The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-09-23
AT. THE ARMY'S HEAD.
General Nelson A. Miles VIII Soon
Assume That Place.
NOT GRADUATED FROM WEST POINT


And He is the Youngest Man but One
TO Become Commauder-in-Ch Chief
His Career in Brief
General Nelson A. Miles, now in
command of the military department of
the east, with headquarters on Govern
ors island, in New York harbor, who
is to assume command of the entire
army upon the impending retirement OF
/. General Schofeld, will be the first officer
not a graduate of West Point to reach
that high place. He will also be the
youngest general, excepting General Phil
Sheridan, who has ever been at the head
of Uncle Sam S military forces. General
Sheridan was but 50 years old when he
died. General Miles is 81, and as Cd is
the retirement age has seven years OF
active service before him.
Nelson A. Miles was % when the war
broke out, having been born in 1889 at
Westminster, Mass. The little red
schoolhouse was the source of his earliest
education, and the course be received
there was supplemented by the training
of the village academy. At Is he left
the academy and went to Boston, where
he got place as clerk or salesman IN
dry goods store. Among his ancestors
! were numbered some of the old tino
| fighters of the republic, and love fer
! military affairs was one of his charac-
| teristics even when a boy. In 1860,
when there seemed to be some prospect
| of civil war, he joined in with num-
! Der of other young men and formed an
I organization which took military IL
structions from an old French officer
He was therefore fairly we'll trained in
military matters when hosti1ities broLe
out, and upon enlisting was made cap
tain in the Twenty Massachu-
setts infantry.
With this regiment he joined the
Army of the Potomac and served
throughout the peninsula campaign. He
attained the rank Of colonel in the short
space of two months, when he was but
&C years old.
At fredericksburg he was wounded in
the neck, and at ChanceIlorsville receiv-
ed a severe wound in the groin and leg,
being SO badly hurt that he had to he
carried from the field This injury kept
Miles from active service for some time,
and it was due to it that he was not
| present at the battle of Gettysburg, the
only important engagement in which
the Army Of the Potomac took part at
which he was not present. At Spottsyl-
vania he was in the thick of the fight.
and in the closing operations of the war,
including the action at White Oak Ridge
and the pursuit of Lee, Miles still further
distinguished himself. When the war
closed, he was brevetted brigadier gen.
eral of the regular army in special rec
ognition of his services at ChanceIlors-
vile. Later he received a full commits
sion as brigadier general Of volunteers
for his services at the Wilderness and
Spottsylvania.
When there was no more fighting to
be done in the south, Miles having sig
nifed a desire to continue his military
career, he was made a colonel in the
regular army and assigned to command
the Fortieth infantry. In 1869 he was
transferred from that command to the
Fifth infantry. Application was made
by the interior department in 1874 to the
war department for punishment of hos
tile Indians wherever found, and it was
then that Miles career as an Indian
fighter began. Before the year was over
he had inflicted exemplary punishment
upon the Kiowas, Comanches and Chey-
ennes in southern Kansas. In 1876, and
shortly after the Custer massacre. Miles
and his regiment were ordered to the
Yellowstone valley, in eastern Montana.
Generals Terry and Crook were in the
field, but had not succeeded in doing
much. although they had 1000 soldiers.
Soon after Miles arrival they Withdrew,
and then, late in the fall, Miles began
his campaigns against Sitting Bull and
Crazy Horse. In 1877 Miles did excel
lent work along the Red water, among
the Wolf mountains and in the Rosebud
valley, and in the same year practically
wiped out the Nez Perces, under Chief
Joseph. In 1878 he castigated the Ban
nocks. The next winter he passed in the
east as member of the army equipment
board, but in 1879 he did more and ef-
fective Indian lighting.
Shortly after his victories in 1879 he
was made a brigadier general in the
regular army, and was in command at
first of the department of the Columbia
and then the department. of the Mis-
souri,. In 1886 and 1887 be captured
Geronimo after Crook had failed, and