St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-03-02
BLACKENlNG THE BLUE.
Officers Who Do No Honor to Thei
Positions.

Positions.
Special Correspondence to the Globe.
DULUTH, March l.-Your correspond
ent watches with keen personal inter.
est the GLOBES accounts of the disturb
anees in regular army circles in relation
to the Wild-Steele imbroglio. IL not
taking up too much Of your space with
personal recital. let me give you some
experiences which will serve to show
up some army officers ia a very unen-
viable light. For six or seven months
was stationed at Fort Laramie, Wyo.,
and the Fourth United States infantry
and the Fifth cavalry were there. |
have repeatedly seen enlisted men tied
up EA the thumbs. bucked and gagged,
or forced to stand on the head of barrel
with a forty pound log of wood on their
shoulders as punishment for refusing
TO do things which the army regulations
distinctly said they should not do. l
refer to the performance OF mental du-
ties, such as carrying out Stops, black
ing officers boots, cleaning up the Off
GERS quarters after drunken debauch,
and many other duties not demandable
from enlisted men-I speak by the code
the revised regulations. l have seen
far more drunkenness among the Off
GERS at that and other posts than | ever
saw among enlisted men, proportion
ately. l have frequently seen Capt.
Wilson, of the Fifth cavalry, strike men
with his fist or kick at them with his
fOOt-indeed, my own nimbleness on
several occasions saved me from receiv-
ing these evidences of the cap
tain's "strlking regard" for me.
l have seen Lieut. Quinn, the
post QuartermaSter. painfully drunk Oh
issuing days. | have also seen him SO
drunk that he staggered off the stage
during some theatricalS. | also know
OF several attempts made toy officers to
outrage the wives of enlisted men while
the husbands were absent from the
post. Officers and enlisted men at that
post in the winter OF 1S70-7l cannot fail
to rene mber the notorious attempt made
to rape tine wife of the band leader and
drum major. Nothing was done in that
case, but a year or two after ward the
same officer resigned from the service
after similar attempt on brother
officers wife. The defiiement of yOnng
squaws was so frequent that but little
notice was taken of it. | do not claim
that officers alone had hand in this,
for the enlisted men were fully as
guilty, Ii not more so. The country
at large knows the weird story of the
love of Spotted Tails daughter for an
army officer at Fort Laramie. and how
the poor girl worried herself into the
long, dreamleSs sleep because of the
officers intidelity to her. They may
not, however, know that little infant
of much lighter shade of color than
It's red mother was the result of that
blind love OF the Indian girl fora worth
less scamp of commissioned libertine
of the regular army. The wrOnged
woman is buried on the top of four
posts, high in the air, in corner of the
citizens graveyard at Fort Laramie,
and have passed by the spot a score of
times. Card playing, principally poker.
was the great amusement for some OF
the officers, when they were sufficiently
sober to tell one card from another, and
some years after my stay at Fort Lara
mic, when speaking about certain Off
Ger to the post trader, Col. Bullock. he
told me he had orders for seven months
pay of one officer, in advance, for debts
contracted at the gaming table, orders
that he had caShed. These things are
facts and can be subStantiated by
large number of people, and simply
shows how the h0DOred army blue is
turned into a blackened pail by M
worthy Wearers.
CHARLES G. BROWN,
Formerly Member Company K, Fourth
Regiment United States Infantry.