 | An image should appear at this position in the text. To use the entire page scan as a placeholder, edit this page and replace "{{missing image}}" with "{{raw image|McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/576}}". Otherwise, if you are able to provide the image then please do so. For guidance, see Wikisource:Image guidelines and Help:Adding images. |  |
DR. LEONARD WOOD, COLONEL OF THE ROUGH RIDERS.
and "Joe" Wheeler first to fight on his side.
Major-General Wesley Merritt was graduated at West Point a year later than Wheeler. He served with great distinction through the Civil War, and in Indian warfare later he played a brilliant part. It has been said of Merritt that he could easily accomplish that which Wheeler ardently desired, and this expresses well the difference between the temperaments of the two men. Merritt had his early training with Philip St. George Cooke, the originator of the American cavalry service as it stands to-day, and he was a corps commander before he was twenty-seven. He is the ideal soldier—aggressive yet conservative, far-seeing, thoroughly grounded in the principles of his profession, of great energy and working powers. He was with Custer under Sheridan in the Shenandoah, but he was the antipodes of Custer at almost every point. Custer was dashing and spectacular, a great taker of chances. Merritt figured his campaign out cautiously and thoroughly, and then struck swiftly; he never wasted time. He excelled particularly in bringing about quiet and effective movements; he was a master of that discipline which has been defined as the "orderly occurence of military events"; he was noted for the ease with which he handled a command without fretting his men or worrying his animals. With Merritt it has been said that marching is a classic. The confidence that he inspires in those under him is superb.
I pass over Major-General Fitzhugh Lee: his distinguished service as Consul General at Havana is the most familiar of recent history. Major-General James H. Wilson is a West Point graduate who served with fine success throughout the Civil War, and then left the army to win equal success in the pursuits of peace. He was close to Grant all through the war, first as an engineer officer in Western campaigns, and later as a cavalry leader when Grant came East. Wilson has the reputation of having been one of the best officers who served in the Union armies; Grant looked upon him as one of his strongest supports.
One cannot find an army officer who will not express the highest confidence in "Bull" Shafter, which is the name by which Major-General William R. Shafter goes in the service. Shafter went into the Civil War at the head of a fighting Michigan regiment, and he fought with the tenacity of a bulldog till peace was won. He was at the siege of Yorktown, at the action of West Point, and at the battles of Fair Oaks, Savage Station, Glendale, and Malvern Hill. He is noted for his hard-headedness and for his strong good sense. His power of will is inexhaustible, and he is specially fitted to cope with situations in which emergencies may be expected suddenly to arise.
Major-General James F. Wade is the son of Senator "Ben" Wade of Ohio, and he was appointed a lieutenant from civil life at the beginning of the war in 1861. He did good service at the battle of Beverly Ford and in the action at Marion in 1864, and he is regarded as one of the most sensible and level-headed officers in the army.
Major-General John R. Brooke fought through the war at the head of a Pennsylvania regiment, and has been one of the strong men in the regular army ever since. At Get-
