Books with author Charles 1844-1933 King

"Pops, there's no use talking; we've simply got to send you to the Point.""I'm sure I wish you could, Colonel. Father's tried every way he could think of, but cadetships don't go a-begging—out here, at least. The President has only one or two 'at large' appointments this year, and there were over a thousand applications for them.""Well, have you tried Mr. Pierce, the Congressman for this district?""Oh, yes, sir, tried him long ago. He was very polite—Congressmen always are. He asked me to go round and get all the signatures to my application I possibly could, and kept me running for six weeks or so. Then he gave it to Mr. Breifogle's son."

The Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition in 1876 was successful in scattering the united and victorious Indians of the Custer massacre. Commanded by General George Crook and covering eight hundred miles in ten weeks, the campaign was a hard one on Indians and soldiers alike. Before it ended, many of the cavalrymen were walking―their horses had either died or were killed for food. The Indians had their problems, too. The earlier Rosebud and Custer fights had expended much of their ammunition, their own scorched-earth tactics had destroyed much of their grazing land, and they were pressed so hard by Crook they had little opportunity to hunt. The story of the campaign is vividly told by Charles King, adjutant of General Merritt’s Fifth Cavalry. A fine companion volume to newsman John F. Finerty’s War-Path and Bivouac (Norman, 1961), King’s account presents the soldier’s point of view. It also covers the activities of the fifth Cavalry before joining Crook’s force, including the fight on the War Bonnet, which succeeded in turning a large group of Cheyennes back to the Red Cloud Agency and prevented their joining Sitting Bull. It was on the War Bonnet that King witnessed Buffalo Bill Cody’s famous fight with Yellow Hand, which he recounts in detail. King’s book, first published in 1880, presents an articulate and detailed picture of the dangers and privations of Indian campaigning at its toughest.

Odd experiences fall to the lot of every soldier. Even the subaltern who has spent the quarter of a century since the great surrender in plodding around after a platoon—and such has been the stagnation of promotion that the case is by no means imaginary—can tell of queer times in the reconstruction days; of cheerful badinage with mobs of women in the Brooklyn " Whisky War" when the troops were sent down to help the marshals break up illicit distilleries; of rural hospitalities as they tramped through Pennsylvania during the big strike of '77; of perilous days on the Indian frontier; even of out-of-the-way sensations in out-of-the-way garrisons; but, take it all in all, a junior in the line is apt to find life more or less monotonous. To break this he might well be tempted to try other duty; but it is certain that, were it all to be done over again with the view of seeking the path wherein life might be most placidly enjoyed, nothing Would tempt the present writer to quit the shelter of his tactical two yards from the rear rank for any staff position, unaccompanied by rank and emolument, the army could offer. Indeed, but for certain experiences gained, characters encountered, and scenes visited, " Mr. X." would be inclined to think he had made a big mistake in ever allowing himself to be assigned to other than troop duty, and nothing but the fact that he had been mercifully endowed with the faculty of seeing the humorous side of a scrape enabled him to get through some of those hereinafter referred to without an attack of nervous prostration. That he escaped that blow entirely is due to the consummate good luck which enabled him to steer clear of the one military maelstrom which would have swamped him utterly: He never had to be post quartermaster; though the mere fact of his having been ordered to temporarily take charge of the office of a sick comrade nearly resulted in his being proclaimed a felon. The trouble now is that, on looking over these sketches,—many of them written years ago,—Mr. X. is confronted with the fact that they fall far short of making those old-time " Trials" half as whimsical as they seem to him. With the best intentions in the world, and a readiness to undertake any duty or responsibility his superiors might unload on him, it must be seen that his capacity for getting into snarls and tangles was simply illimitable. The smallest item of rashness was cocksure to develop into a mammoth of consequences when least expected. Who could have predicted that, when the judge-advocate of the court signed the memorandum receipt for stationery handed him by" the quartermaster's clerk at Jackson Barracks in '72, he was bringing upon himself a direful communication to reach him two years later when he lay wounded and helpless in far-away Arizona, and to say that his pay would be stopped if he did not immediately proceed to account for the following quartermaster's property, for which he was responsible, —to wit:

"Life is full of ups and downs," mused the colonel, as he laid on the littered desk before him an official communication just received from Department Head-Quarters, "especially army life,—and more especially army life in Texas.""Now, what are you philosophizing about?" asked his second in command, a burly major, glancing over the top of the latest home paper, three weeks old that day."D'ye remember Pigott, that little cad that was court-martialled at San Antonio in '68 for quintuplicating his pay accounts? He married the widow of old Alamo Hendrix that winter. He's worth half a million to-day, is running for Congress, and will probably be on the military committee next year, while here's Lawrence, who was judge advocate of the court that tried him, gone all to smash." And the veteran officer commanding the —th Infantry and the big post at Fort Worth glanced warily along into the adjoining office, where a clerk was assorting the papers on the adjutant's desk."It's the saddest case I ever heard of," said Major Brooks, tossing aside the Toledo Blade and tripping up over his own, which he had thoughtfully propped between his legs as he took his seat and thoughtlessly ignored as he left it. "Damn that sabre,—and the service generally!" he growled, as he recovered his balance and tramped to the window. "I'd almost be willing to quit it as Pigott did if I could see my way to a moderate competence anywhere out of it. Lawrence was as good a soldier as we had in the 12th, and, yet, what can you do or say? The mischief's done." And, beating the devil's tattoo on the window, the major stood gloomily gazing out over the parade."It isn't Lawrence himself I'm so—— Orderly, shut that door!" cried the chief, whirling around in his chair, "and tell those clerks I want it kept shut until the adjutant comes; and you stay out on the porch.—It isn't Lawrence I'm so sorely troubled about, Brooks. He has ability, and could pick up and do well eventually, but he's utterly discouraged and swamped. What's to become, though, of that poor child Ada and his little boy?"Includes a biography of the Author