OCR Text |
Show (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) Trooper Par Excellence O ECENTLY a war department communique reported: "Several "Sever-al of the specially built barges which the Japanese used in attempted landings on the west coast of Bataan have been captured. In them were lifesaving and- other equipment marked 'United States Army Transport Trans-port Merritt.' This equipment was part of the relief supplies given to Japan by the United States after the disastrous earthquake in 1923." Thus was brought back into the news for a day the almost-forgotten name of a man who had one of the most unusual careers in the history of the American army Gen. Wesley Merritt. Born in New York June 16, 1836, Merritt was graduated from West Point in 1860 and by the time the war between the states ended, he was a major-general of volunteers and brevet-major-general in the regulars. reg-ulars. Later, when he was sent West for frontier duty, he added to his Civil war laurels by becoming one of the greatest leaders of Uncle Sam's hard-riding, hard-fighting horsemen in their innumerable campaigns against the Indians. Two of Mer-ritt's Mer-ritt's "endurance rides" are classics in the history of the old army. In 1876 he was appointed colonel of the Fifth cavalry which was sent to join General Crook's expedition against the hostile Sioux and Chey-ennes Chey-ennes in Wyoming. On July 15, while the regiment was camped on the Fort Laramie trail at Rawhide creek, word came from the Red Cloud agency in Nebraska that 800 Cheyenne braves had jumped the reservation. Merritt was confronted with a difficult dif-ficult decision. If he continued his march to Fort Laramie, as he had been ordered to do, this force would join the hosts of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse and Crook might suffer the fate that had befallen General Custer on the Little Big Horn three weeks earlier. If he marched toward the reservation, 65 miles away, it i - v?. i ;Vs ; GEN. WESLEY MERRITT would simply hasten the Indians' departure. There was but one thing to do throw his force across their path and drive them back. The leader of the "Fighting Fifth'' set out immediately for the point where the great Indian trail from Red Cloud crossed War Bonnet creek 85 miles away. With only brief halts to water their horses and snatch a bite to eat, Merritt's dusty troopers pushed on and within 31 hours had reached their objective ahead of the enemy Moreover, every man and every horse was fresh and fit for a fight. When the Indians appeared the next morning there was a sharp skirmish which sent the Cheyennes scurrying back to the reservation. Three years later Merritt led the Fifth on another historic "endurance "endur-ance ride." He was stationed at Fort D. A. Russell in Wyoming when word came that the Utes in northwestern north-western Colorado had gone on the warpath, killed their agent, ambushed am-bushed and were besieging a force of five troops of the Fifth led against them by Captain Payne. Again Merritt Mer-ritt acted quickly. Within an hour four troops of the Fifth were speeding speed-ing over the railroad toward Rawlins, Raw-lins, where they detrained and set out to rescue their comrades 170 miles away. That was at noon on October 2, 1879. At dawn on October Octo-ber 5 Payne's beleagured troopers heard a sound that was music to their ears. It was a bugle call that told them help had arrived. In less than 65 hours Merritt had led his men over 170 miles of the most difficult dif-ficult mountain trails on the continent con-tinent with only three men dismounted dismount-ed on account of exhausted horses. After the close of the Indian wars, Merritt was appointed superintendent superintend-ent of West Point and served there from 1882 to 1887. Promoted to brigadier-general in the army in the latter year, he was advanced to major-general in 1895. At the outbreak out-break of the Spanish-American war he was sent to the Philippine Islands to command the American forces there and made an outstanding record rec-ord during that brief conflict He remained re-mained on duty as commander of the department of the east until his retirement from the service in 1900. He died on December 3, 1910. |