The San Francisco call., 1898-07-21
ONE OF AMERICAS FIGHTERS.

The papers have given many short biog- raphies of H. W. Lawton, now a major general of Volunteers, who commands one of the divisions of Shafter's army. and whose men were engaged in the des- perate assault at Fl Caney, writes H. S. Garfield in the Chicago Times-Herald They have told of his long years of ser vice, of how he has worked himself up through the lieutenancies to his present rank, and of the training given him by more than quarter of century of ex- perience; but of the gigantic size, the phenomenal strength and activity, the abnormal endurance, the utter fearless ness and the inalienable picturesuueness of the man not word. I have the honor to know him well, and, since l like men whose basic manhood has not been ut terly refined out of them, like him.
 Lawton reminds me always of Scott's Norman baron, Front de Boeuf He has better morals, of course, as we'll as very pretty taste in red wines and reed birds. but he is as big as the giant slain by Richard of the Lion Heart, is as direct in his methods, and, in personal or general combat, every bit as savage. There is plenty of the primal man in him. What he thinks he says. He has a strong sense of justice, but his temper is terrific and he is not gentle. He requires of his subor. dinates the utmost endeavor, and gets it. He asks no one to do work that he is not competent and willing to do himself Nat urally leader, he goes first, and the more difficult or desperate the undertaking the faster he goes. Upon the gray granite slab which covers the moldering bones of Confederate officer who sleeps on the an inscription: He never told his men to go on." That will do for Lawton when he dies.
 He is six feet three inches high. He weighs mounds of it is bone and blood and tendon and muscle. He is 55 years old and as springy as youth. His capacity to go without food, drink, or sleep is seemingly unlim- ited. "Machmazahn,' the ZuIus called Quatermain-"th one who has his eyes open" Macumazahn Lawton will keep them open for a week at a stretch when necessary, and then walk, talk, eat, drink or fight a dozen men to a standstill He has lived life of peril and hardship. His only rule. of hygiene is tub in the morn ing. He has taken no sort of care of him. self. Yet so splendidly was he endowed by nature that there is no perceptible weakening of his forces. Apparently he is as powerful and enduring as when I saw him first. That was more than ten years ago. He had completed one of the most remarkable feats of strength and perseverance chronicled in the long annals of the Anglo-Saxon race. but he was as fresh as a rose in the morning.
 He stood on the Government reserva- ton at San Antonio surrounded by the tawny savage band of Chiricahua ApacheS, whom he had hunted off their feet Near him, tactiturn but of kindly visage, stood young Chief Naches. al most as tall as he. In a tent close by lay Geronimo the medicine man, groaning from a surplusage of fresh beef eaten raw The squat figures of the hereditary ene- mics of the whites grouped about him came only to his shoulder. He lowered among them stern, powerful, dominant an incarnation of the spirit of the white man. whose war drum has beat around the world. Clad in faded, dirty fatigue jacket, a greasy flannel shirt of gray, trousers so soiled that the stripe down the leg was barely visible, broken boots and disreputable sombrero that shaded the harsh features burned almost to black ness he was every inch a soldier and a man. To the other officers at the post the Indians paid no sort of attention TO them General Stanley and his staff were so many well-dressed lay figures stand- ing about as part of picture done for their amusement but the huge, massive man with the stubble on his chin had shown them that he was their superior on hunting grounds that were theirs by birthright, and they hung around his lighteSt word.
 For the tenth time Geronimo's band had jumped the San Carlos reservation. The spring grass was two inches high and the Indian lust for blood was awake. As usual troops were started upon a peril ous chase. For days they followed the trail over a country that God Almighty made in wrath. Farther and farther into the vast solitudes they toiled. Volcanic