holding brevets above their actual rank, 26 hold the brevet
rank of General, and of these the Line of the Army has but six,
while the Staff Corps have 20, and of these 20 Generals in
the Staff Corps the Adjutant General's Department has 6, the
Quartermaster's Department has 5, and the Subsistence Department
has 6.
I have the honor to be
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
ANSON MILLS,
_Lieutenant Colonel 4th Cavalry,
Commanding Regiment_.
As a result, Senator Sherman, chairman of the military committee of
the Senate, advised me he had induced the Senate to withdraw the bill,
which it had already passed.
IN WASHINGTON AGAIN
Asked to select the secretary to the Boundary Commission, on
recommendation of Adjutant General Ruggles, I picked Mr. John A.
Happer, a beardless youth of twenty, a minor clerk in the War
Department. The Secretary doubled his pay to comport with the
importance of the position, and Mr. Happer at once procured what
he considered to be suitable personal attire, which included a
fashionable cane and very sharp-toed buff shoes. Walking down the
street with me, he remarked, "Colonel, why don't you _wear_ a cane?"
I replied, "For the same reason that you wear one."
"How is that?" he asked, "I don't understand."
"Well," I replied, "you don't need a cane, and vanity impels you to
wear one. I need a cane and vanity impels me not to wear it."
Later, on our first visit to El Paso, at La Coste, beyond San Antonio,
he saw some Mexicans loading cotton. Calling to me from the car door,
he said, "Colonel, do please come here. What induces those men to wear
those foolish sharp-pointed hats?"
"Well," I replied, "I suppose they were moved by the same logic that
induced you to buy sharp-pointed shoes."
Soon after, the inherent good sense I knew him to possess when I
selected him, led him to abandon both cane and shoes, and he has
become a prominent and successful citizen of El Paso.
After President McKinley's election, General Miles asked me if I
intended to apply for promotion. I replied that I never applied
for anything unless I thought I had more than an even chance of
getting it, but that, if anyone high in authority would give me that
assurance, I would. "I believe you have more than an even chance," he
answered. "There is but one colonel I will recommend before you, and
that is Shafter."
I made the application the next morning. Adjutant General Ruggles
made a detailed statement of my official services which I took to
my friend, General Flagler, telling what General Miles had said.
He promised me his help. In his office I met my classmate, General
Merritt, then commanding the Department of the East in New York,
who stated, "Mills, there is but one thing for me to do. When I
return to my office I will also recommend you." I was soon promoted,
but, according to the resolution of Congress appointing me Boundary
Commissioner with the pay and allowances of colonel of cavalry, I
had no additional pay for the nineteen years I served on that duty,
holding the rank of brigadier general and receiving only colonel's pay.
Nannie and I, with our two children, stopped at the Richmond Hotel,
in Washington, while we looked for the home we intended to rent
or purchase. Senator White, now Chief Justice, also lived at the
Richmond. Standing in the office one day, when Nannie entered and
asked the clerk for her key, I saw Senator White was near her. She
turned in her usual dignified manner to enter the elevator. Not
knowing my relation to her, Senator White asked the clerk, "Who is
that lady?" When he replied, "Mrs. Mills," Senator White said, "She is
the most beautiful woman I ever saw."
While in El Paso on boundary business I received a telegram stating
that Anson was seriously ill with appendicitis and was being operated
on. I took the first train for Washington and arrived Sunday morning,
but too late. Anson died during the night, February 25, 1894. He had
been taken suddenly sick the Sunday previous, but, not knowing as much
about the disease as they do now, the doctors deferred the operation
until too late. It was the great sorrow of our life, and we could not
help resenting all the rest of our lives the sad fate of one so young
and promising.
[Illustration: NANNIE.]
[Illustration: This graphic map illustrates how constantly Nannie
followed me after marriage throughout my military service.]
[Illustration:
MAP
SHOWING
POST AND STATION ASSIGNMENTS
OF
ANSON MILLS, U.S.A.
SCALE OF MILES
100 0 300 600 900
[here should be the scale for the distances above]
NOTES:--
ALONE, AT POST OR STATION--△
ACCOMPANIED, AT POST OR STATION, BY MRS. MILLS--◯
POSTS OR STATIONS OCCUPIED ON SECOND ASSIGNMENT ◬ OR ☉
NUMBER OF STATIONS OCCUPIED DURING 25 YEARS AFTER MARRIAGE (1868 TO
1893) 26; DISTANCE TRAVELED (CHANGE OF STATION ONLY) DURING SAME
PERIOD, 25,808 MILES.]
[Illustration: LITTLE ANSON AT SEVENTEEN MONTHS.]
[Illustration: LITTLE ANSON AT TWELVE YEARS.]
Carefully preserved among his mother's papers is a letter from our son
to me, and my reply to him. Shortly before she died, Nannie brought
these to my attention, saying she thought them of sufficient worth to
merit publication, considering that the boy was but fifteen when he
wrote, but three weeks before he died. I append the two letters here:
HOTEL RICHMOND,
WASHINGTON, D. C.,
February 4, 1894.
MY DEAR FATHER:
I received your letter of the 27th with the letter from Walla
Walla, and am very glad to hear from you. I hope that the
boundary work will not take as long as the Mexican commissioner
thinks.
The newspaper gave a list of the West Point cadets who failed in
the last examination, and I was glad to see that Carl was not in
the list. I guess Carl will be able to pull through if he works
hard.
I am getting along quite well in school, but I wish that
the teacher would rush a little as I think that we are not
progressing as rapidly as we might. I got excellent in the
carpenter shop last month and as I couldn't have gotten any
higher than excellent and there were only a few boys who
received marks that high, I think that I have done pretty well.
I am on good terms with the carpenter and always try to do what
he says and he helps me along and is very nice to me.
The weather is very cloudy and rainy today and I hope that it
will clear off soon. We went to see a play called "The Senator"
last Saturday and enjoyed it very much. I saw Grover and Mrs.
Cleveland in one of the boxes. Last night Mamma went to a
reception at the White House and shook hands with Grover, it was
the last card reception of the season and Mamma says that there
was a very large crowd there.
This afternoon Mamma, Tootsie and I went out to Tacoma to see
the Martins, they seem to think that Carl is all right, and I
think Nellie expects to make a visit to West Point in the summer
when Carl will be a 3d classman. I have made the acquaintance
of two boys here in the hotel, but one of them went away
yesterday so there is only one left. We generally play cards in
the evening and have a good deal more fun than if we were by
ourselves.
The other day I went to the dead letter office and saw the
clerks sorting out the dead letters. They have show cases in
which they put all the extra curious things that pass through
their hands. They have live rattlesnakes and everything you can
think of.
Mamma called on Mrs. Happer a few days ago and Mrs. Happer
said that there has only been one meeting of the club since
you left and I guess that is why they have not taken me there
yet. Caldwell wrote me a letter the other day and said that you
stopped to see him when you passed through San Antonio. Caldwell
seemed greatly pleased with his new house and I hope that he
will get along all right.
Nearly all the boys around here want to go in the Navy, but I am
going to stick to the Army. I don't see how anybody could prefer
the Navy to the Army, but each fellow has his choice and if they
want to go to the Navy it will leave that much more room in the
Army for me. I am still anxious to go on that big game hunting
trip to Maine and I guess this fall I will have to go on a good
hunt if nothing turns up to mar it.
Uncle Tom has made me a new belt for my rifle and it is a very
good one. As it is time for me to go to bed I will close. We all
send our love and hope that you will be back soon. I remain,
Your loving son,
ANSON C. MILLS.
EL PASO, TEXAS,
February 11, 1894.
MY DEAR BOY:
I have just received your long letter so nicely typewritten and
can not tell you in words how interesting it is to me to learn
so many things of you and from you, for my hopes and fears are
now more centered in you than in anyone else in the world; not
that I love Mamma and Sister less or that they are deserving of
less interest, but from the fact that (as you are now old enough
to understand) as the world goes more is expected of boys and
men, so that if I were to die suddenly the future of both Mamma
and Sister would depend much upon you. So do not fail in every
way possible to arm yourself for this responsibility should it
come.
My mother died when I was about your age and left me the oldest
of nine children, and while I did the best I could I had much
care, but as Father lived to manage the business I did not have
as much as you may have if I go.
I am glad you are getting along well at school for that is more
important to you than all else just now, in fact, for the next
five years. Don't be impatient for the teachers to go along
faster. You do well enough if you keep up with the course, only
strive to be thorough and understand all well that you go over
so that if you go to West Point,--as I intend you shall when you
are twenty, if you then still desire to,--that you may not be
rattled.
I am glad you put the "C" in your name for if you had been
fortunate enough to have seen and known your grandfather Cassel
for whom it stands you would never fail to put it in. He was
one of the best looking and most graceful men I ever saw, as
straight as an arrow, with quick gait and quick speech, but few
words, and liked by everybody and so correct in business that
the cashiers in the banks would doubt themselves before doubting
him. According to the laws of heredity you should inherit some
of these qualities and I have thought sometimes I have already
seen them in you, though it is hard to see the man in the boy,
lest I had known him as a boy, which, of course, I did not.
Of course, you are as likely to inherit the traits of my father
whom also you were unfortunate not to know at an age when you
would appreciate, but he also had none that you need fear the
development of in yourself, nor had either of your grandmothers.
I want you to read carefully the enclosed clipping on
"Individuality," and mark the words underscored, for I think
you can now understand the thoughts and ideas of our bright
namesake. I think it is true, as he says, that heredity counts a
great deal, perhaps not as much as surroundings and teachings,
and I think, too, that he might have added that all three,
heredity, surroundings, and teachings come mostly from the
mother and there is where your great good fortune lies, if you
improve it as you should and I think you will.
I want you to mark well what he says about individuality. Don't
be restrained from doing things that seem sensible just because
a lot of machine made boys say it is not the thing, nor do
things not sensible because they say so. I have often regretted
that I did not let you sit up all night at Fort Grant for fear
it may in all your after life repress your individuality in
thoughts and actions, for almost everything that man does or
refrains from doing is from an instinct or teaching, like the
parent talks, and not from brave independent and noble impulse
of thought and reason like Paul Revere or Franklin, Cushing,
Jefferson, Lincoln, Jackson, and Edison, who did new things
useful to man.
I hear that Judge Maxey went hunting at Brownsville the other
day and that the party killed three deer. We will look out for
them when we get down there and tell you how it is.
Kiss both Mamma and Sister for me and tell them I will write to
them both soon, though it is a great labor now that I am without
my typewriter.
Your affectionate father,
ANSON MILLS.
The day before Anson's death, Nannie asked him what he wished she
should say to me from him when I arrived, when he replied:
"Tell him I can't show how much I like him. I'm not strong enough. It
will look as if I didn't like him. Tell him I love him very much." Of
which she made a memorandum which I still have.
After eight months we purchased No. 2 Dupont Circle, on the most
beautiful park and in the best social surroundings of the city. My
position in the diplomatic service led us into the best society in
Washington; we were invited everywhere we wanted to go, and were able
to entertain all those who invited us, so that Nannie was able to
exercise her abundant ability in making friends. We had at our house
during the next twenty years several hundred interesting people of
the army, navy, marine corps, senators and members of the different
embassies, who were our guests.
One of Washington's greatest attractions was the opportunity it gave
of renewing old friendships. We were always glad to welcome such
guests as Gen. and Mrs. Freeman, Col. and Mrs. Corbusier, Col. and
Mrs. Shunk, Miss Florence Cassel, and many others, old and new friends.
Early in 1894 Nannie joined the Washington Club, which she greatly
enjoyed and of which she was a governor at the time of her death. She
was also on the board of managers of several hospitals, and belonged
to many charitable societies.
Washington was our permanent residence for the next twenty-three
years, although Nannie and I, with Constance and our relatives, spent
some time in Chihuahua, Santa Rosalia, Monterey, Zacatecas, Aguas
Calientes, Guanajuato, Guadalajara, Mexico City, Jalapa, Puebla,
Orizaba, and Queretaro, all in Mexico. (See graphic map U. S. and
Mex., page 216.)
It was my professional duty to go to some of these places two or three
times, the better to qualify myself by learning from the Mexicans
views relating to the important boundary question. After she had heard
of the simple character of the people and the interesting antiquities
and customs of the country, Nannie always wanted to go with me.
[Illustration: OUR WASHINGTON RESIDENCE.
(Text, 223.)]
While at Aguas Calientes, bathing in the hot springs, Nannie,
knowing the embarrassments of military courts in determining when an
officer was drunk, brought me a copy of an inscription she had found
on the wall of her room, probably left there by one seeking recovery
from delirium tremens and at the same time preparing a test for the
consideration of the members of the next court before which he might
be brought.
"Not drunk is he who from the floor
Can rise again and still drink more,
But drunk is he who helpless lies
Without the power to drink or rise."
Spending most of our time in Washington, we found members of both
Houses of Congress were much misunderstood by the people. They are
constant hard workers with small salaries and almost universally
honorable, honest men, and not, as many people believe, as they do
of the army and navy, idle and uninterested in the government's
welfare. Public sentiment has compelled many legislators to abandon
the profession for another where they are better understood and better
paid.
Among these noble men, I want to pay a tribute to a few of the finest
statesmen the country has seen since the War of the Rebellion; men who
trimmed their sails to no passing breeze but stood steadfastly for
that public policy which would in their opinion bear best fruits for
the great republic in the future. First among them, I put President
Cleveland, Senator Hoar and Senator Root.
Cleveland, I consider the Washington of his time. When special classes
of labor, having in their trust the railroads, the principal utilities
of the whole people, declared their purpose to strike and by force and
violence make their class the ruling class, the President issued his
famous executive order that "if it took all the money in the treasury
and all the soldiers in the army to carry a postal card from New York
to San Francisco, the card would be delivered."
[Illustration: PRESIDENT GROVER CLEVELAND.]
[Illustration: Copyright, Parker.
PRESIDENT WILLIAM MCKINLEY.]
[Illustration: Copyright by Schervee.
SENATOR GEORGE F. HOAR.]
[Illustration: Copyright, Pach Bros.
Elihu Root (image of signature)]
Unfortunately this glorious example had no power in later years,
when self-styled statesmen with greater opportunities cowered before
a similar threat and surrendered the liberties of a majority of the
people.
Hoar was the Franklin of his period. The Spanish War so inflated our
military reputation "because a wretched kern we slew" as to cause a
frenzy for "World Power"--when conquest, exploitation and subjugation
of other lands and other peoples with their trade and commerce after
the manner of other world powers was proposed. Hoar valiantly sought
to prevent this fatal mistake by requiring that "the Constitution
should follow the flag." He was defeated by but one vote (I think) in
the Peace Commission, in the Senate, and in the Supreme Court. There
is nothing more pathetic in history than his remark when called upon
to assist in an appropriation for the restoration of Plymouth Rock,
"Plymouth Rock was washed away by the loss of these votes."
Root, the Hamilton of his occasion, when chairman of the recent
constitutional convention of his great State, sought to reform its
criminal and civil jurisprudence, so that its courts should be
instruments for the detection and punishment of crimes and disorders
rather than for technical avoidance of that righteous end.
Though these three great statesmen failed of complete success, their
noble and self-sacrificing example must surely inspire others.
Meanwhile, "in the sunset of life which gave mystical lore," they have
said figuratively to the American people as did Roman gladiators in
another arena, "Caesar, we who are about to die salute you."
Many high school graduates have no better conception of the meaning
of Jefferson's "Declaration of Independence" and the "Constitution"
of Washington and Franklin than of the book of Mormon. They do not
realize what our liberties cost, and how easy it is to lose or, once
lost, how difficult it is to recover them.
On March 5, 1810, Mr. Jefferson wrote to his friend Governor Langdon
of Virginia:
"While in Europe, I often amused myself with contemplating the
characters of the then reigning sovereigns of Europe. Louis the
XVI was a fool, of my own knowledge, and despite of the answers
made for him at his trial. The King of Spain was a fool; and
of Naples, the same. They passed their lives in hunting, and
dispatched two couriers a week one thousand miles to let each
know what game they had killed the preceding days. The King
of Sardinia was a fool. All these were Bourbons. The Queen of
Portugal, a Braganza, was an idiot by nature; and so was the
King of Denmark. Their sons, as regents, exercised the powers
of government. The King of Prussia, successor to Frederick the
Great, was a mere hog in body as well as in mind. Gustavus of
Sweden, and Joseph of Austria, were really crazy; and George of
England, you know, was in a straight-waistcoat. There remained,
then, none but old Catherine, who had been too lately picked up
to have lost her common sense. In this state Bonaparte found
Europe; and it was this state of its rulers which lost it with
scarce a struggle. These animals had become without mind and
powerless; and so will every hereditary monarch be after a few
generations. Alexander, the grandson of Catherine, is as yet an
exception. He is able to hold his own. But he is only of the
third generation. His race is not yet worn out. And so endeth
the book of Kings, from all of whom the Lord deliver us, and
have you, my friend, and all such good men and true, in his holy
keeping."
The Kaiser found Europe in a similar condition in 1914. England,
Germany, Austria, Russia, and Italy had emperors by divine right,
with royal families, lords and nobles, most of whom were either moral
or physical and mental degenerates. The later George is so imbecile
as not to require a straight-jacket, as did his predecessor, and the
Kaiser, a moral degenerate, sought only to play the rôle of Napoleon.
When all Europe seemed in a peaceful and prosperous condition, he,
by his foolish cablegrams, sought to distract George's and Nicholas'
attention from his planning, while the secretive diplomats of England,
France, and Russia on one side, and Germany, Austria and Italy on the
other, blindfolded their people by many vari-colored state papers,
and backed them over night into war, of which they knew nothing until
armies were moving. Had proper publicity been given by any interested
nation, war would not have ensued.
Our government, too, was somewhat responsible, in that we placed
before our war college a statue of that greatest of moral degenerate
rulers (not excepting Nero) miscalled "Frederick the Great," thus
giving his successor, the Kaiser, to understand we approved his
militarism. Strange that our people permit this statue to remain.
What the war is about the world's people have no intelligent
conception. Yet unless the American people educate themselves to an
intelligent understanding of the hazard of their liberties, we may
become too entangled to extricate ourselves.
Every American should ponder these things and ask whether our
citizenship has not become so diluted as to endanger the perpetuity of
the great republic, and whether it is not now necessary to return to
the high schools and colleges the careful study of the Declaration of
Independence and the Constitution. Another great law-giver of three
generations past, Dr. Lyman Beecher, evidently had in his sunset of
life "mystical lore" to see these present shadows. I submit his words
here for the people who may read this to ponder, and for study in the
schools.
"We must educate! We must educate! Or we must perish by our
own prosperity. If we do not, short will be our race from the
cradle to the grave. If in our haste to be rich and mighty,
we outrun our literary and religious institutions, they will
never overtake us; or only come up after the battle of liberty
is fought and lost, as spoils to grace the victory, and as
resources of inexorable despotism for the perpetuity of our
bondage.
"We did not, in the darkest hour, believe that God had
brought our fathers to this goodly land to lay the foundation
of religious liberty, and wrought such wonders in their
preservation, and raised their descendants to such heights of
civil and religious liberty, only to reverse the analogy of His
providence, and abandon His work.
"No punishments of Heaven are so severe as those for mercies
abused; and no instrumentality employed in their infliction is
so dreadful as the wrath of man. No spasms are like the spasms
of expiring liberty, and no wailing such as her convulsions
extort.
"It took Rome three hundred years to die; and our death, if we
perish, will be as much more terrific as our intelligence and
free institutions have given us more bone, sinew, and vitality.
May God hide from me the day when the dying agonies of my
country shall begin! O thou beloved land, bound together by
the ties of brotherhood, and common interest, and perils, live
forever--one and undivided."
There were others following close on to the great men I mention; some
I know more or less intimately, such as William McKinley, Charles W.
Fairbanks, and Joseph Cannon and Champ Clark, in the legislature; in
the army, Generals Sherman, Sheridan and Miles stand out, and in the
navy, Admirals Dewey and Schley--all of them American patriots of the
very highest order.
Many amusing incidents in our social life come back to me as I write.
At a dinner given by Mr. Romero, the Mexican Ambassador, Mr. Cannon
escorted Mrs. Mills to the table. I heard her say of some peculiar
Mexican dishes, "Mr. Cannon, where do you suppose these come in?" He
replied in his quaint and curious way, "Mrs. Mills, I spent my first
twelve years in Washington trying to find out how they did things, and
now I don't care a _dom_ how they do 'em."
[Illustration: Your Friend
Champ Clark
To Gen. Anson Mills (image of handwriting)]
[Illustration: To my friend Genl Anson Mills
With my compliments.