New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-02-01


obey orders. The curse of Spain is that her
soldiers are politicians and that all revolutions
have their origin in barracks cOnspiracies.
Our officers never originate policy among
themselves, and rarely discuss one. Ihey
recognize the President and the Secretary oil
War as the only visible sources of authority,
and they never presume to question thelr
orders This, we must not forget, is n hlgh
soldierly virtue. Even if the President Is
a badly advised and violent man, and the Sec
rotary of War servile instrument OIL MS
prejudices, we should never wish to see army
officers agreeing among themselves to thwart
or counterfeit the purposes of the Executive.
1t is their duty to obey orders from the proper
civil authorities, within the law, and it is the
duty of the people of the United States and
their representatives in Congress to see that
the Republic receives no detriment.
Even in aggravated cases, like those OF Gen.
Sheridan and Major Merrill, the blame rests
chiefly upon the Government at Washington.
Those officers have simply made themselves
the mouth piece of the partisan spirit OF the
Administration, and have been promptly en-
couraged and approved by it in every out
burst of violent zeal. They have done moth
ing moro than to obey the letter and spirit oil
their instructions, and have acted in com
pliance with the only legal obligations they
have ever been taught to observe. Their Oh
fenses have been such as required merely a
prompt censure and transfer to other fields
of service Nobody thirsts for their punish
ment or degradation. They certainly ought
not to remain in Louisiana, where their use
fulness is ended but even Major Merrill
should be credited with honesty in his blum
ders, and iudiciOus President would lose no
time in taking Gen. Sheridan from place
where his laurels are whitening and restoring
him to one where he can enjoy the popularity
he won by services the nation will not soon
forget.
But rs a general rule, the officers OF the
army do not go beyond their strict orders,
and the good work they do receives no ado
quate recognition. 1t is by far the smallest
army ia the world in relation to the standing
of the nation. Many petty principally has
q greater array. 1t is scattered over our I'M
peral stretches of territory so thinly as to be
almost invisible. 1t has SO little concern or
influence in politics that every scurvy dema-
gOgue who wishes 10 gain a cheap noto-
riety to cover his own pilferings be-
gins by attacking the skeleton army and
asking its further reduction. Its twenty-five
thousand men are expected TO garrison the
forts OF the greatest sch line of the world,
keep the peace in half dozen States, hold
our vast frontier against ten times their en-
tire number of savages and endure without
murmurng hardships for which no money can
afford compensation, and against which their
scanty pittance gives little means of defense.
la this bitter weather, Of which we complain
in our comfortable homes, we ought not TO
forget those hundreds of educated and refined
gentlemen, showed up in the rude forts OF the
border, with no communication with the out
side world, in a temperature OF 40 to 90 De-
low zero Fahrenheit, incOnccivable to our
senses, calmly and heroically doing their duty
and helping so far as they can to save
the frontiersmcn from starvation. They make
no protests even when they are ordered TO under
take the impossible The day after Christmas,
when all of us were keeping our holidays rs
merrily as we could, Gen. Guy V. Henry
marched out of Fort Laramie with a company
of as gallant cavalrymen as ever went to bat
tie, under orders from Washington to find and
dispense the miners in the Black Hills AS
senseless an order as if he had been com
handed to find dozen roc's eggs in Sindbad's
valley. They went without questioning, into
a danger az real and more gratuitOus than
that of DaIakIava, and wandered for days,
which must have seemed like years, through
the traclless wastes Of the Mauvaiscs Terres,
in the execution of impossible orders and at
last the manned and frozen remnants of the
brave company came out at Red Cloud agency.
not miner having been seen, but their duty
performed. These are the men whom salary
erabbers sometimes call cumberers Of the
ground and pensioners on the nations bounty.
Not merely for their herOism, but for their
honor and dccorum, the general run of the
army deserve our esteem. In high places, you
nav sometimes find swudling and embezzle-
ment But year after year goes by on the
frontier, and hundreds of officers disbursc
large sums of money, and execute prompt
Justice, with not an instance of iTegulaiity or
fraud. There is high tradition of honor
among them for which it is difficult to ac-
count. 1t cannot be ascribed, exclusively
at least, to West POint-fOr Merrill is a
graduate and Morrow is not Grant and
ingalls, are, and Taylor and Scott were
not But it exists, and nowhere is a
man more inexorably judged by his life than
in our little army. We cannot afford to
ill-treat or slight such men. We pay them
little enough, in all conscience; we ought at
least to leave them their credit and their self
respect.