The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1898-01-27

~" lead ers proves
that they had the
stuff in them to fill the bill Soldiers
were not particular as to the length of a
colonel's beard Or about anything else
except the quality Of leadership. Hence
If boy got into the saddle with sill
yer decoration on his shoulders the more
honor to him. In writing thus / have
in mind only the fighting colonies and
fighting regiments and fighting soldiers.
There is a notion abroad that for hun
dreds and hundreds of regiments and
hundreds Of thousands of soldiers the
going to war was only q =. junketing af-
fair, that they never saw a Confederate,
CT II they did ran away at the first
view Such colonies and regiments and
soldiers are never exploited in the ar
ticles signed as below. To my mind a
is a body of men which stood like a
rock at Malvern Hill or Stone River or
Gettysburg or Chickamauga or Frank
lin, Or which stormed the lines at An
tietam and Fredericksburg, at Mission
Ridge and Kenesaw. at Spottsylvania
and Petersburg.
Naturally, then, if take a boy colo
rel or any other kind Of colonel for
theme, J. shall go to very hot place to
find him. Therein lies the key to the re-
mark that boy colonies were not popu-
lar 1t required marvel of a man to
be the colonel Of a fighting regiment
that is to say, a staying colonel, and
staying qualities are implied in what I
have said Of my chosen types of SOL
diers A fighting colonel must be an
ideal master of men, not mere driver,
but master in the sense of leadership,
one to draw his men to him and make
them as SO many members of his own
body obedient to the very impulses of
his brain. Now. there were handful
only of boy colonies Of that stamp
There were two besides Colonel Arthur
Macarthur in the very field where he
won and kept his unique position, one
of them in the same brigade Colonel
Silas Miller of the Thirty sixth Illinois
started as private and at 20 was COM
handing the regiment. Before he was
% he fell at the head of his regiment
storming the slopes of Kenesaw. Colonel
IL
lucky was only 21 years of age when he
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 Wis.
consin recently gave the war story teller
OF The Times-H erald some points in the
career of Colonel Macarthur which show
that boy was handicapped in many
ways in his race for colonelcy. Said
he: when the governor made him cur
adjutant in 1862, he was only II and
small for his age. His voice had not
fully changed. It sounded like the crow
ing Of young rooster in i is first efforts.
We made all sorts OF fun of him, and
felt thaS we had been imposed upon by
the governor. We wanted man, not a
STRIPPING, for adjutant, an Office almost
as important as that of colonel. :.
"You ought to have heard the boy on
dress parade. His chicken voice didn't
reach half way down the line when he
piped out, ITO the rear; open order;
march ! and when he minced to the
center of the regiment, moved out in
front and said, First sergeant to the
front and center, march, there was a
broad grin on the faces of thousand
men and scowl on that of the colonel.
The first colonel had seen service and
wanted competent man for adjutant.
The night after the first dress parade he
said, I shall write to the governor to
send me wooden man for adjutant.'
The boy heard Of some of the colonel's
comments, and he could see that the
men were guying him. 1t cut him to
the quick.
"'I'll show them that I can fight
anyway. Then maybe they'll come to
like me BETTER said the boy as he
brushed away something damp from his
soft cheek.'
Another story from the same lips
brings out the qualities this boy had
for winning the love Of his men, At
IKenesaw the veteran who tells the story
was badly wounded and left behind
when the Twenty fourth was ordered
back after the repulse. Young Near
thur was in command, and when he
learned that Sergeant Dunn was among
the missing in battle he sent file of
men to the front again to search for
him. Said he, eff he is wounded and
alive, see that he is given in charge of
the surgeon at once; if dead, bring his
body in, and it shall be sent home"
The thought was the impulsive one of
a boy, but the act was that of firm
and ready commander.
Macarthur won his eagle. He was no
accidental colonel. At the first great
battle of the regiment, Stone River,
the colonel and lieutenant colonel were
both absent, and the command Of the
Twenty fourth devolved upon the major
and the boy adjutant. The regiment
was in Sheridan's division, where it
served all through the war. At Stone
River the three brigade commanders Of
the division were shot down early in
the fight and the regiments left to them
selves. 1t was terrible struggle, too
well known to be repeated here. The
, Twenty -fourth ca1ne Out with ono man