Little Falls weekly transcript. (Little Falls, Morrison Co., Minn.) 1894-19??, 1898-02-08

not particular az to the length Of colo
nel's beard or about anything else excep
the quality of leadership. Hence If bo,
got into the saddle with q silver decora
ton on his shoulders the moro honor K
him. In writing thus have in mind onl,
the fighting colonies and fighting regi
ments and fighting soldiers. There is :
notion abroad that for hundreds and hun
drcds of regiments and hundreds of thou
sands of soldiers the going to war was only
0 junketing affair, that they never saw 6
Confederate, or II they did ran away u,
the first view. Such colonies and regi
ments and soldiers IRE never exploited in
the articles signed as below. II there were
any of that stamp, it was my good fortune
not to know Of them at the time, and
have no data to guide me in writing Of
lhem now. 1t was on the front line in
Virginia in daily contact with Lees army
that learned all that I know about war,
and there I received the inspiration to
write Of the deeds of war heroes. TO my
mind q regiment, when considering Fed
erals, is body OF men which stood like a
rock at Malvern Hill or Stone River OF
Gettysburg or Chickamauga or Frank.
lin, or which stormed the lines at Antie-
tam and fredericksburg, at Mission Ridge
and Kenesaw, at Spottsylvania and Peters.
burg. And 80 I do not have to think of
any bad regiments or bad colonies or
bad soldiers, and: am heartily glad that
do not, for my memories Of the war Gil
much the larger part being and are
stronger than all that imp red before or
since.
Naturally, then, II take boy colonel
or any other kind of colonel for theme,
/ shall go to very hot place to find him.
Therein lies the key to the remark that
boy colonies were not popular. 1t required
n marvel Of a man to be the colonel OF a
fighting rcgiment-that is to say, stay.
ing colonel, and staying qualities are i'm
types Of soldiers. A fighting colonel must
be an ideal master of men, not mere
driver, but o master in the sense of leader
ship, one to draw his mon to him and
make them as so manly members Of his
own body obcdient to the very impulses Of
bis brain. Now, there were handful only
of boy colonies of that stamp. There were
two besides Colonel Arthur Macarthur in
tie very field where he won and kept bis
unique position, one of them in the same
brigade Colonel Silas Miller of the Thirty
sixth Illinois started as q private and at
pe was commanding the regiment. Be
fore he was IS be fell at the head Of his
regiment storming the slopes Of Kenesaw.
Colonel j. B. Forman of the Fifteenth
Kentucky was only 81 years Of age when
be was killed at the head of his regiment
at Stone River. He won the silver eagle
by an act of gallantry at Perryville two
months before.
A veteran Of the Twenty fourth Wiscon-
sin recently gave the war story teller OF
The Times Herald some points in the ca
reer of Colonel Macarthur which show that
. boy was handicapped in many ways in
bis race for a colonelcy. Said he: "Whon
the governor made him our adjutant In
1869, be was only II and small for his
age. His voice had not fully changed. 1t
sounded like the Growing Of young
rooster in its first efforts. We made all
sorts of fun of him, and felt that we had
been imposed upon by the governor. We
wanted u man, not STRIPPING for adjutant,
an office almost as important as that of a
colonel.
"You ought to have heard the boy on
dress parade. His chicken voice didn't
reach half way down tho line when he
piped out, ITO tho rear; open order;
march, and when he minced to the Gen.
ter of the regiment, moved out In front
and said. First sergeant to the front and
center, march, there was broad grin on
the faces of thousand men and scowl
on that of the colonel. The first colonel
had seen service and wanted a competent
man for adjutant. The night after the
first dress parade he said, Il shall write to
tho governor to send me q wooden man