Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1898-11-17
The HERO OF e. cANEY.
Henry w. Lawtou. Who Was In the
Thickest OF the Fight.

Henry w. Lawtou. Who Was in the
ThicISest OF the Fight.
The papers have crowded their col
umns with biographies and anecdotes
of Miles, Shafter, Wheeler, Roosevelt
and others more or less prominent
who played a spectacular part in the
siege of Santiago. The name of Henry
w. Lawton, maior-general of volun-
teers, has seldom appeared, save in
the official dispatches from the front,
in all of which he was mentioned for
conspicuous gallantry. The public
knows little of Lawton, except that
he led the desperate assault on Ell
Caney and was in the thickest of the
fights around Santiago The public
also knows, or ought to know, that he
was promoted by President Mckinley
from brigadier to major general in re-
cognition of his superb charge at Ell
Caney. In the far west, where Law
ton has served most of his life, they
say there is not his equal in the army.
His record is the pride of every
regular, from Encouragement down to
private.
General Lawton is the ideal soldier,
stern, grim, unbending. He is SCOTS
Norman baron, Front de Boef In the
flesh, though, of course, with better
morals. he is a primal man, if gigan-
tic size, phenomenal strength, abnor-
nal endurance and utter fearlessness
count for anything Like all such
men who have lived a strong life he
has 81 well-developed sense of justice.
He is not gentle, bat he can be kind.
He requires of his subordinates the
utmost endeavor; but he asks none of
them to perform what he is not able
and willing to do himself The
eqitaph of a famous confederate
cavalry leader will do for Lawton
"He never told his mon to go on"
What more could soldier desire?
Lawton is an Indian fighter, the
best this country has ever produced.
General Sherman slid that twenty
years of almost constant fighting with
the Indians after the civil war was the
"war of civilization" In this stirring
drama Lawton played ON important
part. He hunted Indians as a ferret
hunts rabbits. He himself has the
aboriginal instinct, which, combined
with the fearlessness, sagacity and
common sense of the Anglo-Saxon,
made him the master of the red man.
He drove the willy Naches under the
yoke and he tanned the spirit of the
great Geronimo General Miles got
the credit, but it was Lawton who
captured Geronimo's band and in
stilled the fear of the white man in
the whole Apache nation. 1t was
Lawton, at the head of company of
cavalry, who followed the Indians for
months over country that was made
in wrath. They toiled through noun
taius with volcanic crests, and the
flint of lava tore the leather from
their fe't They stumbled across
hmitles ~-er.s 0i alhai that sizzled
ycueat- ar ieet, and thew hraq3 Il, ~
Struggled through u.A.. ous. while from
the mou .7 tops above the swarthy
Ieno9ad a cd great rocks and
poured down a whitening fire. When
the last horse had fallen this Lawton
onl y set his teeth and said: "We'u
walk them down" And he did walk
them down. When he found Geronimo
and his band they were living skele-
tons, almost unable to stand, and it
was many days before they were
able to follow the white men back to
the San Carlos reservation. The pride
of the Apaches was broken, their
spirit subdue1 forever, amt since hat
time the settlers of Arizona and New
Mexico have lived flee from the ban
of dread az Fear.
Sueh1s Major General Henry w.
- hawton, the man who made men
wonder at 81 Caney, as fine a type of
fighter as this nation of fighters can
boast. He will be heard from again.