On Graduating Leave--Brevet Second Lieutenant in the 2d Artillery
at Fort Moultrie--An Officer's Credit Before the War--Second
Lieutenant in the 1st Artillery--Journey to Fort Capron, Florida--
A Reservation as to Whisky--A Trip to Charleston and a Troublesome
Money-Bag--An "Affair of Honor"--A Few Law-books--An Extemporized
"Map and Itinerary"--Yellow Fever--At A. P. Hill's Home in Virginia
--Assigned to Duty in the Department of Philosophy at West Point--
Interest in Astronomy--Marriage--A Hint from Jefferson Davis--Leave
of Absence--Professor of Physics in Washington University.
An old army colonel many years ago described a West Point graduate,
when he first reported for duty after graduating leave, as a very
young officer with a full supply of self-esteem, a four-story
leather trunk filled with good clothes, and an empty pocket. To
that must be added, in my case, a debt equal to the full value of
trunk and clothes and a hundred dollars borrowed money. My "equipment
fund" and much more had been expended in Washington and in journeys
to and fro during the period of administrative uncertainty in
respect to the demands of discipline at West Point. Still I had
so good a time, that graduating leave, as any millionaire in the
United States. My good father was evidently disturbed, and began
to fear--for the first time, I think--that I was really going to
the bad! His worst fears as to the possible effects of a military
education had, after all, been realized! When I showed him the
first check from New York, covering my pay account for July, he
said that it was enough to ruin any boy in the world. Indeed, I
myself was conscious of the fact that I had not done a stroke of
work all that month for those sixty-five and a half dollars; and
in order that my father might be convinced of my determination not
to let such unearned wealth lead me into dissipation, I at once
offered to lend him fifty dollars to pay a debt due to somebody on
the Freeport Baptist meeting-house. Confidence was thereby
restored.
BREVET SECOND LIEUTENANT
My first orders assigned me to duty at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina,
as brevet second lieutenant in the 2d Artillery. The steamer landed
me at Charleston, September 29, 1853, the day I became twenty-two
years of age. The next morning I found myself without money enough
to pay my hotel bill and take me over to Sullivan's Island, but
pay was due me for September. Upon inquiry, I found that the
paymaster was not in the city, but that he kept his public funds
in the Bank of South Carolina. Being unacquainted with any of the
good people of Charleston, the well-known rules of banks about
identification seemed a serious obstacle. I presented my pay
account at the bank, informing the cashier with a confident air
that I was well aware of the fact that the major's money was there,
but that the major himself was out of town. The accomplished
cashier, after scrutinizing me for a time, handed me the money.
My older brother officers at the fort had a good laugh at what they
were pleased to call my "brass"; but I consoled myself with the
reflection that I had found out that my face was good for something.
It is an instructive fact that before the Civil War an officer of
the army needed no indorser anywhere in this country. His check
or his pay account was as good as gold. All that was required was
identification. It is lamentably true that such has not been the
case since the war.
I found only one officer on duty with my battery at Fort Moultrie,
and he was awaiting my arrival so that he might go on leave. He
turned over the command with a manifestation of confidence which
surprised me at the time, but which was fully explained the next
day. In the morning the first sergeant reported to me, with the
quarterly and monthly returns prepared for my signature, and made
out more beautifully than anything in writing I had ever before
seen, and explained to me in detail all the business affairs of
the battery, as if he were reporting to an old captain who had just
returned from a long leave of absence. Next to General Scott and
Colonel Lee, with whom I had the honor of some acquaintance, I was
quite sure there stood before me the finest-looking and most
accomplished soldier in the United States Army. What a hard time
young officers of the army would sometimes have but for the old
sergeants! I have pitied from the bottom of my heart volunteer
officers whom I have seen starting out, even in the midst of war,
with perfectly raw regiments, and not even one old sergeant to
teach them anything. No country ought to be so cruel to its soldiers
as that.
In September we had the usual artillery target practice, which was
afterward recalled to my mind many times by the bombardment of Fort
Sumter in 1861 by the same guns I had used in practice, and at the
same range. Then came the change of stations of troops, which took
the Moultrie garrison to Florida, and some of the 1st Artillery to
their place. For a time the fort was left without garrison except
a few officers who were awaiting the arrival of their regiment.
I also was ordered to remain until I "got off my brevet" and was
appointed "full second" in the 1st Artillery. It had been a yellow-
fever summer, and the cottages on Sullivan's Island were even more
fully occupied than usual, mostly by families of planters from the
rice plantations of South Carolina. Hospitality was unbounded,
and of the most charming character. Nothing I have experienced at
home or in the great capitals of Europe has surpassed or dimmed
the memory of that first introduction to Southern society.
JOURNEY TO FORT CAPRON, FLORIDA
In December, 1853, the order came announcing my appointment as
second lieutenant, 1st Artillery, and directing me to join Battery
D at Fort Capron, Indian River, Florida. A steamer took me to
Palatka, stopping a short time at Jacksonville, which was then
little more than a landing on the St. John's River. After a week's
delay at Palatka, another little mail-steamer carried me and few
other passengers up the river to lake Monroe, whence a mule served
for transportation across to New Smyrna, on Mosquito Lagoon, opposite
the inlet. It was a great day's sport going up the river. The
banks seemed almost lined with alligators, and the water covered
with water-fowl of all kinds, while an occasional deer or flock of
turkeys near by would offer a chance shot. At New Smyrna Mrs.
Sheldon provided excellent entertainment during the ten days'
waiting for the mail-boat down Mosquito Lagoon and Indian River,
while Mr. Sheldon's pack of hounds furnished sport. At length old
Captain Davis took the mail and my baggage and me on board his
sloop, bound for Fort Capron, opposite the mouth of Indian River.
He divided his time fairly between carrying the United States mail
and drinking whisky, but he never attempted to do both at the same
time. I am not sure but it was the captain's example which first
suggested to me the rule which I adopted when commanding an army
in the field--to do no drinking till after the day's fighting was
over. But, in fact, I never liked whisky, and never drank much,
anyhow.
We arrived in twenty-five days from Charleston, which was regarded
as a very satisfactory journey. At the fort I found Captain and
Brevet-Major Joseph A. Haskin, commanding; First Lieutenant A. P.
Hill, afterward lieutenant-general in the Confederate army; Dr. A.
J. Foard, assistant surgeon; and my classmate Livingston, brevet
second lieutenant; besides sixteen enlisted men--rather a close
approximation to the ideal of that old colonel who once said the
army would be delightful if it were not for the ---- soldiers.
But that was changed after a while by the arrival of recruits--
enough in one batch to fill the battery full. The battery had
recently come from the gulf coast, where yellow fever had done
destructive work. I was told that there happened to be only one
officer on duty with the battery--a Lieutenant somebody--when the
fever broke out, and that he resigned and went home. If that is
true, I trust he went into the Civil War and got killed in battle;
for that was the only atonement he could possibly make for leaving
his men in that way. But such cases have been exceedingly rare,
while those of the opposite extreme have not been uncommon, where
officers have remained with the sick and died there, instead of
going with the main body of their men to a more healthy place.
The proper place for a line officer is with the fighting force, to
care for it and preserve its strength by every means in his power,
for war may come to-morrow. The surgeons and their assistants must
and do fully care for the sick and wounded.
Life at Fort Capron was not by any means monotonous. It was varied
by sailing, fishing, and shooting, and even the continuity of sport
was broken twice a month, generally, by the arrival of the mail-
boat. But at length this diversion failed us. Some difference
occurred between the United States Post-office Department and the
mail-contractor on the St. John's River, and we got no mail for
three months. Then the commanding officer ordered me to go to
Charleston by the sloop that had brought us supplies, and bring
back the mail by the regular route. I made the round trip in little
more than a month. That same paymaster whom I had found away from
his post on my first arrival in Charleston intrusted to me a carpet-
bag full of gold and silver, to pay off the garrison for the past
six months, with as much advance pay as the officers would consent
to take, so that he would not have to make the trip down for a long
time to come. I had to carry the money-bag and a revolver about
with me for twenty-five days or more. I have never consented to
handle Uncle Sam's money since that time.
AN "AFFAIR OF HONOR"
It was during that short visit to Charleston that I became engaged,
for the first and only time, in an "affair of honor." A young man
who had been in my class at West Point, but had resigned before
the class had graduated, came to me at the hotel, and asked me, as
his "friend," to deliver a note he held in his hand. I replied:
"Yes. If you will place yourself in my hands and do what I decide
is honorable and right, I will be your friend. Tell me about it."
My condition was accepted without reserve. My friend, whose home
was in a distant city, had been in Charleston some weeks, and had
spent all the money he had and all he could borrow. He was on the
eve of negotiating a further loan from a well-known banker when
the son of that banker, who had met my friend about town, told his
father the plain truth about my friend's habits and his probable
value as a debtor. The negotiation was ended. My friend had become
a stranger in a strange land, without the means to stay there any
longer or to go home. It was a desperate case--one which could
not be relived by anything less than the blood of the young "villain"
who had told his father that "infamous"--truth! I replied: "Yes,
that is a bad case; we will have to fix that up. How are you off
at home?" He said the "old man" had plenty of money, but had sent
him enough to come home once or twice before, and would not send
any more. Upon further inquiry, I found that my friend's hotel
bill and expenses home would amount to a little less than the sum
I had just drawn on my pay account up to date; so I handed him the
money, saying that he could return it when convenient, and his
"honor" was fully satisfied. I never afterward heard anything from
him about that money, and my tailor had to wait a little longer
for his pay; but I had done my duty, as I understood it, under the
code of honor. I saw that friend once afterward. He went into
the army in 1861, accidentally shot himself, and died miserably on
the march, an old musket-barrel, placed there by my order, marking
his grave by the wayside. It was not granted to him, poor fellow!
to fight a battle for his country.
I took with me to Florida some law-books--Blackstone, Kent, and a
few others: so few, indeed, that I learned them nearly all by heart;
then, for want of anything better, I read over the entire code of
the State of Florida. Several times in after years I found it
necessary, in order to save time, to repeat to great lawyers the
exact words of the Constitution of the United States; but their
habit was much the better. It is seldom wise to burden the memory
with those things which you have only to open a book to find out.
I recollect well that answer once made by William M. Evarts, then
attorney-general of the United States, to my inquiry whether he
would give me, offhand, the law on a certain point, to save the
time requisite for a formal application and answer in writing. He
said if it was a question of statute law he would have to examine
the books, but if only a question of common law he could make that
as well as anybody. But I had nothing better to do for a time in
Florida, and when I got out I did not find my memory half so much
overloaded with law as my blood was with malarial poison. Luckily,
I got rid of the poison after a while, but held on to the law, and
I never found it did me any harm. In fact, I would advise all
young officers to acquire as much of it as they can.
AN EXTEMPORZIED "MAP AND ITINERARY"
In the winter of 1853-4 there was an armed truce between the United
States of America and the Seminole nation. A new policy was soon
inaugurated, which had for its object to establish a complete line
of posts across the State from Jupiter to Lake Okeechobee, and
thence westward to the gulf, so as more securely to confine the
Seminoles within the Everglade region, although, so far as I know,
nobody then wanted the use of that more northern part of this vast
territory. The first step was to reopen the old military road from
the mouth of Indian River across to the Kissimmee River, and thence
to Tampa. Being the second lieutenant of the single company, I
was given the privilege of doing that work, and nine men and one
wagon were assigned me for that purpose. I spent the larger part
of my time, going and coming, in hunting on either the right or
left of the road, thereby obtaining all the deer and turkeys the
command could consume, but paying very little attention to the road
itself, in utter disregard of the usual military rule which requires
that a sketch be made and an itinerary kept of all such marches.
Hence I was a little puzzled when Acting-Inspector-General Canby,
from Washington, wanted to go across from Indian River to Tampa,
and called on me for a copy of my map and itinerary. But I had
stood very high in drawing at West Point, and could not allow myself
to be disturbed in any such way as that; so I unlocked what little
recollection I had of the route and my general knowledge of the
country, and prepared a very beautiful map and a quite elaborate
itinerary, with which the inspector-general seemed greatly pleased.
But I took great care, in addition, to send a man with him who had
been with me, and who was a good guide, so I felt quite safe
respecting any possible imperfections that the inspector-general
might find in my work. I never heard anything more about that
matter until General Sherman and I met General Canby at Portland
in 1870. At that time we had a little laugh at my expense respecting
the beauty of that map of mine, and the accuracy with which I had
delineated the route. But as I was then a major-general, and Canby
was a brigadier-general under my command, I was not subjected to
the just criticism I deserved for having forgotten that map and
itinerary at the time I made the march.
YELLOW FEVER
The next step in the strategical operations designed by the War
Department for Florida was the occupation of Fort Jupiter, and the
construction of a new post there, reopening the old military road
of General Jessup and building a block-house on the bank of Lake
Okeechobee, similar work to be undertaken from the other shore of
the lake westward. The work was commenced about midwinter of 1854-
5, and it was my privilege to do it. When the hot weather came on
at Jupiter, fever began to break out among the troops. Jupiter
Inlet had been closed for several years, and the water had become
stagnant. Within a very few weeks, every man, woman, and child
was down, or had been down, with fever. The mortality was such
that there were hardly enough strong men remaining to bury the
dead. As soon as I had sufficiently recovered to go in a boat to
Fort Capron, the major sent me back with all the convalescents that
were fit to be moved, and soon afterward broke up that pest-house
at Jupiter and moved the command back to Capron. So far as I know,
Fort Jupiter was never again occupied, and I think the block-house
on Lake Okeechobee was never completed. At all events, as good
luck would have it, I got through with my part of the work and was
ordered out of Florida before the Seminoles found out what the
plans of the War Department were. My old friend and companion
George L. Hartsuff, who had like duty to perform on the west side
of the lake, was attacked by the Indians and severely wounded,
several of his men being killed. He and a few others made their
escape. Hartsuff was one of the strongest, bravest, finest soldiers
I ever knew, and one of my most intimate friends; but, unlike
myself, he was always in bad luck. He got caught by the Seminoles
in Florida; was shipwrecked on Lake Michigan; came very near dying
of yellow fever; and after organizing the Twenty-third Army Corps
and commanding it for a time, finally died of the wounds he had
received in Florida.
I had a new and peculiar experience at Fort Capron during my
convalescence. I had there twenty-five or thirty convalescent
soldiers, and no doctor, but an intelligent hospital steward. I
was like the lawyer who was asked to say grace at the table of one
of his wealthy clients, and who was unwilling to admit, under such
circumstances, that there was any one thing he could not do. So
I had sick-call regularly every morning, carefully questioned every
patient as to his symptoms, and told the steward what to give him,
taking care not to prescribe anything which some doctor had not
tried on me. All my patients got well. At length A. P. Hill came
up from Jupiter, on his way home on sick-leave. At Capron he had
a relapse, and was desperately ill. I had to send a barge to
Jupiter for some medicine which he knew was necessary. Mr. Jones,
the sutler, and some of the men helped me to nurse him night and
day for a long time. At length he recovered so far as to continue
his journey.
About the same time came orders promoting me to first lieutenant
and detailing me for duty at West Point. So Hill and I came out
of Florida together. On board the St. John's River steamer I had
a relapse, and was very ill. Hill cared for me tenderly, kept me
at Savannah awhile, and then some days at Charleston, where I became
so much better that he ventured to leave me long enough to go over
to Fort Moultrie to see some of our brother officers. While he
was away I became so ill again that the doctor had to put me under
the influence of chloroform. When Hill came back in the evening
he cursed himself for all that was mean in the world for having
left me even for an hour. That's the kind of friends and comrades
soldiers are! As soon as I was well enough to travel, Hill took
me to his home at Culpeper Court-House in Virginia. There they
kept me quite a long time. That dear old gentleman, his father,
brought to my bedside every morning a brandy mint-julep, made with
his own hand, to drink before I got up. Under its benign influence
my recovery was very rapid. But let none of my young friends forget
that the best gifts of Providence are those most liable to be
abused. The wise Virginian never offered me too many of them. By
the first of December Hill and I went together to West Point, I to
report for duty, and he to visit his numerous warm friends at that
delightful station. There we parted, in December, 1855, never to
meet again. With the glad tidings from Virginia that peace was
near, there came to me in North Carolina the report that Lieutenant-
General A. P. Hill had been killed in the last battle at Petersburg.
A keen pang shot through my heart, for he had not ceased to be
esteemed as my kind friend and brother, though for four years
numbered among the public enemy. His sense of duty, so false in
my judgment, I yet knew to be sincere, because I knew the man. I
wish all my fellow-citizens, North and South, East and West, could
know each other as well as I knew A. P. Hill.
IN THE DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY AT WEST POINT
I was assigned to duty in the department of philosophy, under
Professor W. H. C. Bartlett, one of the ablest, most highly esteemed,
and most beloved of the great men who have placed the United States
Military Academy among the foremost institutions of the world. At
first it seemed a little strange to be called back, after the lapse
of only two years, to an important duty at the place where my
military record had been so "bad." But I soon found that at West
Point, as elsewhere, the standard of merit depended somewhat upon
the point of view of the judge. A master of "philosophy" could
not afford to look too closely into past records in other subjects.
Besides, philosophers know, if others do not, that philosophers
are sure to profit by healthful experience. I never had any more
trouble at West Point, though I did have much difficulty in helping
younger men out. I had the great good fortune never to be compelled
to report a cadet for any delinquency, nor to find one deficient
in studies, though I did sometimes have, figuratively speaking, to
beat them over the head with a cudgel to get in "phil" enough to
pass the academic board.
I had then a strong impression, which has grown still stronger with
time, that "equations A and B" need not be developed very far into
the "mechanics of molecules" to qualify a gallant young fellow for
the command of a squadron of cavalry; but this is, in fact, generally
and perfectly well understood at West Point. The object there is
to develop the mental, moral, and physical man to as high a degree
as is practicable, and to ascertain his best place in the public
service. It is only the hopelessly incorrigible in some respect
who fall by the way. Even they, if they have stayed there long
enough, are the better for the training they have received.
In this congenial work and its natural sequence I formed for the
first time the habit of earnest, hard mental work to the limit of
my capacity for endurance, and sometimes a little beyond, which I
have retained the greater part of my life. After the short time
required to master the "Analytical Mechanics" which had been
introduced as a text-book since I had graduated, and a short absence
on account of my Florida debility, which had reduced me to 120
pounds in weight, I began to pursue physics into its more secret
depths. I even indulged the ambition to work out the mathematical
interpretation of all the phenomena of physical science, including
electricity and magnetism. After three years of hard labor in this
direction, I thought I could venture to publish a part of my work
in book form, and thus submit it to the judgment of the able
scientists whose acquaintance I had made at the meetings of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science.( 1)
INTEREST IN ASTRONOMY
While I was engaged in this work upon physics, a young gentleman
named Drown came to West Point, and asked me to give him some
private lessons in mechanics and astronomy, to perfect his
qualifications as a teacher. I went over those subjects with him
in about one hundred lessons, including a few in practical astronomy.
He was the most ardent student I have ever known. Like, I doubt
not, all the most earnest seekers for divine truth, in whatever
way revealed to man, he would not be satisfied with his own perception
of such truth unless he could feel it "burn in his brain." In that
brief experience I became for the first time intensely interested
in practical astronomy, about which I had thought little before,
although I had had sole charge of the observatory for some time.
I have always since given Professor Drown credit for teaching me
practical astronomy by first leading me to the discovery that I
had a natural taste and aptitude for such work, theretofore
unsuspected. That new "lead" was followed with all possible zeal,
day and night, for many months, until all the instruments in the
observatory, fixed and movable, including the old mural circle,
had gone through a season's work. Although my scientific experience
has been very limited, I do not believe anything else in the broad
domain of science can be half so fascinating as the study of the
heavens. I have regretted many times that necessity limited my
enjoyment of that great pleasure to a very few years instead of a
lifetime.
In that West Point observatory I had one of the many opportunities
of my life--one which I always enjoyed--of protecting the unfortunate
from the stern decree of "justice." The old German custodian came
to me one morning in great distress, saying that he had let the
"astronomical chronometer" run down, and that the professor would
kill him. I went with him to the transit tower, made an observation,
and set the chronometer. The professor never knew the difference
till I told him, after the lapse of time named in the military
statute of limitations. Then he seemed to rejoice as much as I
over the narrow escape of his faithful subordinate. The professor
was not half as stern as he sometimes appeared to be.
I need hardly say that in the midst of these absorbing occupations
I forgot all about the career I had chosen in my boyhood. The law
had no longer any charms for me. Yet I found in after life far
more use for the law than for physics and astronomy, and little
less than for the art and science of war.
In June, 1857, I married Miss Harriet Bartlett, the second daughter
of my chief in the department of philosophy. Five children were
born to us, three of whom--two sons and one daughter--grew to
maturity and survive their mother, who died in Washington soon
after I was assigned to the command of the army, and was buried at
West Point by the side of our first-born son, who had died in 1868,
soon after I became Secretary of War.
In the summer of 1860 came the end of my term of duty at West Point.
My taste for service in the line of the army, if I ever had any,
was gone; and all hope of promotion, if I ever had any, was still
further away. I had been for more than four years about nineteenth
first lieutenant in my regiment, without rising a single file. I
was a man of family, and had already become quite bald "in the
service of my country." There was no captaincy in sight for me
during the ordinary lifetime of man, so I accepted the professorship
of physics in Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri. But Mr.
Jefferson Davis, an intimate friend of my father-in-law, gave me
a timely hint that promotion might be better in a year or two; and
his bitterest personal enemy, General Scott, gave me a highly
flattering indorsement which secured leave of absence for a year.
Thus I retained my commission.
PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS IN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
As the period of the Civil War approached a very large part of my
time was occupied in reading and studying, as coolly as possible,
every phase of the momentous questions which I had been warned must
probably be submitted to the decision of war. Hence, when the
crisis came I was not unprepared to decide for myself, without
prejudice or passion, where the path of duty lay, yet not without
some feeling of indulgence toward my brother officers of the army
who, as I believed, were led by the influence of others so far
astray. I took an early occasion to inform General Scott of my
readiness to relinquish my leave of absence and return to duty
whenever my services might be required, and I had the high honor
of not being requested to renew my oath of allegiance.
My life in St. Louis during the eight months next preceding the
Civil War was of great benefit to me in the delicate and responsible
duties which so soon devolved upon me. My connection with Washington
University brought me into close relations with many of the most
patriotic, enlightened, and, above all, unselfish citizens of
Missouri. Some of them were of the Southern school of politics,
but the large majority were earnest Union men, though holding the
various shades of opinion then common on the question of slavery.
By long and intimate intercourse, in the joint prosecution of the
work of the highest philanthropy, such men had learned to respect
the sincerity of each others's adverse convictions, and had become
the exact exemplars of the many shades of honest, patriotic Unionism
so clearly described in 1863 by President Lincoln in his letter to
a delegation of partizans who had not learned that principle of
charity which seems to have been born in the great martyr of
freedom.
Would that I could do fitting honor to the names of those patriots,
nearly all of whom have gone to their rest, including Dr. Elliot,
President of Washington University. James E. Yeatman, President
of the Sanitary Commission, still lives to honor his country and
the great cause of humanity of which he was the faithful and
efficient servant. I did not meet Hamilton R. Gamble until after
he had become governor. I shall have occasion to say more of him
later. He was the foremost champion of the Union cause in Missouri,
and the most abused by those who were the loudest in their professions
of loyalty. Of the younger generation, I will mention only one,
whose good deeds would otherwise never be known. While himself
absent in the public service, wherein he was most efficient, he
made me occupy his delightful residence near Lafayette Park, and
consume all the products of his excellent garden. We knew each
other then only as fellow-workers in the Union cause, but have been
the most devoted friends from that day to this. The name of that
dear friend of mine is Charles Gibson. Among the earliest and most
active leaders in the Union cause in Missouri, I must not fail to
mention the foremost--Frank P. Blair, Jr. His patriotism and
courage were like a calcium light at the head of the Union column
in the dark days and nights of the spring of 1861.
[( 1) Much of my time in St. Louis during the winter preceding the
Civil War was spent in revising this work, preparing illustrations,
and getting it ready for the press. Then it was packed up in a
box and carefully stored away in the St. Louis Arsenal, to abide
the results of war.]