Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1898-08-07
HIS RELIEF CT THCRNBURG.

the regular army and afterWard IN
1876, became colonel of the Fifth
United States cavalry.
HIS RELIEF CT THcRNBURG.
General Merritt served in Texas after
the war and Wyoming, Montana, and
other territories of the Northwest.
The most remarkable exploit of Gen
eral Merritt of a personal character
since the war was his extraordinary
march, OctObe~, 1879. to the relief OF
Thornburg's unfortunate command,
which had been defeated and sur
rounded by superior force of hostile
White River Utes in Colorado. Mer-
rift, with his splendid cavalry regi-
ment, marched through a rough and
mountainous country 176 miles in four
days and four nights, with short rests,
and rescued Thornburg's command
from certain determination by these
Indians, who had surrounded the
decimated and starving command on
all sides. Merritt was always famous
for helping other commanders out of
the bad and sometimes awful scrapes
they got into. Old soldiers of the
Fifth cavalry love to tell yet of that
terrible march to Thornburg's relief,
day and night in the saddle for four
days and nights, General Merritt ever
at the head of the column, on his fast
stepping sorrel. No young officer Of
that famous regiment was as alert and
tireless On that march as its veteran
colonel, wEOse perfect seat. in the sad
die and erect figure were ever the adj
miration of every man in his COM
mand.
How we ever kept up with the
General them four days and nights gifts
me-" said a veteran cavalry sergeant
with six service stripes at the Soldiers
Home, but, you see, the General was
bound to git there quick and haul thin
poor infantrymen out of the hole they
was in, before they was eaten up by the
Utes."
ICES NOT SEEK NOTORIETY.
General Merritt has all his life
avoided the contemporary praise and
notoriety which some distinguished
soldiers have coveted in the public
press. His own magnificent tribute TO
Buford, contained in a memoir OF his
beloved commander, written in the Gle
CANT and scholarly style which marks
all his writings, IS peculiarly applicable
to General Merritt himself:
"As he (Buford) despised the false
flourish and noisy parade Of the char
latans Of the service. he avoided too
much the proper praise due to his glo-
rious actions, and sought rather to de-
preclate, prompted by his inherited
modesty, contemporary glorification
which less worthy men courted. For
l. I'M
to the newspaper world as We're many
others who will sink into insignificance
while the name Of Buford land the
name Of Merritt will occupy a bright
page in the history of the country
1t may be said with emphasis that
there never have been any officers on
General Merritt's staff who were at the
same time staff correspondents IF
newspapers engaged in the prepare
tica of syndicated matter to be pup
lished in laudation of their chief, either
in war time or peace.
In 1882 General Merritt was made
superintendent OF the military academy
at West Point, where he remained
nearly five years. His administration
there was most admirable, his severe
discipline being tempered by the strong
judicial quality Of his mind, which has
ever influenced and guided his actions.
He effectualIy broke up the extravag-
ant hazing which had been the rule at
West Point for some years before he
came and had been growing worse.
SUCCESSFUL IN FIGHTING IN
DAMS.
General Merritt has been distin-
guished in many Indian campaigns in
the West, being conspicuous in several
actions in the Big Horn and Yellow
stone expedition of 1876, and com
manding in the Wind river expedition
against the Nez Perces in 1877. But
he has studiouly repressed the ten
dency, so far as he himself was cen