by Texas
By ten that morning he had a telegram started on its way to headquarters: in obedience highest traditions us armv 10th
CAVALRY 2ND LT. ASPERSON UNDER ATTACK BY MEXICAN BANDITS RETALIATED WITH GREAT GALLANTRY STOP BENITO GARZA DEAD ONE RANGER CASUALTY, NO ARMY MANY MEXICAN
When Sergeant Jaxifer read his men a copv of this precious verification of their victory, one of his troopers said: 'Cain't understand. They tell me Macnab just kill his best friend, but he act like nothin' happened. Look!' And the cavalrymen watched as Macnab unfolded his white linen duster, threw i about his shoulders, and started that day's routine.
With Captain Wetzel and Lieutenant Aspf.rson absent on detached duty along the Rio Grande, Fort Garner was hurting for officers, and what made the deficiency most painful was that clever Lewis Renfro still malingered in Washington In some anger Captain Reed dispatched an urgent appeal to St Louis: 'Fort Garner has acute need services First Lieutenant Lewis Renfro. Brevet Colonel, currently on detached duty Washington '
In the capital there was a good deal of dickering with Congress before Renfro could be released for active duty, because both he and his wife pulled strings to prevent him from being moved out of his socially pleasing job as liaison with the omnipotent Quartermaster Corps. Mrs. Renfro was especially effective in this campaign, for she knew several senators and representatives on the military committees, and she lobbied to keep her husband in the capital: 'Senator, you served during the late war. You know that speeding supplies to the troops, it wins many a battle.' Since she was pretty as well as clever, her arguments were almost irresistible, but when a gruff colonel who had behaved with distinction at both Gettysburg and the Wilderness presented the Congressional committee with the record of Lieutenant Renfro, they had to pay attention: 'Gentlemen, since that day at Appomattox your Lieutenant Renfro has been constantly assigned to battle stations on the frontier, that's a period of seven years, and during that time he has maneuvered detached desk assignments for all but five weeks. Renfro is another fighting man who never fight? '
One senator, who had been impressed by Mrs. Renfro's defense of her husband, asked: 'But doesn't he make a crucial contribution here? Assuring your men their supplies?'
The colonel refrained from pointing out that anyone with a fifth-grade education could do as well; instead he made a clever observation: 'Senator! I am not for one minute denigrating Renfro's enviable record in the late war. I am thinking only of his career.'
'What do you mean?'
'Unless he can show on his record proof of command in the field, how can he ever be promoted to the high rank which every fighting man aspires to? If he doesn't include active duty in a position of importance, he can never become general.'
Such argument made sense to the congressmen with military records, and shortly thereafter Renfro received orders to report at once to his assigned Company S, 10th Cavalry at Fort Sam Garner on the Texas frontier, to serve under the command of Captain George Reed (Brevet Brigadier General).
When Daisy Renfro heard the doleful news she stormed: 'A nigger regiment! It scars a man for life. Lewis, you will not be in that fort six weeks, I promise. We did it before, we can do it again.' And she started immediately the intense campaign to recall her husband to his preferred job in Washington.
Before the Renfros had time to report, two inspection teams visited Fort Garner, for the army feared that something funda-
mental might be wrong at this lonely command; newspaper stories had begun asking questions which had to be answered.
The first visit came from regimental headquarters at Fort Sill, and it was led by one of the splendid, tragic figures of the Civil War. Benjamin Grierson, a Pennsylvania farm boy, had been serving as an underpaid music teacher in Illinois when the lat< started. Distrustful of horses after having been kicked in the face by one, he protested when assigned to a cavalry unit, of which lie became the commander. Soon thereafter, finding no one else ble, the quiet music teacher was summoned for a most difficult and dangerous mission: 'We must prevent the Confederates from moving reinforcements to the defense of Vicksburg. Fake your troops as a raiding party. Move behind enemy lines on the east bank of the Mississippi and disrupt communications as much as possible.'
With no fixed headquarters and no reliable supply, the thirty-seven-year-old music teacher ran wild for sixteen days, always on the verge of capture by superior Confederate forces, alwa; hand at some surprising moment to wreck a train or burn a stores depot. He fought innumerable small battles, fleeing always to some new position from which to make his next assault. At the conclusion of these incredible raids, his men reported: 'Seventeen hundred of us rode six hundred miles behind enemy lines, losing only three killed, nine missing. We killed about a hundred of the enemy, captured and paroled over five hundred, destroyed more than sixty miles of railroad, captured three thousand stand of arms, and took over a thousand mules and horses.'
Grierson had been a military phenomenon, an untrained layman who intuitively understood the most subtle arts of mounted warfare. His men loved him, for they knew him to be both lucky and brave, an irresistible combination, and he achieved a much greater success in the backwoods of Mississippi and Louisiana than more notable cavalry commanders like }eb Stuart did m the East. He was one of the foremost cavalry commanders in American history, and as a consequence he had risen to the rank of brevet general.
But when peace came he faced the unalterable opposition of all West Point officers, who leveled four charges against him: he was a civilian; he was a music teacher; on the Texas frontier he tried to treat Indians as if they were honorable opponents like Frenchmen or Englishmen; and he was soiled by being personallv responsible for the black troops of the 10th Cavalry, an unacceptable command with which he would be stuck for twenty-two years.
Grierson was a talented man, a true genius, and he suffered the contempt of his fellow officers without complaint. He did believe
that if Indians were treated justly, they could be brought into full citizenship, and he did defend the bravery and competency of his Negro troops, for he knew from frontier reports how well the latter performed under fire. It was headquarters that did not believe; most critically, it was the newspapers in Texas that deplored having Negro troops protecting the Texas frontier. Their attacks were savage: 'We need no niggers here. Give us fifty Rangers and we can clear the plains all the way to California.'
When General Grierson, his brevet rank honored along the frontier, arrived at Fort Garner he was forty-six, still lean, still alert. He was stigmatized immediately by the Prussian Wetzel, back from the Rio Grande, as a man deficient in discipline, one of those weaklings who try to rule by the affection of troops rather than by rigorous command, and Wetzel had watched too many times as such officers came to a bad end. Wetzel, like most of the regulars, held the former music teacher in contempt.
The other officers, especially those in the 10th Cavalry, did not. They knew from personal experience that he was a gallant leader who defended the prerogatives of his men and who led them to one quiet success after another; some actually loved him for the legendary heroics he had performed during the war, but most of the infantry officers and men, who could not believe what this quiet man had accomplished, dismissed him as another eccentric leader of colored troops.
In a tremendously concentrated half-day General Grierson satisfied himself on many points, which he stated in the report he wrote that night:
At the Battle of Three Cairns units of the 10th Cavalry deported themselves according to the highest traditions of the service. 2nd Lt. Elmer Toomey directed his men properly and died gallantly at their head. 1st Sgt. John Jaxifer assumed command as expected, and defended an exposed position with valor. I can give no credence to charges made by the Cavin & Clark drivers that Sgt. Jaxifer was in any way deficient. This battle will shine brightly among the laurels gained by this Regiment.
The death of 2nd Lt. Jim Logan, one of our most accomplished horsemen from Ireland, and the scandal
attaching thereto, is the kind of tragedy which can overtake any unit of any kind, civilian or military. I treasured Logan as a brave man and I mourn his death.
In all respects 1 find these units of the 10th Cavalry in good condition, battle-ready and well led. Their desertion rate is 1 in 300. Desertion rate of the white troops at the fort, 48 in 100 over a period of four and a half years. I especially commend these enlisted men who serve so
faithfully and with such enthusiasm, and I applaud Capt Reed's l< ship, finding nothing to censure
On the next clay General Gnerson reviewed his troops and then asked Sergeant Jaxifer to lead him out to where Jim Logai johnny Minor's wife had died, jaxifer told his men later 'General, when he see the spot, and the water, and the birds, he dismounts and stands by the spot weepin'. I stayed clear, but he motion me to dismount, and together we placed some stones "Two men," he said a couple times, mcanm' Logan and Minor He i mention Miss Nellie.'
That night the Reeds held a gala for the visitors, and one of the Mexicans whom the soldiers employed to work the horse: peared with a violin, one of the laundresses beat a tambourine, and there was dancing, and the best food possible purchased from the post sutler, and much conversation about the old days. Even Wet zel relaxed, telling of his unit's exploits at various battles, and it was 'General This,' and 'Colonel That' as if the old ranks still pertained, as if the old salary scale were still being paid instead of the miserly pay accorded these heroic veterans: once a lieutenant colonel, now a first lieutenant, $1,500 a year, once a general, mm a captain, $1,800 a year.
Grierson was at his best, even joking with dour Hermann Wet /el: 'Your boys over in Prussia are going to conquer all Europe one of these days,' to which Wetzel replied: They will certainly eon quer France.'
That night Reed could not sleep, and when his wife heard his restless turning she asked why, and he said. 'My mother was an educated woman, you know, and she made us memorize poetry She taught us that the finest single line comes at the end of Milton's sonnet to his dead wife.'
'I don't know that,' Louise said
'The first thirteen lines tell of how the blind poet dreams that she has come back from the grave to speak with him "Love, sweetness, goodness in her person shined," that was my mother, too. But then came the fourteenth line, and everything fell apart. Mother said its ten short words were arrows pointed at the heart, showing what blindness meant: "I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night."
They lay in the darkness for some tunc, and then the general sighed deeply, making the anguish of his thought echo through the room: 'Tonight 1 was a general once more. Tomorrow the bugles will sound, dawn will break, and 1 shall be a captain again and forever.'
The second investigating team was completely different. Lieutenant General Philip Sheridan, a marvelously concentrated Irishman with a bullet head and drooping walrus mustaches—a sort of roundish, ineffectual-looking man until one discovered that every bulge was muscle—rode into the fort with three of his pet colonels, men, he said, of infinite promise. Most powerful was Ranald Mackenzie, a man so intense, said his troops, that 'his eyes could cut rocks'; he was destined to leapfrog his contemporaries and stand at the threshold of commander in chief, until his mind snapped, destroyed by syphilis and by the burdens he had placed upon it.
There was Nelson Miles, not a West Point man but something much better: the nephew-by-marriage of both General William Tecumseh Sherman, head of the Army, and Senator John Sherman, the powerful political leader from Ohio; he was an unproved quantity at the threshold of his career, but with his uncles' help he would gain constant promotion, a vain, arrogant, impossible man with only one credit to his name: he was a phenomenally-brave officer when leading men into battle.
Most impressive, to men and women alike, was Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, nearly six feet tall, never weighing more than a hundred and seventy, and of such elegant bearing that he commanded attention wherever he went. Like the other two, he was thirty-four, but he was totally unlike them in other respects, they wore ordinary military uniforms, well pressed and tended; he wore custom-tailored trousers and jacket, spats over his General Quimper boots, and a remarkable Russian-type greatcoat cut from a heavy French cloth and with a monstrous cape adorned with Afghanistan caracul fur at the neck, along the front and at the cuffs. His face was cadaverously thin, with romantic hollows under his cheekbones, and he was obviously worried about the gradual retreat of his hair, for like many vain men he twisted and trained it to lie across his forehead and hide the loss. At the neck he wore his hair very long, and since it was naturally wavy, enhanced by his wife's constant attention with hot irons, it added considerably to his appeal. Like most officers of that period, he wore a mustache which he kept so carefully trimmed that it added dignity to a face already as compelling as that of any Roman emperor.
They were, as both Sherman and Sheridan agreed, three remarkable young colonels, and it was inevitable that one of them would gain supreme command. Mackenzie, perhaps the ablest of the three, would be disqualified because of creeping insanity; Custer
would perish because of his inexcusable arrogance al the Litr Horn; Miles, the political conniver, would prevail In th< as in all human endeavor, it can sometimes be the man u I survives who triumphs, whether his skills warrant it or not
Sheridan and his three aces needed little tune situation at Fort Garner: 'Second rate in even respect When wife misbehaves like Nellie Minor, she should be soldiered out within the day. When an important supply tram appr should be protected by more than an untested second lieutenant And when an Indian marauder like Matark ravages a count-he should be caught and hanged. Captain Reed is moderatelv acceptable, but the only officer present who seems to have an understanding of what a frontier fort should be is Captain Her maim Wetzel, who is hereby commended for his attention to detail.'
No formal rebuke was leveled against Captain Reed, but a kind of sorrow suffused the visit, as if the young colonels regretted that he was not a better man. Colonel Custer went out of his way to applaud Mrs. Reed's handling of the Johnny Minor affair, and he spellbound the other wives with his graciousness and warmth of understanding.
When Sheridan led his team away, the fort continued under the aura of the three colonels and there was much discussion as to which one would triumph in the battle for promotion Wetzel summarized opinions: 'Miles is political, but very strong in the field, a powerful combination. Custer can achieve anything if lie attends to details. Mackenzie's the one I'd like to lead me battle.' The women did not bother with the credentials of the other two colonels: 'Custer is magnificent.' And he was, for lie was considerate, charming, persistent, and suffused with that glamor which can only be called romantic. Even their husbands could not denigrate him when their wives applauded, for he was unquestionably the most dramatic leader ever to have visited Fort Garner, and his heavy felt spats and fur-trimmed greatcoat would long be remembered.
The fort received a shock when Lewis Renfro arrived with his alert wife, Daisy, for the traditional desk-hog was apt to be an obese, slovenly fellow with little military bearing. Renfro was quite the opposite, a thirty-six-year-old West Point man from a good family in Ohio, tall, erect, ten pounds underweight from daily horsemanship in the parks of Washington, and a man determined to give a good account of himself on the frontier He would take Minor's place as head of Company S, 10th Cavalry under the
command of Captain Reed, to whom he said unctuously: i want you to rely on me as one of the best officers you've ever had. When you give me an order, consider it executed.'
Fawningly eager to create a good impression, he sought out Captain Wetzel and assured him: 'I'll not permit any ridiculous cavalry-infantry unpleasantness while I command the Buffalo Soldiers. They'll be disciplined.' But that same day he implied quite the opposite to Jaxifer, to whom he told an outright lie concerning his experiences in the war: '1 served with Negro troops on three different occasions. None better. If the infantry give you any trouble, you'll
find me on your side all the way.' But despite this trickery in fort politics, whenever an expedition against the Indians was organized he wanted to be in the lead, and from that position he gave a good account of himself.
'He knows how to fight,' Sergeant Jaxifer told his troopers. 'We got a good man this time.'
This was a sensible estimation, because when an energetic foray led by Renfro ran into outriders of the main Comanche force, a bitter running battle ensued, forty Indians on mounts of superior speed against nineteen cavalrymen with superior firepower. Neither side could claim a victory, but Renfro pursued the Indians with such vigor that any Comanche whose horse faltered even slightly was overtaken and shot. Renfro was always in the lead, probably the best single horseman on the field that day, and when the chase was over, the black soldiers were satisfied that they had gained a proficient leader.
In a second fray, when Reed was in command, Renfro accepted his subordinate position graciously and moved his contingent instantly when Reed signaled. He was a good officer, and Reed told Wetzel: 'Had he stayed out here with us instead of hiding in Washington, he could have been one of Sherman's Young Colonels,' and the German agreed that Renfro was first class. 'I think his name must be German,' Wetzel said. 'He carries himself so well.'
But Lewis Renfro had no intention of laboring on the frontier to establish his reputation as the fourth of the Young Colonels. He would perform impeccably with the troops, but he would also pull every string to get back to his desk job in Washington. By-passing established channels, he and his wife bombarded everyone in real command with clever petitions, and were assured: 'As soon as anything interesting happens, back you'll come.' What the incident might be the Renfros could not guess, but their hammering at the doors of preferment became so well known that Mrs. Reed felt she had to caution Daisy against her excesses, and in the room
