
Cavalry, Second, 54, 67, 73, 248
Cavalry, Third, 99, 478, 603
accomplishments in, 482
capture of Cheyennes, 98
change in style of riding, 479
colonelcy of, 477
in "Battle of the Flowers," 480
new harmony in, 481
parting from, 482
Cavalry, Fourth, 26, 90, 94
Cavalry, Fifth, 49, 132, 138, 487
Cavalry, Seventh, 26, 28, 54, 59, 75,
180, 188, 195, 203, 219, 221, 454
annual expedition, 46-53
assigned to Indian duty during
Spanish war, 218
at Fort Abraham Lincoln, 26
Benteen's heroism in, 27
call on General Sheridan, 91
camp at Bear Butte, 90
camp at Sunday creek, 51
camp on the Missouri, 79, 80
chaplain, 42
crossing of Big Horn river, 47
crossing of Little Missouri, 115
Cavalry, Seventh-continued
Crow scouts, 33
discipline in, 40, 42
expedition against escaped Chey-
ennes, 94
expedition against the Sioux, 34
et seq.
expedition for recovery of Custer's
body, 46 et seq.
Fort Totten winter quarters, 101
et seq.
General Ludlow in, 228
Gray Horse troop, 28
horses of, 43
in battle of Wounded Knee, 158
in Big Horn county, 33
in the field, 34-40
joined by Lieutenant Allyn Capron,
188
march to Fort Meade, 110
members in geological expedition,
123
mission of pacification, 112-121
Nez Percé escort to Bismarck, 83
opening of Cherokee Strip, 138
ordered into Black Hills, 112
pack train granted, 91
popular sayings in, 79, 80
prisoners of, 41, 44, 45
purchase of Custer's horse, 29
recruiting assignment, 125 et seq.
Red Cloud trouble, 96 et seq.
reorganization of, 29
return to Fort Lincoln, 39
scouts of, 80
training of, 34
troubles of 1876-77, 40-46
vacancies in, 24, 25
winter quarters of 1873, 29
Yellowstone expedition, 29
Cavalry, Eighth, 218, 219
Cavalry, Ninth, 24
Cavalry, Twelfth, 487
Cavalry, Thirteenth, 519
Cavalry, Fourteenth, 391, 322
Cavite, Luzon, 381
admiral at, 295
Cauby, General, 492
Cedric, 594
Celebes islands, 274, 393
Moro towns in, 285
visit to, 386
Celebes sea, 361
Centennial celebration, Philadelphia, 25
Index
643
Central railway, 499
Centre College, Danville, Ky., 6
Century Co., The, 231
Cervera, Admiral, 286
Chaffee, General Adna R., 238, 547
Chaka, eagle war-bonnet maker, 140
Châlons, school at, 605
Chambers, discharge, 178
restoration, 178
Chambrun, Comte de, 607
Chang, Li Hung, at West Point, 446
Chapman, Nez Percé interpreter, 83
Chapultepec, national military school
of, 504, 505, 506
Charles, Captain O. J., 194, 281, 295,
301, 305, 326, 329, 333, 342
search for Hassan, 347
Château Thierry, battle at, 555, 605
Chee Dodge, 488, 492, 493, 494
"Cheshire Cheese," lunch at, 609
Cherokee Commission, visit to Indian
Territory, 199 et seq.
Cherokee Indians, refusal to receive
Chiricahua Apaches, 181
Cherokee Strip, opening of, 137 et seq.
Cherry creek, camp on, 85
Cheyenne Indians, 83, 84, 97, 127,
153, 165, 303
attempt to join Ogalala Indians,
94
capture of Dull Knife by Third
Cavalry, 98
characteristics, 52
conducted to Fort Reno by Ben
Clark, 177
customs, 53
escape from Fort Reno, 89, 94, 98
escape from Fort Robinson, 108
expedition of 1878, 455
Messianic hope, 152
offerings to medicine on Bear Butte,
90
plan to escape from Fort Lincoln,
86, 87
practical annihilation of, 108
prison village, 86
scouts, 51, 52, 79
strategy to join Red Cloud, 98
villages, 53
Cheyenne river, 94, 122
horses taken at agency on, 38
Chicago, Illinois, 26, 37, 83, 571, 619
Indian massacre of 1812, 6
World's Fair in, 171
Chicago river, 6
Chickens, prairie, at Fort Totten, 104,
105
Chickamauga, camp at, 224
training for attack on Havana, 221
Twenty-first Kansas at, 225
"Chickamauga, Rock of," 203
Chico, Luis, 515
Chief of Staff, in World war, 547
et seq.
1916 annual report, 557, 558
retired from position, 594
Chihauhau, called the Apache Chester-
field, 198
Chihauhau, Mexico, 496, 529
Villa's office in, 513
Chilocco, army maneuvers at, 136,
137, 145
China, Boxer war in, 310
potential markets of, 488
Chinese, 313
characteristics, 403
dinner with, 399
in Sulu, 364 et seq., 397 et seq.
merchants of the Asiatic islands,
278
sentimental side of, 403
sun saving custom, 303
viands of, 399
Chinook, 76, 79
Chippewa Indians, 27
Chita, Russian Commission at, 573
Chiricahua Apaches, 195, 196, 480
at Fort Sill, 183 et seq., 187 et seq.
cattle of, 195, 196
depredations, 193
desire to return to Arizona, 183
duties on reservation, 196
excellent conduct of, 193
fear of, 181
Fort Supply project, 185, 186
honesty, 197
incensed at doubt of, 219
industry, 198, 199
intelligence, 198
mesquite bean expedition, 197
removed to New Mexico, 482
sent west of the Mississippi, 181
thriving settlement of, 191, 192,
198
trouble with, 180 et seq., 219
uncertainty of behavior, 193
visit to, 182, 183
whiskey kept from, 203
644
Index
Chocolate trees, Sulu, 395
Choctaw Indians, vindictive natures
of, 167
Christians, and Moro juramentados,
313-320
Christmas, 1876 trouble on, 41
Church, Professor, 12
Cienfuegos, Sulu, 248
friendship of ex-mayor, 250, 251
labor troubles in, 251 et seq.
police discharged in, 249, 250
streets of, 265
theater performance in, 251
Cinnabar mountain, 61
Civil war, 6, 21, 131, 165, 178, 447
animals in, 612
veterans of, 418
Civil Engineering, Mahon, 13
Civilization, accomplishments in Sulu,
400
evils of modern American, 445
hope of modern, 554
time necessary to acquire, 235
Clancy, Thomas, 136, 147, 207
engraving on Custer's monument,
153
faithfulness, 127
in Kiowa troop, 169
on Apache Kid expedition, 194
Clark, Ben, 109, 176 et seq.
an accomplished sign talker, 176
career, 178
chief of scouts, 89, 176
character, 176
discharge, 178
friendship for, 90
mission of, 177
restoration of, 178
suicide, 178
Clark, Captain Philo, proficiency in
sign language, 217
Clark, George Rogers, 264
Clark's Fork, 65
Cleveland, Esther, 603
Cleveland, Grover, 137, 181, 484
Indian policy, 185, 199 et seq.
opening of Cherokee Strip, 137, 138
Clinton, Fort, 16
Coahuila, Carranza in, 497
coal mines of, 516
Cobb creek, cavalry on, 179
Cocoanut trees in Sulu, 394
Cochise, Chief, 198
Cochise county, Arizona, 198
Cody, Mrs. William F., 174
Cody, William F., (see "Buffalo Bill")
Coffee trees, Sulu, 395
Coffeeville, Kansas, 135
Coleta incident, 239
Colorado, Grand Canyon, 488
murder of Mexican in, 535
Colorado river, 503
Columbia river, language on the, 79
Columbus, Knights of, 623
Columbus, N. M., attack on, 517 et
seq.
investigation of raid on, 521, 522
Comanche, an original Seventh Caval-
ry horse, 43
Longfellow's poem commemorating,
43
survival of Custer fight, 43
Comanche Indians, 9, 47, 147, 176,
200
Apaches and, 182, 184, 193, 220
commemorated by First Dragoons
expedition, 168
Custer fight and, 43
drunkenness of, 166, 167
enlistment refusal, 168, 169
graft of agents, 205
in Washington, 203
Messianic hope, 152
most remarkable thing seen by, 145
scouts, 128, 129, 138
wildness of, 127
Compiègne, France, 597, 603
Congress, abolition of Board of Visi-
tors at West Point, 436
and conscription, 558 et seq.
enlargement of West Point, 431
failure to appropriate army pay,
74
Indian treaty in, 200
Joe Bailey's election to, 127
law of 1916 regarding general staff,
545 et seq.
library of, 216
military laws, 132
ratification of Mexican truck ex-
penditure, 532
red tape in army due to, 617
West Point interference, 421, 441
Congressional Record, 202, 385
Conscription, World war, 568
battle in Congress, 558 et seq.
popular feeling toward, 558
proposed for labor, 560
Index
645
Conspiracy of Pontiac, France Park-
man, 28
Constantinople, Turkey, 273
"Contemptibles," English, retreat of,
543
Contract transportation, in Sioux ex-
pedition, 35
Cook, Major, 166
Cook brothers, 135
Coolidge, Calvin, 484
Cootes, Captain, 594
Copper Queen company, 487, 496
Coral, in Sulu, 396
Corbin, General Henry C., 220, 383,
384, 425, 564
enthusiasm over West Point im-
provements, 425, 426
Corn, Kaffir, instituted in Apache set-
tlement, 191
Cornell, alumni, 439, 440
West Point game with, 440
Corpus Christi, filibustering parties at,
480
Costa Rica, 246
Cotabato, Sulu, 275
Cottonwood, as fuel, 40
Council Bluffs, Iowa, 243
Cowboys, Indians taught tricks of,
195
trouble with Kiowas, 162 et seq.
wars with Indians, 535
Coyotes, friendly feeling for, 34
Indians' attitude toward, 34
Crane, Leo, 472
Crane, Goodhue and Ferguson, 425,
426
Cranes, sand-hill, 104
Crazy Horse, Chief, camp of, 35
Criminals, number on the Plains, 134
outlaw brothers, 135
Crittenden, burial, 46
death, 25
Cromer, Lord, 270
Crook, General, 100, 180
Department of the Platte, 91
Crow Indians, 55, 60, 84
and Froze-to-Death creek, 55
and Nez Percé expedition, 61
buffalo hunt, 49
camp at Big Horn, 49
camp at Porcupine creek, 51
camp on the Musselshell, 56
customs, 50, 56, 57
description of, 56
Crow Indians-continued
discipline, 58
Foch and, 626
friendship for Nez Percés, 61
honesty, 57
knowledge of customs, 106
of Custer fame, 48
Sioux Indians and, 33, 56, 57
villages, 50, 56, 71
Cuba, 127, 228, 461, 485, 626
accomplishments in, 269
American occupation of, 232 et seq.
architecture in, 265
a Republic, 247
bandits in, 253 et seq.
banking system, 244
Banco National de, 244, 245
chaperonage of women, 267
chief of staff in, 238
church reform, 255 et seq.
constitution for, 262 et seq.
customs, 265 et seq.
education, 241 et seq., 265
farewell to, 267 et seq.
financial difficulties, 244, 245
fiscal agency by American trust
company, 244
funerals of poor, 255
headquarters staff in, 267, 268
in control during Wood's illness, 246
influence of Americans, 233 et seq.
Isle of Pines trouble, 247, 248
lack of libraries, 242
law practice in, 239
memorial services for McKinley,
256
military government, 236, 249
mosquito campaign, 261, 262
music appreciation in, 266
opposition to Catholic Church, 258
political education of, 248 et seq.
post-war situation in, 232 et seq.
presidency contested, 263
press in, 233, 250
regeneration of, 229-267
sale of estates, 246
social service, 236
sovereignty restored to, 269
Spanish traits in, 266
spirit in, 266
sports in, 266
temperance in, 266
travels in, II
Yellow fever in, 258 et seq.
646
Index
Carlew, sicklebill, 46, 104, 105
willet, 104, 105
Curtis, Charles, 381
Custer, General George A., 38
buried at West Point, 46
expedition to recover bodies of men,
46 et seq.
horses, 125
march customs, 80
massacre, 25, 27, 40, 43
monument of bones and stones to,
153
weakness of pack-train, 92
Custer, Mrs. George A., departure for
East, 29
Custer, Fort, 46, 49, 53, 123
"Custer avengers," 40
D
Dallas, Texas, 127, 480
Dalmatia, 33, 88
Dalton brothers, 135
Dammang, 300, 304
visit to, 302
Dandy Custer's horse, 29
Danville, Ky., 6
birthplace, 4
memories in, 225
Dartmouth, 13
Davis, General, of the Moro Prov-
ince, 299
Davis, Major George W., 479
Davis, Jefferson, David Hunter and,
6
Davis, Richard Harding, 140
Davison, H. P., 604
Deadwood, South Dakota, III, 121,
123
coaches in Buffalo Bill's show, 173
runaway coach, 172
search for lost treasure, 85
treasure coach attack, 85
Deadwood river, 113
Dean, James, 231
Dearborn, Fort, 6
Delaware, Colonel, 448
daughters of, 438
Delaware Indians, 153
Messianic hope, 152
Delaware river, 627
Democratic party, Philippine policy,
483
Denver and Salt Lake railway, 536,
539
Depew, Chauncey, 441
Derby, Lord, 595
Descriptive Geometry, Church, 13
De Soto, Hernando, 264
Devens, Camp, 621
Devery, Captain, training of Havana
police force, 238
Devil's lake, 101, 280
Devil's Slide, 61
Diaz, General, 258
career, 495
revolt against Madero, 496
Dick, Senator, 444
Disease, in post-war Havana, 232
Divisions, First, 606
Division, Second, 221
Division, Seventy-eighth, 607
in command of, 594
preparations for embarking, 614
training for France, 611 et seq.
Division, Thirty-fourth at Camp Dix,
615
Dix, Camp, 482, 547, 594
amusements, 623
command of training post at, 610-
627
demobilization at, 623 et seq.
discipline, 617
efforts to prevent "flu," 621 et seq.
fire dangers, 618
foreign officers in, 613
hospital troubles, 618
inspection of, 611
morality, 623
negroes, 619, 620
organization, 613, 616
remodeling, 612
schools in, 613
splendid achievements, 616
tremendous capacity, 615, 616
vice conditions controlled in, 620
water system, 618
Doane, Lieutenant, 54, 59, 60, 62, 66,
68
Dodge, General Grenville, Cuban rail-
road and, 243
esteem for, 243
Dogs, chicken pointers at Fort Tot-
ten, 105
in Sulu, 381
Domremy, France, 606
Don Juan Tenorio, 267
Index
647
Dooley, Mr., satire on government,
220
Dorey, Captain, 274, 328, 374
wounding of, 390
Douglas, Arizona, 510
Dover, castle of, 596
Dragoons, First, expedition of, 168
Drake, Captain, 343
Drake, Sir Francis, 277
Drewyer, interpreter for Lewis and
Clark, 216
Dry Fork, Missouri river, 52
Ducks, shooting at Fort Totten, 105
Dudley, General, 463
judge-advocate of Cuba, 249
Dull Knife, 97, 108
Duncan, Butler Jr., 450
Duncan, J., in Russia, 580
Duntroon, Royal Military College
of, 453
Durango, Mexico, 165
Villa's land in, 518
Durian, in Sulu, 395
Dwight, John W., 441, 460
Dyce, Professor, 43
E
Eagle, war (golden), capture of, 140
Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, 506
Education, boyhood, 9, 10, 12 et seq.
Cuban, 241 et seq.
in army camps, 613
in Joló, 409
in Sulu, 351 et seq.
part played by West Point in
American, 13
Edge Hill School, Princeton, educa-
tion at, 9
Edward, King, at West Point, 446
Egypt, 270
Elephants, in Sulu, 392
Eliot, Dr., 242
Elizabeth, N. J., 627
Ellis, Fort, Montana, 59, 60, 61, 68, 74
road to, 69
Elk, killing of, 70
on the Musselshell, 69, 70
Elk creek, Kiowa killed at, 162
Elk Tongue, 140
Elmer, Sergeant, 343
Elm Springs, 131
camp at, 130
Ely, Mississippi, 606
El Paso, Texas, 480, 482, 487, 495,
497, 500, 510, 530
conference with Obregon in, 525
et seq.
militia at, 523
Pershing in, 521
protected from Mexicans, 499
El Reno, 190
England, 551, 552, 553
activity in Havana, 230, 231
Armies of, 21, 23, 45
Bank of, 595
colonial policy, 273, 371
Commission to the United States,
550 et seq.
five o'clock tea in, 595
rubber barons in, 284
sportsmanship in, 609
stop en route to France, 595
success with Egyptian enlistments,
169
treatment of colonial governors, 276
World War front, 595, 599 et seq.
World War officers, 602
(see also Army, British)
English Channel, terrors of during
war, 596
Epernay, France, 606
Episcopalians, 256
service for the dead, 42
Escolta, 282
Eskimazin, Chief, joy of people at
return home, 190
sent to Arizona, 183, 184, 189, 190
Ethnologists, World Congress of, 171
Ethnology, Bureau of, 208, 216, 354,
475
Eton, fagging at, 14
Europe, during World war, 543 et seq.
Explorers, sign language in records of
early 216
Fabens, Texas, 482
F
Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, eagle
sent to, 140
Fall, Senator, 482
Falstaff's army, 448
Family, history of, 3 et seq.
Fargo, North Dakota, 28
isolation, 28
jails, 44
648
Index
Farmington Indian agency, 488
Fawn, capture of a, 136
Fenton, Captain, 594
Fernández, Emilio, 256
Fernandina, Count of, 242
daughters of, 265
Fever, malarial, 140, 171
Fewkes, Dr. Walter, 475
Field Museum, 625
arms purchased for, 370
Fieno, relations with, 513
Figs, lack of in Philippines, 394
Filipinos, 278
Catholic, 351
fear of Moros, 285
morale, 467
tribes, 486
Finley, Captain, 386
Finley, Dr. Carlos, 260
theory of yellow fever infection, 259
Firehole basin, 66
Fish, as caught by Sioux, 102
in Lake Miniwakan, 103, 104
in warm spring water in winter, 107
Fisher, Lieut. Ronald, 322, 343
Fisher, Walter, 471, 473
Flagstaff, Arizona, 476
Flanders, 607
Flirrey, canteens at, 554
Florida, Chiricahua Apaches sent to,
180
Flowers, prairie, 104
"Flowers, Battle of the," at San An-
tonio, 480
"Flu" epidemic, 621 et seq.
Flynn, Dennis, 181, 202
Foch, General, 603, 604, 626
acquaintanceship with, 625, 626
adopted into Crow tribe, 626
at West Point, 446
in United States, 625, 626
military methods of, 454
蒙
​Folkestone, England, Canadian forces
at, 453, 596
Foltz, Captain F., 248
Forbes, Cameron, 409
Ford, Captain, 275
Foreign Relations committee, Senate,
553
Fort Apache, 472
Fort Benton, 75
convention of Montana pioneers at,
74
Fort Bliss, Texas, 495, 499
Fort Buford, 46, 66, 82, 83, 86
Fort Keogh, 51, 66, 79, 81, 83
Fort Laramie, 97, 99
Fort Leavenworth, 29, 30, 44, 145,
243, 516
Custer heroes buried at, 46
prison at, 82
Fort Meade, Florida, 123
auction of property at, 125
departure from, 126
maps of surrounding country, 124
quarters at, III
return to, 100, 119
selection of site, 90, 91
Seventh Cavalry march to, 110
Fort Myer, Virginia, 221, 533, 552
Fort Pierre, III
Fort Reno, 80, 125, 177
Cheyennes taken to, 90
death at, 98
disadvantages of, 141
effort of Cheyennes to join, 98
escape of Northern Cheyennes from,
89, 94
preference of, 141
Sitting Bull's money at, 154
whiskey trial at, 203
Fort Rice, 34, IOI
Fort Riley, 43, 141
Fort Robinson, 99
Cheyenne escape from, 108
Fort Sill, Oklahoma, 110, 126, 148,
158, 162, 176, 208, 479
abandonment ordered, 141
advantages of, 141
Apaches located at, 183 et seq., 187
et seq.
Francis Leupp in, 196
fuel at, 128
General Bell's expenditures on, 185
ice-machine, 145
influenza at, 137
letters from, 178
measles at, 206
neglect of, 143, 144
pictures, 185
problems, 141-146
saving of, 141, 142
Seventh Cavalry detachment at, 127
sorrow at leaving, 208
trip for clothing, 136
visitors in, 156
visits to, 480
Fort Smith, Arkansas, 136
Index
649
Fort Snelling, Minnesota, 6, 118
Fort Totten, North Dakota, 109
farming at, 107
fishing, 102, 103
hunting, 105
location of, IOI
married life at, 109
sailing, 104
telegraph service, 110
trail to, 101
winter quarters in, 101 et seq.
Fort Wingate, New Mexico, 472
Apache prisoners at, 183
Fort Yates, North Dakota, 109
Foster of Canada, 550
and welcome of the French Com-
mission, 551
Fourth of July, Indian celebration,
199
France, 246, 552
armies, 23
colonial government, 273
Commission to the United States,
550 et seq.
trip to, 594 et seq.
Francis, D. R., 589
Francis Joseph, Emperor, 273
Franklin, Benjamin, 463
Froze-to-Death Creek, hailstorm on,
50
march of Nez Percé expedition up,
55
Fuel, coal impractical at Fort Sill, 128
hardwood as, 128
unseasoned wood as, 40
Fuerza, Havana, 242, 264
Fuller, Paul, 513
Funston, General, 522
and conference with General Obre-
gon, 525
investigation at Columbus, 521, 522
Fuzzy-Wuzzy, Kipling's, 308
G
Gaines, Captain Moel, 226
Galicia, 580, 583
Gallatin river, West, 68
Gallipoli, 453
Gallup, New Mexico, 480, 488, 493
Game and Fish Association, 624
Gardners river, 61, 62, 67
Garfield, James, 436, 504, 506, 516
Scott shoes worn by, 456
Garlington, General, 25, 419
recognition by, 89
Scott shoes worn by, 456
Garnett, Billy, 97
Garrison, Secretary, Lindley M., 483,
508, 509, 557
and Palute trouble, 534
letter from, 548, 549
on high-angled guns, 548
Gatewood, Lieutenant,
Chiricahua
Apache expedition of, 180
Gee's Point, 18
General Electric company, 13
Genoa, Italy, 273
Geological Survey, 216
Georgia, 365
transfer to, 227
Gerard, F. F., 39, 80, 87
Germany, 246, 278, 569, 626
and Joló, 278
army maneuvers, 273
evasion of post-war duty of allies
in, 235
in World war, 543 et seq.
Gerónimo, Chief, 180, 183
character, 198
punishment of, 184
Gibbon, General, 60, 64, 65
Gigantes y los Cabezudos, Los, 267
Gilbert, Colonel, 67
Girard College, Philadelphia, 189
Gish, Lillian, 623
Glasgow, Colonel, 384
Glennan, Captain, 190, 206
collecting Indian curios, 165
gratitude of Indians to, 207
Gold, stampede to Bear Paw Moun-
tains, 93, 94
"Golondrino, La," 267
Gomez, Governor José Miguel, 250
Gomez, General Máximo, in Cuba,
232
Gondrecourt, camp at, 606
Gonzales, General Pablo, 505
and peace proposal, 505
Gorgas, William C., 236, 260, 612
in clean-up of Havana, 238
Gouroud, General, 605
Government, military advantages of,
233, 234 et seq.
necessity in post-war Cuba, 233, 234
Governor's Island, 384
Grand Canyon, Colorado, 488
Grant, Fred, 14, 22
650
Index
Grant, Ulysses S., 13, 14, 22, 418,
430, 447, 625
David Hunter and, 5
Grass money, conveyance to Fort
Sill, 129 et seq.
Grasty, Lieutenant, and negroes in
Camp Dix, 619
Gray Bull river, cloud-burst on, 123
Gray Horse Troop, 28
Great Crow camp, 49
Great Lakes, 450
Great Northern railway, 76, 84, 110
Greble, Colonel, 236, 268
Green Foundation, John C., at Lau-
renceville, 10
Greenway, Jack, 607
Griffin, Eugene, 13
Griffith, Dr., 223
Grimm incident, Russian, 589, 590
Gros Ventres Indians, 76, 83, 84
Guásimas, Las, 219
Guatemala, 519
Guerra, General Pino, 252
Guernsey, N. T., 460
Gulam, Hadji, 466
at school in Joló, 352
H
"Habanera" dance, 267
Habeas corpus, unknown in Cuba, 239
Hackensack river, 627
Hadji, meaning in Sulu, 354
Hadley, Dr., dinner with, 144
Haig, Sir Douglas, 597, 598
Halifax, Nova Scotia, 594
Hall, Captain Lacey, 607
Hall, Fort, Idaho, Jesus reported in,
149
Hamilton, Alexander, 417
Hammill, Dr. Samuel, 10
Hammill, Mrs. Samuel, 10
Hanna, Captain, 260, 464
Cuban education and, 241 et seq.
Harding, Warren G., 409, 484, 626
Hardwood trees, 395
Hare (cavalry officer), 36
ability with horses, 110
absence on leave during 1876-77, 40
and location of Fort Meade, 91
friendship of, 34, 121
Harriman, governor of Pata, 338
siege of fort by pseudo Moham-
med, 335, 336
Harker, Colonel, 616
Harmon, Judge, 203
Harrison, Mrs. Mary, 5
Harrison, Benjamin, 484
Harun, Datto, 376
Harvard, Dr. Eliot of, 242
West Point textbooks in, 13
Harvester company, Chicago, 571
Hassan, Panglima, 298 et seq., 329,
335, 362
admiration for, 332
capture of family of, 346
conference with, 300, 327
death, 349, 350
escape, 330, 343
expedition against, 340 et seq.
fortress of, 342
impudence, 298
letters to, 298
parley with, 328
purposed policy toward, 331
pursuit of, 344
runaway slaves of, 298
saved from assassination, 339
search for, 328, 339, 345 et seq.
suspected by natives, 303
visit to, 301 et seq.
war in Sulu, 325 et seq.
Hassim, Saripul, 284, 334, 404
Hatch (Sulu native), 535
surrender of, 535, 538
Havana, American Club, 230
American trust company in, 244
appointment as chief of staff in,
231
child troupe in, 267
clean-up campaign, 238 et seq.
deplorable post-war condition of,
232 et seq.
dinner to North Atlantic Squadron
in 250
formidable defenses of, 229, 230
harbor of, 229
historical interest of, 264
improvements in, 243
mahogany bridge, 243
mosquito campaign in, 261, 262
police, 249
press, 236, 237
prisons, 238 et seq.
railroad, 243
reception of president-elect in, 263
sanitation, 238
surpassing beauty, 230
Index
651
Havana-continued
transfer to, 229 et seq.
tropical fruits in, 231
University of, 242
Yellow fever toll in, 259
Hearst papers, correspondent, 526
Heidelberg University, 9
Heidt, Lieut. Jimmy, 305
Helena, Seventh Cavalry in, 74
Henderson's ranch, 62
attack by Nez Percés, 66 et seq.
Hendrick Hudson, 459
Henrietta, Texas, 127, 137
grass money at, 129
Henry, Joseph, 82
Herald, New York, grudge against the
army, 424
Herkimer, New York, 440
Hermitage Gallery, 578
Heroic deeds, at Stony Brook, 10
recognition of, 19
rescue of King, 19
river crossing experiences, 116 et
seq.
Hickok, Wild Bill, in Civil war,
178
Hibiscus trees, Sulu, 395
Higginson, Major Henry, 242, 443
Hill, General Benjamin, 508
meeting with, 509
Hindus, 278, 283
Hines, Captain, 571, 572
Hitchcock, Frank, 443
Hodge, Dr. Hugh Lenox, 7, II
Hodge, Mary Elizabeth, 6
life of, 7
Hodge, Rev. Dr. Charles, 4
Holbrook, Arizona, 472
Hole in the Rock, 116
Holland, colonial government, 273
Holman, chairman of Commission on
Indian affairs, 200
Holy Carpet, 344
Hongkong, China, 486
Honolulu, trees bought in, 386
Hopi Indians, characteristics, 475
children forced to school, 474
customs, 475
education difficulties, 473
ritualism, 475
trouble with, 471-477
Hopkins, Archibald, 460
Horses, 56
branding of, 79
Horses continued
buffalo, 71, 125, 126
changes in style of riding, 479
cheapness of, 166
control of in water, 110
crossing of Big Horn river, 47
crossing of Little Missouri, 115
English trotting, 479
fear of buffalo, 72
frightened by hailstorm, 50, 51
industry in West, 121
Lieut. Russell's, 100
lost in Sioux expedition, 38
original mounts of the Seventh
Cavalry, 43
poor management, of Colonel Gil-
bert, 68
theft of, 81
War department orders concerning,
39
Horvatch, General, 573
Hotevilla, Hopi Indians and, 472,
473, 474
Hot Springs, Wyoming, 174
House, Colonel Edward M., 603
House of Representatives, Andrew
Hunter in, 4
Houston, Texas, 619
Howard, General, 65, 66, 68, 259
Huachuca, Fort, Arizona, 472
Hubbard, General, 439
Hudson-Fulton celebration, 447
Hudson river, West Point on, 18, 419,
431
Hudson tunnel, 627
Huerta, Victoriano, 498, 499
Administration of, 497
infelicity of, 496
release of Angeles, 504
revolt of, 506
Hull, John A. T., 460
Hump, Chief, 51
Humphries, Charles, 231
Hunter, Andrew, 4
Hunter, Charles, 14
Hunter, David, 5, 12, 26, 418
carver, 6
First Dragoons expedition, 168
Hunting, bear, 464
chicken season at Fort Totten, 100
Duck shooting, 28
en route to Fort Sill, 137
in the Philippines, 276
in the Southwest, 128
652
Index
I
Ice (White Bull), 52
Idaho, 388
Igorrote tribe, Philippine, 485
Illsley, Captain Charles, 28
Iloilo, Panay, 285
Imperial Guard, Russian inspection of,
578, 579
Imperial Valley, property in saved
from Mexicans, 503
Indanan, Panglima, 293, 294, 295, 300,
304, 316, 370, 383, 386, 402
attitude toward tax, 378
cowing of, 296 et seq.
imprisonment, 416
opposition of followers to tax, 379
pardon of, 416
thievery, 367, 368, 369
visit to, 302
Independence, Missouri, 193
India, 393
English policy in, 371
Great Mogul of, 606
Kitchener on, 452
Indian Department, Belt's nomina-
tion withdrawn, 205
Board of Commissioners, 625
Cato Sills of, 523
committee on Indian affairs, 200
education system, 197, 198
fraud in, 201
politics in appointments, 204 et seq.
prevention of warfare, 540
settlement of lands, 200
Indian Rights Association, 538
Francis Leupp of, 196
Indians, 625
buffalo hunting methods, 71, 72
cheating of, 132, 166
Cleveland's justice to, 201, 202
credulity, 155 et seq.
customs, 32, 128
devotion to children, 198
disarming of, 147, 148
drunken, 166
enlistment a failure, 169
Fourth of July celebrations, 199
good-will of southwestern, 129
improper care of children at schools,
206
in Buffalo Bill's show, 173
industry, 197
injustice to, 89, 108, 180, 181, 202
Indians continued
language, 31, 32, 83, 84, 189
management of prisoners, 187
missionary attitude towards, 313
nature, 156, 166, 167, 199
necessity of sane treatment of, 156,
157
new Messiah of, 146 et seq.
outbreaks caused by, 161
proposal for troop in World war,
563
purchase of Liberty bonds, 564
Red Cross subscriptions, 564
racial fear of, 156
reasons for failure in army, 170
religious instincts, 153
returned to their reservations, 118
et seq.
schools, 491, 495
scouts (see separate item)
Seventh Cavalry expedition for
Indian pacification, 112-121
settlement of lands by white people,
199 et seq.
starved through loss of buffalo, 124
superstition, 140
traffic in arms and ammunition, 35
treatment of diseases among, 206,
207
tribes, (see separate titles)
villages, 82
weaning of children, 207
whiskey and, 202
Indian Territory, 94, 97, 108, 126, 177
Buffalo Bill's visit to, 179
Cherokee Commission visit to, 199
et seq.
Cheyennes taken to, 90
Fort Sill in, 143
policy of Department of Interior
concerning, 84
Infantry, First, 83
Infantry, Fifth, 46, 51, 79, 188
delayed by General Miles, 189
escort of Eskimazin to Arizona, 190
Infantry, Seventh, 60, 64, 67
Infantry, Eighth, 232, 239
Infantry, Tenth, 232, 281
Infantry, Fifteenth, 46
Inscription Rock, 476
Interior, Department of the, 487
International bridge, over the Rio
Grande, 500
Ireland, 594
Irish Channel, 595, 609
Irkutsk, 575
German prisoners' camp at, 574
Iron Ball, Chief, 50, 71
Iron creek, 113
Iron Tail, lodge of, 175
Irwin, Commander, 361
Isadore, Father, 24
Index
Isatai, on ugliness of the Apaches, 189
I See O, Sergeant, 129, 140, 147, 154,
159, 160, 167, 169, 205, 208
Islam, 323
belief in returned Mohammed, 335
et seq.
effect on Malay race, 315
effect on progress, 352
in Sulu, 274, 284, 285, 291
opinion of women, 320
power of Sultan in, 405
tax regarded as attack by Moros,
376
Italy, 552
colonial government, 273
J
Jackson, Andrew, 430
Jackson, Billy, 80
career, 80
Jackson, Bob, 81
Jagi, Maharaja, 295, 377
treatment when wounded, 378, 379
James, Colonel Bernard R., 452, 609
James brothers, 27, 135
attack on Sidney Treasure coach, 93
Jamestown, Missouri, 28, 101
Janarin, 319, 350
capture of Asanol, 365
disfigurement, 366, 367
faithfulness, 367
Japan, 275, 278, 383, 568
and a United States war, 512
flats, 361
Philippine disposal and, 485
sea of, 572, 591
Japonera company, property confis-
cated by Villa, 514
Jassy, Roumania, 587, 588
Java, 273, 315, 351, 393
salary of governor-general of, 277
soil of, 396
Jefferson Barracks, upheaval of Third
Cavalry at, 478
Jehan, Shah, 606
Jelin, Abraham, 627
Jersey City, New Jersey, 627
Jesuits, Spanish, at Joló, 351
Jewell, Lieutenant, 391
653
Jews, treatment in Roumania, 588
Jikiri, war of, 370
Joakanain brothers, 284
Joan of Arc, 606
Joffre, General, 550, 551, 552, 597
at West Point, 446
John, Nez Percé, on fighting Sitting
Bull, 79
Johnston, John A., 477, 615
Johnson, "Liver Eating," 80
John the Baptist, Sitting Bull the
Arapaho, 150
Johore, Sultan of, 373
Jokanain, 340, 355, 378, 380, 386, 409
opposition of people to taxes, 379
search for Tallu, 341
Joloanos (see Moros)
Jones, Horace P., 159
character, 176
death, 178
discharge, 178
fox-horn gift, 178
gratitude, 178
restoration, 178
Jones, John Paul, recovery of bones
of, 447
Joló, in Sulu, 276, 323, 329, 372, 402,
462
accomplishments at, 416
a penal settlement for deportados,
286
band of, 408
Chinese pier incident, 364 et seq.
command relinquished, 402
described, 277 et seq.
false Mohammed in jail in, 337
farewell to, 407 et seq.
General Bates sent to, 288
gruesome sights in, 318
Jesuit mission at, 351
loss of fort to Spanish in 1569,
285, 286
McCoy's letter from, 410 et seq.
memories of life in, 408, 409
Moro battle at, 384
murder in, 292 et seq.
polygamy trial in, 291, 292
population, 278
preparation of escort at, 278
654
Index
Joló, in Sulu-continued
reception at leaving, 407
recovery from Moro wound in, 332
regret at leaving, 400
return to, 385 et seq.
revenue producing port of, 283, 323
schools, 352, 409
stationed at, 281
wife of Hadji Taib in, 290
Joseph, Chief, 60, 64, 83, 177
Address to Indians, 83
character, 84
generosity, 67
Juarez, Benito, 496, 505
Juarez, meeting with Villa at, 510
taken by the Huertistas, 497
under Huerta, 499
Judith Gap, 54
railway in, 60
Judson, William V., 574
Juramentados, Moro, 313-320, 354,
405
as practiced in Sulu, 315
at Look, 359
burials of, 372
Chinese pier incident, 364 et seq.
escapes from, 357
first during Sulu governorship, 316
et seq.
murder of Charley Schück, 409
safety of women from, 320
terror of Joló, 318
underlying idea of, 314
Jusserand, Jules, 551
and Roosevelt's bathing party, 466
Jusserand, Madame, 552
Kahn, Julius, 559
K
Kalbi brothers, 284
Kamckatka peninsula, 572
Kansas, Cherokee Strip in, 137
Kansas City, Missouri, 189
Kansas, University of, 43
Keams Cañon, Arizona, 471, 472
inspection of, 477
Kean, Colonel, 236
Kendricks, Professor, 12
Kennan, George, 231
Keogh, Colonel, 43, 47
buried at Auburn, New York, 46
Kerensky, Alexander, 579, 582, 587
radication of, 590
Kerensky, Alexander-continued
weakness of, 592
Kerr, Lieutenant, 343
Khartum, Egypt, 270, 450
Kidde, Walter, 627
King, Josiah, swimming experience in
the Hudson, 18, 19
Kinzie, John, trading post of, 6
Kinzie, Maria, 6
Kiowa Indian Catholic school, Anada-
rov, Oklahoma, 24
Kiowa Apaches, 188
wildness of, 127
Kiowa Indians, 9, 139, 147, 176, 200
Ahpiatom proposed for chief, 158
commemorated by First Dragoons
expedition, 168
disgrace of Chief of, 157
dislike of Apaches, 182
disturbance with at Anadarko, 158
et seq., 161
eagle war-bonnets of, 140
Elk Creek trouble with, 162
enlistment refusal, 168, 169
graft of agents, 205
influence of army training on, 170
in Washington, 203
responsibility for Apaches, 220
scouts, 128, 129, 138, 147
settlement with cowboys, 164
success of enlisted troop of, 169
sufferance of Apaches in Indian
Territory, 184
sun dance, 131
tenacity of Messianic prophecy
among, 152
wildness of, 127
Kipling, Rudyard, 308, 623
Kiram, Sultan Jamalul, 274, 294, 295,
304, 404
absence of, 279
brothers of, 27, 280
cooperation of, 405, 406
desire to assassinate Hassan, 339
excitement at brother's imprison-
ment, 334
income reduced, 371
loyalty of, 406
search for Hassan, 346
visit to United States, 466 et seq.
Kitchener of Khartum, Lord, 270,
450, 451
dinner with, 452
loss at sea, 452
Index
655
Klück, General von, retiring of, 544
Knox, Commander, 361, 417
Kodiak islands, Alaska, 464, 571
Koran, 311, 345, 352
commentary on, 404
liquor prohibited by, 323, 324
marital laws of, 291
pity absent from, 317
Korn, Blacksmith, 43
Korniloff, General Laurus, 590, 591
598
murder of, 587
visit to headquarters of, 587
Kuni of Japan, Prince, at West Point,
446
Labor party, 570
Russian, 580
L
Lafayette, Marquis de, 607, 625
Lahud, British North Borneo, casa
of Pala in, 321, 322
Lamont, Secretary, 180
inspection of West, 478
Lanao, Lake, 275
Land, methods of opening unsettled,
132
Lane, Franklin K., 529, 533, 562
and Mexican commission, 529, 530
part played in World war, 563
Langes, machine-gun school at, 604,
606
Langhorne, Captain, 274
Lansing, Robert A., 513, 521
Lansing, the Misses, 606
Language, English, common to most
Indians, 189
Indian, 31, 32, 79, 80
Malay, 283
Moro, 278, 283
sign (see separate item)
Spanish, 265
La Plata mountains, 493
Lapwai, Idaho, inspection of Nez
Percé agency at, 82
Larimore, Great Northern railway at,
ΙΙΟ
Latin-Americans, characteristics, 253,
SII
dislike of American brusqueness,
253
necessity of courtesy in dealing
with, 253
Law, international, on benevolent
despotism, 234, 235
Lawrence, Comanche "set up" at,
43
Lawrenceville School, 447
education at, 10
Lawton, Alexander R., 194, 460
Lazear, Dr., death of, 261
and Yellow fever experiments, 261
Leavenworth, Kansas, 30, 45
Federal prison at, 45
Leave of Absence, after Spanish war,
228
from Sulu in 1916, 381
in 1879, 108
return East in 1884, 122
to see Miss Merrill, 109
Lee, Captain Jesse, 168
Lee, Robert E., 430, 431
at West Point, 15, 418
Legion, American, 625
Lena river, 575
Lenin, in Petrograd, 590
Leoffler, Major, 203
Leprosy, in Cuba, 236
Letterman, General Hospital, 374
Letters, from Arthur Wagner, 20, 21
from Eddy Schück, 400 et seq.
from Fort Sill, 178
from Hadji Mohammed Mualom,
404, 405
from McCoy, 410 et seq.
from the Moros, 409
recognition, 77, 78, 88, 119, 192,
209 et seq., 270 et seq.
West Point, 459, 460
Leupp, Francis, visit to Fort Sill, 196
Leviathan, Pershing on, 555
Lewis, Dr., 305
Lewis, Major, 331, 349, 388
Lewis and Clark expedition, 84, 216
Lexington, Kentucky, 224
camp at, 225 et seq.
clash in, 226, 227
family memories at, 225
Li, Prince, at West Point, 446
Liberty Bonds, in World war, 564
Liberty Cap geyser, 62
Libraries, public, in Cuba, 242
Liége, forts at, 543
Liggett, General, 478
Lincoln, Abraham, 234, 418
election of, 179
General David Hunter and, 5
656
Index
Lincoln, Fort, 26, 29, 44, 49, 100,
IOI, 177
bribery at, 45
hailstorm at, 57
winter quarters in 1878, 86
wounded sent to, 79
Lima, Lino, Cuban bandit, 254, 255
Liquor, in World War, 620
Little Big Horn river (see Big
Horn, Little)
Little Chief, Chief, 51, 177
Little Missouri river (see Missouri
Missouri river, Little)
Little Wolf, 97
search for, 98 et seq.
Liverpool, England, 595, 609
Lloyd George, David, 603
Lodge, Henry Cabot, 553
Loefflers, Major, 441
London, air raids in, 608, 609
Tower of, 609
visit to, 595
Lone Wolf, Chief, disgrace of, 157
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, poem
on Comanche, 43
Longworth, Nicholas, 381
Look, district of, 298, 299, 325, 331,
357, 358
juromentado at, 359
war near, 357 et seq.
Lookout mountain, burial place of
Buffalo Bill, 173
Louisiana Lottery, 16
Loyal Legion, present to West Point,
439
tea given by, 438, 439
Ludington, General, 220
Ludlow, General William, 259
assignment by, 231
in command at Americus, 228
military governor of Havana, 228
ordered to Germany, 237
recognition by, 271
Lukomski, General, 583
Lusitania, sinking of, 550
Luzón, 285, 485
M
Macabebe tribe, Philippine, 485
McCain, Henry P., recognition by, 78
telegram of, 521
Macao, China, 486
McCook, Colonel John J., 218
McCormick, Cyrus, 571
McCormick Seminary, 7
McCoy, Captain Frank R., 250, 274,
328, 343, 386, 395, 465, 481, 606
at German army maneuvers, 273
letters from, 409, 410 et seq.
McDonald brothers, arrest of, 135, 136
MacDougal, Captain, 27
McIntosh, Lieutenant, 44
McKenzie, Alexander, 93
McKenzie, General, 173, 176
McKenzie, Kenneth, 83
McKinley, William, 483, 484
Cuban memorial services for, 256
efforts to avoid war, 217
inauguration, 205
McKinstry, Laura, visit to Sulu, 406
McLaughlin, Major James, 123, 487,
490
McMurdo, Dr., 208
McRae, General James H., 615
Mad Bear, Chief, 38
Madero, Francisco I., 497, 505
arrested by Huerta, 506
president of Mexico, 496
Madison river, 68
Madison Square
Garden, Buffalo
Bill's show at, 174
Maestranza, 242
quarters in, 267, 268
Mahan, Professor, 12
suicide, 13
Mahogany, used for bridge in Ha-
vana, 243
Maibun, Hassan's expedition to, 298
swamp east of, 321
Main and Winchester company, 57
Maine, destruction of the, 217
remains of the, 229
Malagueña dance, 267
Malays, 315
Sulu trade with, 392
Mammoth Hot Springs, 64
Manchuria, 573
wild fowl in, 575
Manchuria, 609, 610
Manck, Captain, 90
Mandan Indians, 83, 84
Mango, Sulu, 394
Mangosteens, 392 et seq.
in Sulu, 392
seeds sent abroad, 393
Manila, 273, 331, 370, 386
death of Clancy in, 127
Index
657
Manila-continued
ordnance depot at, 362
strategic position of, 486
University of, 383, 410
visit to, 374 et seq.
Maps, for selection of Fort Meade
site, 91
March, General, 547, 610
Maréchal, General, 605
Marias river, 75
Marie of Roumania, Queen, at West
Point, 446
Marine Corps, 337
Marrin, hazing of, 16
Mary's lake, 66
Marlow brothers, 135
Marne river, 605
battles on the, 557
German retreat beyond, 544
Joffre the hero of the, 551
Marshals, United States, 135
at opening of Oklahoma, 133
doubtful honesty of early, 130
in Navajo difficulty, 489
of Utah, 533
Marti, General, 252
Matanzas Province, Cuba, 254
Matsé, 195
Maus, Colonel, 76, 77, 180, 181, 186,
386
recognition by, 78
trick played on Remington, 187
Mayflower, 550, 551, 553
Maytorena, General, 508, 510
friendship with, 511
honor of, 513
meeting with, 509
stubbornness, 511
Mazorra, hospital for the insane at,
236
Meade, Camp, 594
Measles, among Indian children, 206,
207
Mecca, 404
pilgrimmage to, 354
Medical Department, 186
Captain Glenman in, 206
Merrill, General Lewis, 86
visited by daughter, 110
Merrill, Miss Mary (see Mrs. Scott)
Merritt, General Wesley, 11, 32, 141,
148, 154, 478
army maneuvers at Chilocco, 137
loss of troops, 149
Merritt, General Wesley-continued
recognition by, 192
Mescalero Indians, map of country
around agency of, 193
Messiah, Kiowa hope in, 152
on the Plains, 154
rumor of return of, 146 et seq., 161
Metropolitan Club, Washington, 149
Mexican Hat, search for Paiutes at,
537
Mexico, 32
a bad neighbor, 504
agreement with United States, 526
et seq.
anarchy under Huerta, 497
and a Japanese-United States war,
512
bull fight, 239, 240
character of people, 513
command of border from Fabens to
California, 482, 496
controlled by Diaz, 495
disposition of Villa, 518
education in, 511
expedition into, 509
General Angeles in, 506 et seq.
ignorance of people, 522
mine troubles in, 513 et seq.
minister of, 194
peace established in, 504-513
peace proposal ruined, 507
possible invasion of, 524
President's attitude toward, 522,
523
revolution, 483, 506
selfishness of generals, 515
travels in, II
under Madero, 497, 498
United States Commission, 529, 530
upset by American troops in, 525
Villa's Columbus raid, 519 et seq.
war conditions in, 497-506
Mexico City, 506
Meyer, organist at West Point, 429
Michie, Colonel, 500, 509, 534, 536,
538, 574
Miles, General Nelson A., 11, 46, 49,
51, 52, 54, 59, 65, 76, 79, 82,
149, 171, 177, 179, 180, 185, 220,
221
Apache expedition, 180
capture of the Nez Percés, 65, 66
career, 65, 66
friendship of, 32
658
Index
Miles, General Nelson A.-continued
hunting customs, 182
inspection of Apache situation, 189
recognition by, 209, 214, 215
request for supplies, 75
visit on train to New Mexico, 186
Militia, and Mexican duty, 525
called for Mexican service, 523
conditions of vice in, 620
inefficiency of, 525
Milk creek, 75
Milk river, 75
Nez Percé expedition, 76 et seq.
Milky Way (Wolf's Road), 165
Milk, Anson, 124, 385, 425, 434
at West Point, 382, 417
Minco Minstrel, 153
Mindanao island, 274, 325, 353
Wood in, 275, 331
Miner's creek, Tom, 68
Mines, Mexican troubles, 513 et seq.
Mini-pusa river, 52
Miniwakan, Lake, boats on, 106
Sioux medicine lake, 101
thawing of ice on, 102
Missionaries, mistaken ideas of, 313
Mississippi river, 27, 264
Chiricahua Apaches sent west of,
181
ice on the, 6
Yellow fever on, 258
Missouri, Department of the, 148
Missouri river, 26, 27, 28, 30, 32, 34,
35, 40, 47, 52, 74, 77, 81, 93, 94,
97, 101, 102, III, 119, 121, 147,
454, 571
horses lost on, 38
Seventh Cavalry camp on, 79, 80
Missouri river, Little, 113
Seventh Cavalry crossing of, 115
swim across, 115
Mitchel, John Purroy, 592
Modoc Indians, 490
Mohammed, 274
alleged return of 335 et seq.
hejira of, 409
paradise of, 314
false, 337
death of, 339
Indians and, 146 et seq.
outlaw protected by, 338, 339
subjection to Harriman, 338
war against, 336, 337
Mohammedanism (see Islam)
Mohileff, 583, 588
Russian army at, 582
Molucca islands, Mangosteens in, 393
Moro towns in, 285
Mongolia, desert, 574
trip across, 573
Mons, France, blood shed at, 557
forts at, 543
Montclair, New Jersey, 627
Moon, Moro, saved from eclipse, 303
Montgomery, David C., 464
Moore, General Sir Newton, 453, 596
Moore, Tom, 388
Moors, of Seville, 265
Morales, Pedro, 242
breakfast with, 510, 511
disagreement with, 510
meeting with, 509
Moreau river (Owl river), IJO
Morgan, Indian commissioner, 151
Morgan, John Pierpont, payment of
army officers by, 74, 75
Morgan and company, J. P., 565
Morgan, Harjes and company, 565
Morro Castle, 264
seige of, 230
Morrow Cottas, 285
Moros, Sulu, 278, 461, 486
affection for Houston Scott, 383
arms of, 287
attempt to deal justly with, 308
attitude toward taxes, 375 et seq.
at war with American army, 326
et seq.
cottas of, 309
culture, 283
derivation of, 283
difficulty of civilizing, 289
disarmament of, 288, 322
disregard of death, 312
education and, 351
fear of Christian food, 359
friendship with, 390, 391
girl kidnapped by, 363 et seq.
hatred of imprisonment, 320
history of, 274, 354
impressed by American bravery in
Sulu, 343
industriousness, 283
injured by, 330
interpreters, 278
Islam and, 291
Joló battle, 384
letters from, 409
Index
659
Moros, Sulu-continued
love of breadfruit and Durian, 395
meaning of word, 282
Mohammed fallacy among, 335 et
seq.
morale of, 467
native rights of, 298
nature of, 282, 283
nervous system of, 316
protection of, 358
quarrels among, 303
ravages of, 274
reciprocal government, 320 et seq.
regret at leaving, 400
rights disregarded, 371
search for Hassan, 340, 345 et seq.
slave expeditions of, 285
smallpox among, 352 et seq.
songs of, 468
Spaniards' respect for, 288
teeth blacking custom, 345
warfare methods, 360
war with, 357 et seq.
wedding among, 369
(see also Sulu)
Morton, Paul, 419
Morven place, Princeton, 5
slaves at, 5
Moscow, Russian Commission at, 582
Mosquitoes, campaign against, 261
Yellow fever carriers, 261
Mott, Colonel, 236, 479, 592, 594, 604
Mott, Dr. John R., 570, 574
Mount Holly, New Jersey, 620, 624
Mount Pleasant, Ohio, William Scott,
Sr., at, 7
Mount Vernon, Alabama, Chiricahua
Apaches sent to, 180
visit to Apaches at, 182, 183
Moylan, Captain, 92, 99
Muallam, Hodji Mohammed Pan-
glima, distress at Sultan's faith-
lessness, 467
letter from, 404, 405
Muda, Raja, 279, 290, 346, 468
ballad of, 468
Mud Geysers, Indian crossing at, 65
Mules, in the Philippines, 362
sale at Fort Supply, 191
uses of, 191
Murder, first at Princeton, 5
Musselshell river, 51, 60, 77, 79
antelope crossing at mouth of,
81
Musselshell river-continued
Big Bend of, 56
trip up the, 69
N
Naco, Arizona, 483, 495, 512
damage done by Mexicans, 508
evacuation of, 509, 511
Mexican situation at, 509 et seq.
travel to, 510
Nafarete, General, 527
Nagasaki, Lady, at West Point, 446
Nagasaki, Japan, 486
Naiche, Chief, 180, 183, 198
punishment of, 184
Naples, 273
Nashua, New Hampshire, 457
Nassau, Old, 625
Nassau Club, Princeton, 627
National Bank, El Paso, 495, 514
National Defense, Council of, 545
Navajo Indians, 472, 533
Bizoshe on the history of, 493
menace dispelled, 487 et seq.
trouble with, 436
Naval Academy, Annapolis, 13
Navy, attitude toward, 363
Navy Yard, Washington, 551
Nebraska, 487
runaway Indians from, 84
Negroes, 278
at Camp Dix, 619, 620
cavalry detachment at West Point,
434 et seq.
in World war, 563
Nespilem, Washington, 65
Neva river, 577
Newark, New Jersey, meadows, 627
New Brunswick, New Jersey, 627
New Guinea, slaves taken from, 285
New Jersey highway problems in, 627
member of highway commission of,
627, 628
oyster-beds of, 370
New London, Connecticut, Mexican
Commission at, 530
Neuman, George H., 460
New Mexico, Spaniards driven from,
476
New York, arrival in 1905, 384
city council, 592
defenses, 433
660
Index
New York-continued
Yellow fever in, 258
Nez Percé Indians, 51, 83
attack on Henderson's ranch, 61
et seq.
capture of, 66
Crows friendship for, 161
humanity of, 84
inspection of agency at Lapwai, 82
expedition against, 53-69
prisoners of war, 79, 82, 83
scouts, 76
surrender at Milk river, 76 et seq.
war, 28
Nicholas of Russia, Czar, 570
imperial train of, 572, 574, 575, 591
Nicholson, Colonel, 229
in Second Division, 222
Nilsson, Christine, 14
Niobrara river, 97
Nogales, Arizona, 487, 504
militia at, 523
Norman, thugs driven from, 133, 134
North American Indian, George
Callen, 168
North Dakota, blizzards in, 30
Northern Pacific railway, 26, 39, 44,
ΙΙΟ
Northfield, Minnesota, bank robbery
at, 27
Northwest, duck shooting in, 28
flowers in, 46
Fort Union, emporium of the, 83
hailstorms in, 50, 51
in command of Terry, 27
winters in, 30, 39, 40
Northwestern Seminary, Chicago, 7
Norwich, University of, 13
No Water mountains, 163
Nowlan, H. J., 46, 47, 48
0
Oakley, Annie, 173
Obregon, General, 507
agreement with, 526 et seq.
and peace proposal, 505
conference with, 525 et seq.
designs on San Antonio, 522
Irish blood in, 528
relations with, 500, 503
split with Villa, 506
Ogalala Indians, 94, 97, 173
Ohio, school laws adapted in Cuba,
241
Oil, in the Southwest, 131
Okhotsk, sea of, 572
Oklahoma, opening of, 132
University of, 133
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 132
Old Crow, 98
and search for Little Wolf, 99
returned to Fort Robinson, 100
Olier, Colonel Franklin d', 625
Olmstead, Fred K. Law, 431
O'Neill, Sergeant, 80
Opau, Panglima, 358
Oranges, in Joló, 394
Ordnance Department, imperviousness
of, 310
Orient, costumes, 573
fruits, 395
Oriental Express, 273
Osage Indians, 164
Osborne, Lieutenant, 190
Otter creek, 203
Iverton, Mindanao, 275
Owl river (Moreau), 110
Oyster Bay, New York, 444, 463
Oyster-beds, New Jersey, 370
P
Pacific coast, language on the, 79
Pacifism, impossibility of world, 557
menace during World war, 556 et
seq.
narrow-mindedness of, 561
Pack-trains, expensiveness of, 91
Fort Meade Seventh Cavalry, 92
in Camp Dix, 613
in Sulu, 387
lack of, 99
Seventh Cavalry granted, 91
Paddy, 49
at Custer's fight, 47
crossing of Big Horn river, 47
Paiute Indians, appearance in Mexi-
can Hat, 537
arrest, 535
Icharged with Colorado murder, 535
discharge of, 539
murder of a, 535
relations of, 533
surrender, 538
trouble with, 533 et seq.
Index
661
Pala, case of, 321, 322
attempt to arrest, 322
sent to assassinate Hassan, 339
Palma, Señor Estrada, Cuban presi-
dent, 263
reception in Havana, 263, 264
Palmer House, General Sheridan at,
108, 109
Palms, Cuban, varieties of, 231
"Paloma, La," 267
Palomas, deserters at, 504
Pampanga, 295
Panama canal, 262
Pang Pang, Cotta, 341, 368
Pangutarang island, 365
Papaya, in Sulu, 395
Parang, Sulu, 275
Paris, 240
arrival at, 597
return to, 602
treaty of, 247
Park, Roswell, 460
Parker, Colonel Frank, 478, 625
Parker, Judge, 136
Parker, Chief Quanah, approval of
Indian treaty, 200
injustice to, 151
Parkman, Francis, 28, 30
Partridge, Captain Alden, 13
Passaic river, 627
Passchendaele Ridge, battle of, 599
Pata island, 328, 335, 336
expedition to, 363 et seq.
Harriman governor of, 338
pseudo Mohammed at, 335
Paticol, district of, 340
Paul, Jesse, career of, 82, 83
Pawnee Indians, 164
Pearls, in Joló, 370, 405
Peking, China, 240
invitation to Russian Commission,
573
Pelican creek, 65
Penelope, web of, 527
Penn, William, 5
Pennsylvania railroad, 5
Perm, Russia, 575
Pershing, General, 522, 527, 568, 597,
604, 610, 626
courtesy, 604, 607
erroneous information concerning,
521
disloyalty charge, 532
in command at El Paso, 521
Pershing, General-continued
in Paris, 603
letter from, 532
Mexican expedition, 521, 525, 528,
530
stricken with pneumonia, 555
supplied in Mexico by trucks, 531
Pétain, General, 604
Peter the Great of Russia, 577
Petrograd, 572, 573, 588, 589, 591
Lenin and Trotsky in, 590
radical iron workers in, 580
Russian Commission in, 577 et seq.,
582
Philadelphia, Blanchard Scott, born
in, 126
cavalry recruiting station at, 125
Indians in, 173
Yellow fever in, 258
Philippine Commission, 323, 324, 409
decision in favor of Moros, 373
visited in Manila, 371 et seq.
Philippine Islands, 274-416, 462
attitude toward Moros, 354
Filipino tribes in, 486
fruit, 392 et seq.
hunting, 276
mangosteens, 392
Moros, 274, 313
politics in government, 484
President Wilson and the evacua-
tion of, 484, 487
revenue producing ports, 283, 323
Sulu archipelapo (see separate
item)
Taclibi incident, 280, 281
time spent in, 382
United States policy toward, 486
(see also separate islands)
Phillips, William, 551
Philology, study of, 171
Piang, Datto, Chinese ruler of Rio
Grande valley, 275
Piccadilly, bomb explosion in, 608
Pilgrim Society, New York, 450
Pinau Springs, Seventh Cavalry sent
to, 94
Pineapples, lack of in Philippines, 394
Pine Ridge, 97
Sioux agency at, 149
Pines, Isle of, 247, 248
Pitcher, Captain William, chief of po-
lice in Havana, 239
Coleta incident, 239, 240
662
Index
Pitcher, Captain William-continued
newsboy incident, 240, 241
Pittsburgh, 26
Anna Scott born at, 122
Plains, 29, 281, 461, 462
A Messiah on the, 146-156
changed conditions on, 145
characteristics of Indians of, 166
departure from the, 207 et seq.
disposition of Indians, 167
end of Indian supremacy, 145
horse travel, 479
law and justice on, 134
life on the, 31
Messiah dance on, 154
military posts, 134, 135
prairie-fire, 137
quartermaster difficulties on, 144
scouts on the, 176
Sheridan in command, 26, 27
sign language, 32, 171, 217, 596
transitional period in the history
of, 177 et seq.
Platt, Frank, 441
Platt amendment, 263
Platte, Department of the, General
Crook's, 9
Platte river, 49
Plattsburg, 546
camps at, 555
Plaza de Armas, relinquishment of
Cuban sovereignty in, 269
Plain Dealer, Cleveland, 558
Plainfield, N. J., 627
Plenty Coups, Chief, 626
Plover, on the prairies, 46, 104
Plumer, General Sir Herbert Charles,
599
staff at Cassel, 600
Pneumonia, in World war, 555
Poke, Old, 538
Police, New York Metropolitan, 238,
381
Polygamy, in Sulu, 291
Politics, blindness of, 485
Cuban, 248 et seq.
Democratic, 485
in Indian Department, 204 et seq.
in Spanish war, 221, 222
Polk, Frank, 551
Polytechnic Institute of Engineering,
Troy, New York, 9
Pomelo (grape-fruit) trees, in Sulu,
394
Ponco Indians, 206
Pond, Captain, 141
Pony Bob, 179
Poor Buffalo, Chief, 169
Pope, Federal Judge, 489
Pope, General John, 29, 30
Poplar creek, 82
Porcupine creek, 54
hailstorm at, 51
Porcupine Tail Butte, 95
Porter, General Horace, 447
neglect of duty, 448
Porto Rico, 127
Portsmouth, Earl of, 121
Posey, arrest of, 538
Potomac river, 201
Pottawatomie Indians, 6
Powder river, 44, 173
search for hostile Indians in valley
of, 118
Powell, Judge, 365
Powell, Major J. W., 208
director of the Bureau of Eth-
nology, 216
Powell, Mary, 13
Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, 6
Pratt, General, 197
Presbyterian Church, Danville, Ky., 6
Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, 7
Presbyterian General Assembly, 7
Presbyterianism, in Princeton, 256
Press, Army and Navy Journal, 423
at El Paso conference, 526
Cuban, 233, 250
erroneous information concerning
Pershing, 521
fidelity of, 571
Havana, 236, 237
in Indian questions, 180
Russian, 581
support of in hazing episode, 444
West Point and the, 419, 421, 424,
425
Pribilof islands, 572
Princeton, New Jersey, 82, 416, 417,
460, 466, 482, 625, 627
boyhood at, 3 et seq.
education at, 9
first murder at, 5
Morven place, 5
Mrs. Ricketts at, 8, 9
Presbyterianism in, 256
return on leave of absence, 108
Princeton, 336
Index
663
Princeton University, 426, 607
Charles Scott at, 9
Graduate College, 428
Theological Seminary, 4, 6
West Point Textbooks in, 13
William Scott and, 9, 122
Prisons, Bilibid, 374
Cheyenne, 86
Federal, 45
Fort Leavenworth, 82
hated by Moros, 320
Havana, 237, 238
military, 45
Northwestern, 44
San Ramundo, 416
Seventh Cavalry, 41
Stillwater, Minnesota, 27
Sulu, 320
Provisional government, Russian, 589
defense in Grimm incident, 589, 590
radicalism of, 579
weakness of, 592
Pryor mountains, 33
Pueblo Indians, 493
Pullman Car company, 447
Pulpit Pass, Sonora, 526
Punta, Castilla de la, 242, 264
Purcell, station at, 132
Putnam, Fort, 417
Pyramid lake, Nevada, Jesus reported
at, 149
Q
Quay, Curtin, 138, 206, 231
Quay, Senator Matt, 204
defeat of R. V. Belt's prospects,
205
justice to Indians, 201, 202
Quakemeyer, Major, 600, 602
Quartermaster Department, 382
Queensberry, Marquis of, 16
R
Radicalism, in Russia, 579 et seq., 590
Radziminski, Camp, 203
Radziminski, Fort, 203
Railways, and Judith Gap, 60
Canadian Pacific, 243
Casas Grandes, 530
Denver and Salt Lake, 536, 539
end at Bismarck, 83
Railways continued
from El Paso to Douglas, Arizona,
510
Great Northern, 76, 84, 110
in Cuba, 243
Mexican war agreement, 523
Northern Pacific, 26, 39, 44, 110
on the Mexican border, 499
Oriental Express, 273
Russian, 573, 574
Union Pacific, 149, 243
West Point siding, 432
Rainbow, 381
Rains, Sévier, 51, 62
Randolph, Sergeant, 509, 534, 536
Rapid City, South Dakota, 126
Raynold, Captain, expedition of 1859,
28
Reade, Philip, 231
Red Cloud, Chief, 94, 95
effort of Cheyennes to join, 98
hospitality, 97
trouble with, 96 et seq.
Red Cross, 604
Indian support of, 564
in World war, 554, 623
Redfield, William C., 566
Red river, 28
fish carts from, 76, 107, 507
half-breeds, 76
North Fork of, 162
Red Sea, 273
Red Shirt, 173
Red Stone, Chief, 82
Red Water, South Dakota, 388
Reeves, Captain, 355, 365
Regiment, Fourth, 450
Regiment, Seventh, 25
Reed, Major Walter, investigation of
Yellow fever, 260 et seq.
Remington, Frederic, in Havana, 230
joke played on, 187
visit on train to New Mexico, 186
Republican river, 179
Retirement, post-war, 624, 625
Reyes, General Bernardo,
against Madero, 496
Reno, Major Marcus, A., 28
Rheinlander, Mrs. Julia, 5
death of, 5
revolt
Rhoades, scheme for stabilizing Mex-
ico, 504
Rice, Sir Cecil Spring, 551
Rice, Major Sedgwick, 480
664
Index
Rice, Squid, 195
Ricketts, Dr., 9
Ricketts, Mrs., friendship of, 8, 9
Ridge, Bear, 87
Riggs, Lieutenant, 343
Rio Grande, 275, 483, 493, 499
international bridge over, 500
valley of, 500
Roads, from Leavenworth to Fort
Leavenworth, 30
lack in Northwest, 61
Roberts, Lord, 543, 557
book on preparedness, 557
Robertson, General Sir William, 595
Rock Creek Park, 464
Rockies, Little, 77
Rocky Hill, 8
Rocky Mountains, 27, 32, 51, 110
Rodgers, Colonel Alexander, 49, 275
Romanoff Gallery, 578
Rome, Italy, 273
Romero, Mexican minister, 194
Rooker, Bishop, 285
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 550
Roosevelt, Theodore, 197, 273, 373,
436, 437, 462, 484
abrogation of Bates agreement, 306
appreciation of, 445
bathing party of, 466
caused delay in World war, 562
character, 464 et seq.
dinner in New York, 566
greatness of, 465
Leupp commissioner of Indian af-
fairs under, 196
meeting with, 385
on hunting, 464
on teaching of mathematics in West
Point, 445
on West Point appointment, 382
relations with, 462 et seq.
remarkable memory of, 420
request for World war
Rough
Riders, 561, 562
visit to, 419
walking habits, 464 et seq.
West Point episode with, 441 et seq.
Root, Elihu, 269, 425, 567, 570, 579
and Coleta incident, 240
at Moscow, 582
privilege of knowing, 592
recognition by, 272
Rosenwald, Julius, 545
Rough Riders, Roosevelt's, 219, 607
Roumania, 446, 587, 588
armies of, 23
desire for American loan, 587, 588
despair of, 587, 588
friction with Russia, 588
treatment of Jews in, 588
Rowen murder, 5
Rowland, Old Bill, 99
Rucker, Tony, 14
Rudio, Lieutenant de, 28, 54, 59, 66,
75, 77, 80
Ruger, General, 11, 32
Russia, apathy in World War, 581
armies of, 23, 579
beginning of downfall, 580
bravery of soldiers, 579
conference of cooperation, 580
Council of Workmen, Soldiers and
Peasants in, 589
courtesy in, 584
demoralization of army, 582
desire for American loan, 581 et seq.
fleets, 361
friction with Roumania, 588
German propaganda in, 591
imperial military schools of, 578
intensity of desire for freedom in,
576
lack of government in, 572
liquor in, 575
necessity in war, 581
Provisional government (see sep-
arate item)
reception of United States Commis-
sion, 576
trip across, 573
United States anarchists and crim-
inals in, 572
United States and revolution of, 570
Russian Commission, United States,
570 et seq.
arrival in Petrograd, 577 et seq.
inspection of German prisoners, 586
members, 570
Peking invitation, 573
plan to stabilize Russia, 591
trip to Russia, 571 et seq.
Russel, C. E., 580
Russell, Lieutenant, horse of, 100
S
St. Augustine, Florida, 264
Saint-Germain-des-Fossés, 604
Index
665
1
1
St. Joe, Missouri, 179
St. Louis, Missouri, 43, 154, 589
pack-mules at, 220
yellow fever in, 258
Saint-Mihiel, France, 607
St. Paul, Minnesota, 27, 28, 37, 38,
106, 118
jails at, 44
Saigon, French Indo-China, 486
Sakhalin, 572
Salisbury Plain, England, Canadian
forces on, 596
Salmon River mountains, 388
Salt Lake City, Utah, 536, 538, 539
Saltsman, General, 388
Salza, relations with, 513
Samals, sea gipsies in Sulu, 398
San Antonio, Texas, 479, 568, 603
"Battle of the Flowers" at, 480
conference with Obregon in, 525
monotony of life at, 479
Obregon's designs on, 522
settlement of family in, 478
San Cristóbal de Habana, 255
Sandakan, British North Borneo, 275,
276, 322
bowling party at, 277
Sandakan river, 276
San Francisco, California, 179, 386
earthquake and fire in, 386
San Francisco mountain, 476
Sanger, General, 223, 227
in Cuba, 228
recognition by, 210
San Jacinto, battle of, 480
San Ramundo prison, 416
Santa Clara, Cuba, 243, 250
Santa Fé, New Mexico, 489, 493, 494
Santiago de Cuba, 238, 243, 245, 286,
372
discharge of police in, 249, 250
Saratoga, New York, British colors
taken at, 450
Saskatchewan river, 32
Satanta, Chief, 165
Schaff, General Morris, 417
Schofield, General John McAllister,
188
anger of army at, 170
Schück, Charley, 278, 295, 301, 305,
328, 329, 339, 347, 358, 370, 383
an excellent interpreter, 282
death, 408, 409
home, 299
Schück, Charley-continued
recognition, 282
unpopularity, 282
Schück, Eddy, 408
letter from, 400 et seq.
Scott, Anna, birth of, 122
in Sulu, 382
melon bargaining in childhood, 199
Scott, Blanchard, 449, 604
birth, 126
World war activity, 554
Scott, Charles Hodge, 7, 9
Scott, David Hunter, 147, 487, 495
birth at Totten, 109
marksmanship, 180
visit to, 386
Scott, George L., 24
Scott, Houston, in Sulu, 382
Scott, Dr. Hugh, 197
Scott, Mrs. Hugh L., 15, 27, 49, 109,
137, 173, 189, 251, 421, 438, 552,
553, 624
and "Battle of the Flowers," 480
at Fort Sill, 109
departure from Sulu, 383
in Joló, 382, 393
marriage, 109
return East, III, 122
return to Fort Meade, III
social ability, 449
visit to father, 110
World war activity, 554
Scott, John Bayard, 7
Scott, Lewis Merrill, 487
Scott, Mary Blanchard, 7
Scott, Nathan B., 381, 428, 460
Scott, William, Jr., 7, 25
education, 9
expedition into Big Horn basin, 122,
123
Scott, William, Sr., 7
Scott, Rev. William McKendry, 6
Scott, General Winfield, 547
Scott shoes, 455, 456
Scouts, at Fort Meade, 112
Custer's, 89
F. F. Gerard, 39
in Cherokee Strip opening, 138
Scouts, Indian, 33, 35, 48, 49, 51, 65,
76, 79, 80, 128, 147
lack of in Red Cloud expedition, 96
on the Southern plains, 176
stories of, 80
Schumann-Heink, Madame, 623
666
Index
Schuyler, Captain, 205
Sears Roebuck and company, 545
Seattle, Washington, 571, 578, 591
Segundo Cabo, yellow fever in, 259
Seminole Indians, vindictive natures
of, 167
Senate, United States, 553
Platt amendment, 263
Sevillana dance, 267
Seville, Moorish architecture, 265
Sèvres vases, 578
Seyburn, Captain, 221
Shafter, General, William R., 221
Shanghai, China, 486
Sharpe, General, conference with, 531
Sheridan, Colonel Mike, 46, 48, 123
at Palmer House, 108, 109
Sheridan, General Philip, 11, 14, 51,
83, 92, 99, 122, 176, 418, 430,
547
call of Seventh Cavalry officers on,
91
command of the Plains country, 26,
27
confidence in Ben Clark, 176
friendship of, 32
selection of Fort Meade site, 90,
91
visit at Palmer House, 108, 109
Sherman, John, hunting customs, 182
Sherman, Tom, 53
Sherman, General W. T., 14, 24, 51,
53, 67, 418, 430, 547
inspection of Fort Totten, 107
Sherman, Texas, 127, 480
Shoes, Scott, 455, 456
Sioux moccasin styles, 455
unhealthy fashions in, 455
Short Pine Hills, 113
on the range at, 123
Shoshone country, Jesus reported in,
149
Shunkamanito Ota (Yankton Charley),
173
Shuster, W. Morgan, 231
Siam, slaves taken from, 285
Siasi, Sulu, 276, 279
Siberia, 572
descrpition of, 575
trip across, 573
wild fowl in, 573
Sibert, General William L., 606
Sickel, H. G., 117
recognition by, 121
Sidney, Nebraska, 90, 108
treasure coach attack, 92, 93
Siet lake, 280, 325
transfer to, 326
Sign Language, 32, 82, 83, 84, 86, 97,
98, 217, 596
Ben Clark and, 176
book on, 208, 216
in the Southwest, 129
Sitting Bull's proficiency, 153
World's Fair article, 171
(see also Language, Indian)
Sikhs, 573
Sills, Cato, 533
Silver, Chaplain, 430
Silzer, George S., 627
Simmons, Senator, 429
Singapore, Malay Peninsula, 273, 278,
486
Sioux Indians, 25, 30, 33, 36, 82, 83,
84, 94, 97, 127, 335, 461
agency on Lake Minwakan, 102
attack on Deadwood treasure coach,
84, 85
customs, 31
Crow expedition against, 56, 57
disarming of, 35 et seq.
enlistment of, 168
expedition against, 34, 51 et seq.
fishing customs, 102
in battle of Wounded Knee, 158
inspection of Standing Rock agency,
93
Jesus reported at Pine ridge, 149
Sioux language, 31, 32
Lieutenant Warren and, 59
medicine lake, 101
Nebraska runaways, 84
on the buffalo range, 124
regret for coach attack, 85
scouts, 49
South Dakota war, 168
villages, 49
war-parties, 51
Sitting Bull (Arapalío), Chief, 150
153 et seq.
denounced by Ahpiatom, 152
Messiah dance responsibility, 153
sincerity of, 155
treated as Messiah, 154
Sitting Bull (Sioux), Chief, 65, 74,
84, 109, 177
camp, 35
character, 198
Index
667
Sitting Bull, Chief-continued
death of, 147
expedition against, 51 et seq., 74-84
war parties, 76, 79
Slim Buttes, mishap on, 124, 125
Slocum, Colonel H. J., 102, 222, 477,
519, 522
in Cuba, 265
in Second Division during Spanish
war, 221
management of volunteers at Lex-
ington, 224
oyster incident, 100
selection of new camp site, 224
sent to Cuba, 228
winter duties, 104
Smallpox, vaccination in Sulu, 352
et seq.
Smedburg, Captain, 349
Smithsonian Institute, 82, 208
Sniffen, General, 419
Snowy mountains, 60
Socialist party, 570
in Russia, 580
Soissons, France,
battle of, 555
605, 606
Soldiers' Home, Washington, com-
mand offered, 624
Sonora, California, 496, 500
Pulpit Pass, 526
South Africa, 121
South America, 519
South Dakota, 384
Sioux war, 168
winters in, 39
Southwest, cattle in the, 138, 196
cattlemen, 131
excitement over new
prophecy, 146 et seq.
expedition into, 127-141
hunting, 128
Messianic
Indian land agreements ratified, 202
oil fields, 131
weather, 130
Spain, 278, 552
American history of, 476
attempt to tax Moros, 376
destruction of ammunition at Sulu,
287
horses, 79
lawlessness of grandees of, 241
Maine incident, 217
Moro war, 285, 286
Philippines and, 274, 275
Spain-continued
signing of the protocol, 226
Spanish war (see separate item)
Spanish Armada, 277
Spanish war, 208, 217 et seq., 281,
397, 567, 607
appointment to staff of General
Miles, 221
benefit to army officers, 228
conditions previous to, 191, 470
failure to secure commission in, 218
lessons learned from, 221
popular opinion and, 218
retrenchment after, 92
typhoid fever in, 223
volunteers in, 221, 222
volunteers and, 221
Spearfish river, 90
Spencer, Bird W., 460
Spice islands, 393
Moro towns in 285
Spotted Tail, 97
Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln at, 6
Stage coach, early travel by, III
Standing Rock, 36, 123
marriage at, 109
Sioux agency at, 30, 93
State, Department of, 517
and Mexican peace proposal, 505
erroneous information
Pershing, 521
concerning
futile coping with Mexico, 508, 530
Stecker, Ernest, 169, 178, 206, 219
agent at Anadarko, 197
Steele, Sam, 453, 596
"Big Bull" title, 596
Steever, General, 478
Steinhart, Frank, 260
Stetson company,
"Scott Last," 455
manufacture of
Stevens, John F., 573, 589
Stevenson, Fort, 66
Stewart, Percy H., 627
Stewart, U. S., 495, 498
Stiffen, in Indian Rights Association,
538
Stillwater penitentiary, 27
Stillwell, Jack, 179
Stockton, Mrs. Mary Hunter, char-
acter, 4, 5
great influence, 5
Stockton, Samuel, 5, 25
Stone, Fred, 464
Stone, Melville, 518
668
Index
Stonehenge, England, 596
Stony Brook, heroism at, 10
Storey, General John, 406
Straits settlements, juramentado in,
315
Strategy and Information, Arthur
Wagner, 145
Sturges, death of, 25
Sturgis, General Samuel D., 64, 87
Sturm, Doc, Buffalo Bill's visit to,
179, 180
Suarez, Vice-President of Mexico, 498,
505
arrested by Huerta, 506
Sudan, 278
Suez, lack of pity east of 317
Sugar creek, 153
Suippes, France, first lien at, 605
Sully, General, 38
Sultan of Sulu, The, George Ade, 284
Sulu Archipelago, 274, 335, 353, 461
absence of sultan, 279
accomplishments in, 396 et seq.
agricultural situation, 397
aguacate trees taken to, 386
animals, 392, 396
Arabs frauds, 389
bad laws, 370
barter, 283, 288
civil government, 322, 323
Europeans, 287
failure of American government
toward, 289
failure to build roads in, 323
forests, 395, 396
fruits, 392, et seq.
General Wood in, 275
governor of, 281 et seq.
Hassan war, 325 et seq.
illness in, 383
improvements, 322 et seq.
inhabitants, 282
jungles, 346
lack of government, 284, 289
land formation of, 396
limited power in, 289
Moro juramentado, 313-320
munitions of war, 288
pack-train, 387
pearl beds confiscated, 370
problems, 312
prohibition ordered in, 324
plot of chiefs to take Joló, 299
et seq.
Sulu Archipelago—continued
race prejudice, 279
rarities of, 392 et seq.
religion, 274, 283, 284
slavery forbidden, 322, 323
sultan (see Kiram, Jamalul.)
taxes, 375 et seq.
trip through, 276
trouble created by desire for para-
dise, 314
visit of Sultan's party to United
States, 466 et seq.
war with Spain, 285
(see also Sulu island and Sulu sea).
Sulu islands, 276, 336, 341
culture, 287
people, 274
trip to southern end of, 295, 296
(see also Sulu archipelago)
Sulu sea, 274, 293
Summerfield, Felix, 511
influence on Villa, 502
Sun, eclipse, 90
Hopi service to, 475
Kiowa dance forbidden, 131
Sunday creek, 46, 53, 54
Seventh Cavalry on, 51
Supply, Fort, abandonment of, 185
as an Apache reservation, 185, 186
Supreme Court, United States, 443,
553
decision in Isle of Pines question,
247
Swan, Commodore, 463
Sweet, Colonel, 325
Swettenham, Frank, on insanity of
Malays, 315
Swimming Woman creek, 60
T
Tabananaca, Chief, speech to Captain
Jesse Lee, 168
Taclibi, 325
swimming incident at, 280, 281
Tacón Opera House, 256, 266
Taft, William H., 384, 443, 462, 471,
473, 484
appointments, 478
Commission, 356
reception of Sulu Sultan, 468
visit to Philippines, 381
Tagolog tribe, Philippines, 485
Index
669
Tahi, Hadji, 294
Taib, Hadji, 284, 408
runaway wife of, 290
Takumane, Dr., 446
Talipau, Maharaja Jagi of, 295, 377
Tallu, Orang Kaya, 340
camp destroyed, 341
departure of, 341
killed by Calbi, 344
Tamaulipas, Province of, 527
Tando, district of, 341, 364
Calbi's people in, 361 et seq.
Hassan in, 344
Tao-tai, Prince, at West Point, 446
Tardieu, Colonel, 550
Tarnapol, Galicia, 583
Tawi Tawi island, hardwood trees,
395
Taxes, imposed on Sulu, 375 et seq.
Teenegat (see Hatch)
Telegraph service, effect on Cuban
morale, 234
in 1876, 25
line from Fort Totten to Larimore,
110
use in locating Indians, 118
Teton river, 75
Tereschtenko, 579, 590
Terrazas, Luis, 496
appeal of, 515
Terry, General, 48, 51, 74, 75
command of the Northwest, 27
Texas, staked plains of, 146
Texas Jack (John Omohundro), 27
Thanksgiving day, 1878, 101
Thayer, Colonel Sylvanus, 13
father of the Military Academy, 417
Thayer School of Engineering, Dart-
mouth, 13
Thomas, Major Goerge H., 203
Thompson, Colonel Robert, 251
Thompsons, Utah, 536
Three Peoples Buttes, 77
Tiana, Capitán Leopoldo Don Cani-
zares, 278, 408, 409
Times, Los Angeles, 503
Times, New York, 440, 528, 549, 560
Tippit, faithfulness to Scott, 79
Tokio, Japan, 488
Tomkins, Colonel Frank, 519
Tonachi, Navajo school at, 490
Tongue river, 49, 65
Tonner, appointment of, 205, 206
Torrean, Mexico, 514
Torero, necessity of a coleta to, 239,
240
Torrés, Luis, 496
Trading, Indian 54, 82
Trail creek, divide at head of, 69
Trails, Northwestern, 117
Travel, en route to Philippines, 273
slowness of early, 28
wagon-train, 53
Travers, Chaplain, 175
Treat, Colonel, 236, 481
Trenton, New Jersey, 547, 627
Trevino, General Jacinto, 525
Trotsky, in Petrograd, 590
Trowbridge, Dr. Augustus, 607
Troy, New York, 9
Tulai, 364, 367
barrio of, 334
Tulawi, 317
on kidnapping episode, 364
Two Bears, Chief, 37
Two Gray hills, 490, 492
Two Moons, 51
Typhoid fever, in Spanish war, 223
U
Unimak Pass, roughness of sea in, 571
Union, Fort, 46, 83
celebrations at site of, 84
Union Pacific railroad, 149, 243
United States, 397, 569
benefited by knowledge of Indian
customs, 32
credit due for Cuban interference,
270
declaration of war against Germany,
545
House Commission in Paris, 603
impression created by entrance into
World war, 550
influenza in, 621 et seq.
injustice to Indians, 84
justice in, 203
Mexican situation and, 508, 526 et
seq.
prestige in Sulu, 307
recognition of Russian Provisional
government, 570
refusal to recognize Huerta gov-
ernment, 499
return from France, 610
travels in, II
670
Index
United States continued
unprepossessing condition of co-
lonial governors, 277
Upton, General Emory, 557
Uriu, Vice-Admiral, at West Point,
446
Usap, Laksa Mana, 333, 355
death, 389
fight with, 387 et seq.
Utah, dinner with governor of, 539
Utah Indians, 165
war with, 178
Ute Indians, 533
Utig, Paruka, 355, 333, 361, 383
trouble with, 383
V
Vaccinations, in Sulu, 352 et seq.
Valenciana dance, 267
Van Horne, Sir William, in Cuba,
243
Vargas, Diego, 476
Venice, Italy, 273
Vera Cruz, Mexico, 130
Verdun, France, 606, 607
Vienna, Austria, 273
Vigan, Luzón, 285
Villa, Francisco, and Japanese-United
States war, 512
and peace proposal, 505
Angeles and, 506, 507
army tactics, 499
break-up of band, 521
character, 500, 515, 516
confiscation of Japonera company
property, 514
description of, 502
expedition against band of, 520
faithfulness of, 517
injustice to, 517
innocence in looting of Columbus,
518
lack of education, 502
meetings with 502 et seq., 510, 514
mine trouble with in north Mexico,
513 et seq., 516
murder of, 518
presents from, 507
relations with, 500
ruin of, 516
split with Obregon, 506
susceptibility to good influences, 502
Vincent, Sir Howard, at West Point,
450
Virginia, negro songs of, 4
Virginia City, Nevada, 67
Visayan tribe, Philippine, 485
Visitors, West Point Board of, abol-
ishment, 436
annual report, 459, 460
Viviani, René, 550, 551
Vladivostok, 575, 588
Russian Commission at, 572
Volga river, 575
Vologda, Russia, 589
bridge burned at, 591
Volunteers, attitude at end of war, 226
Sunday services to, 225
Vroom, Colonel Peter, inspection of
Fort Sill, 143
Vrooman, Colonel John, 440
W
Waco, Duke and Duchess of, 480
Wade, Colonel, 132, 384
superseded by Wood, 275
Waggoner, Texas cattleman, 131
Wagner, Colonel Arthur, 145, 223
letter from, 20, 21
Walker, Captain, 387
Wallace, Lieut. George D., 28, 31
Walpi, snake dance at, 477
Ward, Thomas, 460
recognition by, 78
War College, United States, 551
War Department, 204, 208, 422 424,
443, 551, 570, 611, 615
and disposition of Eskimazin, 189
apathy of, 544
approval of Cuban constitution, 263
assistant chief of staff, 542
changing theories of, 420
confidence in Baker, 531
consideration of high-angled guns,
547 et seq.
David Hunter and, 26
efficiency records of, 223, 545
"flu" prevention orders, 622
function during World war, 566
Isle of Pines dispute, 247, 248
Newton K. Baker as Secretary of,
518
offer of instructorship at Girard
College, Philadelphia, 189
Index
671
War Department-continued
orders for cutting of Indian's hair,
170
problem of Apache prisoners, 180
recognitions of, 20, 21, 88, 459
report on leaving Fort Sill, 185
telegram concerning Villa, 520
visit to the, 385
West Point discipline, 22
West Point dock regulations, 440
Warfare, cessation of Indian, 145
study of civilized, 145
Warner, Senator, 429
War office, Russian, conference with,
580 et seq.
Warren, Charles, 534
Warren, Francis, 381
settlement of Moro claim, 382
Warren, Lieut. G. K., tact of, 59
Washburn, Mount, trip over, 68
Washington, D. C., 480, 530
children at school in, 208
concentration of power in, 224
during War of 1812, 4, 5
Mexican Commission at, 530
ovation to Joffre, 551
patriotic fervor during World war,
554
transfer to, 208, 216
World war conference at, 550 et seq.
Washington, George, 417
Washita river, 138, 153
battle of the, 89, 153
Washte Springs, 92
Weber, Father Anselm, 488, 492, 494
Webster, George, 14
Weir, Professor, 12
Wells, Judge, 624
West, Colonel, 499
West, Lieut. Eugene, 342, 343
West from a Car Window, Richard
Harding Davis, 140
West Indies, 247
Wetherill, from Kayeula, 537
West Point, 35, 96, 232, 252, 270, 382,
397, 577, 595, 600, 615
accomplishments at, 455 et seq.
administration trouble of, 420, 421,
441
ambitions for, 420, 421
appointment to, II
Army-Navy football game, 437
artillery equipment, 434
at Buffalo Bill's show, 174, 175
West Point-continued
Athletic Association, 437
athletic situation, 436 et seq.
Australian military academy mod-
eled on, 451
author as superintendent of, 9, 21,
119, 385, 396, 417 et seq.
battery plans, 432 et seq.
Board of Visitors, 436, 459, 460
"booze investigation" in, 123, 421
building projects, 425 et seq.
cavalry detachment of colored men
at, 434 et seq.
continued appreciation by the press,
425
Caster buried at, 46
class spirit in, 458
Colonel Bridges at, 452, 453
disappearing guns, 433
discipline, 17, 18, 21, 22, 420
dock trouble in football games, 439,
440
education at, 12-23
enlargement of corps, 431
estimates for support of, 432
fagging at, 14
farewell to, 459
fashions at, 448
field maneuvers, 456
function of, 18
game with Cornell, 440
General Foch at, 446
General Joffre at, 446
graduation from, 24
great men of, 13, 14
hazing in, 15, 16, 17, 18, 441 et seq.
Hudson Fulton celebration, 447
in early days, 15
in retrospect, 457 et seq.
King Edward's visit to, 446
letters, 459, 460
Lord Kitchener at, 450 et seq.
mathematics in, 445
modernization of, 22, 23, 458
mortuary chapel in cemetery, 431
Mrs. Stockton at, 5
music at, 429
part played in American education,
13
personal portrait in, 458
plebe days in, 14 et seq.
politics in, 422
power-house the symbol of, 451
President and Mrs. Grant at, 14
672
Index
West Point-continued
professors at, 12, 13
punch bowl given to, 439
Queen Marie of Roumania at, 446
railway siding, 432
religious services in, 429
shoes at, 455, 456
spiritual life of, 430
sports in, 23
stained glass window in chapel of,
428
superintendents of, 13
suspension from, 17
Vice-Admiral Uriu at, 446
views at, 431
visit of editor of Army and Navy
Journal to, 423
visited in 1871, 12
visitors to, 446 et seq.
Yale game irregularities, 439
yearling days in, 17 et seq.
weakness in education at, 454
Wheat, Chaplain, 430
Wheeler, General Elbert, 457
appreciation of, 458
Whiskey, effect on Indians, 202
White, Edward D., 553
White, Colonel George, 616
White Bear, Chief, 52, 53, 86
White Bird, Chief, 65, 177
White Clay creek, Red Cloud's village
on, 96
White House, 385, 419, 463, 529
burning of, 4
David Hunter at, 6
White river, 94
White Wings, Major Barber in, 372
White Wolf, friendship for Old Tab-
ananaca, 169
Wichita Falls, Texas, 9
Wichita Indians, 153, 203
Messianic hope, 152
Wichita mountains, 164
appeal of, 129
visit to, 129
Wild Hog, 98, 108
Wild West Show, Buffalo Bill's, 172
et seq.
closed in 1903, 179
genuineness of, 173
Wiley, Louis, of the New York Times,
440, 565
Williams, Joe, Villa and, 514
Wilson, J. H., visit to Americus, 228
Wilson, Jack, impersonation as Christ,
150
Wilson, Woodrow, 422, 462, 592
accomplishments of, 567
and Philippine evacuation, 486
Brigadier-General appointment by,
471, 481
conference on appointments, 469 et
seq.
coöperation of, 558
difficulties in Paris, 527
election, 468
greatness of, 558
interview with, 484
Pershing and, 532
recognition by, 210
Scott shoes worn by, 456
support of army program, 555
wisdom of war policy, 550
Winter palace, Russian United States
Commission in, 577 et seq.
Wistor, Dr. Casper, 4
Wolf's point, Indian agency at, 82
Women, in World war, 554, 604, 606
negro in Camp Dix, 620
status according to Islam, 320
Wood General Leonard, 218, 241, 250,
260, 269, 322, 327, 343, 363, 364,
383, 385, 397, 409, 464, 465, 481,
484, 495, 502, 524, 546, 547,
568
and a Cuban public library, 242
and Hassan's war, 325 et seq.
at German army maneuvers, 273
conference on train, 273
credit due in Yellow fever compaign,
262
delivery of Raja Muda to, 280
inspection of Mexican border, 483
in the Philippines, 238, 275
letters from, 409, 459
opposition to, 470
trip with, 487
recognition by, 270, 271
retained as chief of staff under
Wilson, 470
return to Sulu for Hassan war, 343
typhoid fever, 244, 245
visit on train to New Mexico, 186
Wood, Jug, 15
Wooden Lance (see Ahpiatom)
Woods, Arthur, 381
World's Fair, Chicago, 171
World war, 132, 145, 428
1
Index
673
World war-continued
Allied Commissions to the United
States, 550 et seq.
chief of staff in, 547
command in France refused, 614
commissions in, 564, 565
control of vice in, 620
end of, 623 et seq.
eve of the, 461 542 et seq.
food restrictions, 608
French front, 605
in France during, 597
inspection of front from Flanders
to Verdun, 607
London air raids, 608, 609
on the Russian front 583 et seq.
590
organization of army in, 221
politics in, 559
race riots in, 619
Russia and the, 581
United States guns in, 547 et seq.
British front, 597, 599 et seq.
work of Scott family in, 554, 555
Wotherspoon, General William L.,
483, 542
Wounded Knee river, battle of, 147,
156, 335
Wounded Knee river, camp on, 94
Texas cattle on, 95
Wrattan, George, 188
Wrightstown, New Jersey, 611
Y
Yale, dinner at, 144
West Point game irregularities, 439
West Point textbooks in, 13
Yanktonais Sioux, 37
Yankton Charley, 173
Yekaterinburg, Russia, 575
Yellow Bull, 170
Yellow fever, in Cuba, 260
heroism of men in experiments, 261
Yellow fever-continued
in Cuba, 258 et seq.
investigation of, 260 et seq.
practical disappearance of, 262
Yellowlegs, 104
Yellow sea, 572
Yellowstone lake, 65
Yellowstone Park, 28, 61
Indians in, 63
Nez Perés in, 66
peak named for Jack Baronett, 73
Yellowstone river, 24, 27, 44, 46, 49,
51, 52, 54, 56, 67, 68, 84, 571
bridge over at East Fork of, 63, 64
crossing of, 50
Fort Union on, 83
Henderson's ranch on, 61
Seventh Cavalry expedition, 29
valley of, 65
Yenisei river, 575
Ylang-Ylang trees, 395
Yorktown, British colors taken at, 450
Younger brothers, 135
captured, 27
Young Men's Christian Association,
263, 570, 574
Ypres, Belgium, 603
Yucatan, 519
Yukeoma, Chief, 472 et seq.
adjudged insane, 474
dinner with, 473
imprisonment, 472, 477
rebellion of, 473
refusal to educate children, 473
stubbornness of, 477
troubles of, 473
Ꮓ
Zamboanga, 275, 281, 298, 323, 325,
355, 364, 372, 380, 386, 396
Moro kidnapping at, 363 et seq.
Zapata, mountains controlled by, 497
Zapata Swamp, 254
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