The age-herald., 1898-08-21

After the general had thus delightfully."-
 retailed bits of inside history to an eager
 crowd he would change his subject and
 talk about the respective merits of Ger
 man and American field glasses, testing
 this mans and the others and altogether
 showing himself frank, simple gentle
 man, not too good or too great to be in-
 terested in the affairs of ordinary folks
 who were, apparently. the kind he liked
 bpest.
 Which, you will find, is more often than
 not the most striking characteristic of a
 really great man.
 In the tiresome days when the foreign
 consuls at Santiago had sewed up every
 thing and were jabbering terms of sur
 render. first with Shafter and then with
 Toral, and next among themselves, sol
 diers used to say: "Well, if we don't move
 into Santiago pretty soon. Joe Wheeler
 will get Chaffee and Lawton and the
 three of them will march into town to-
 gether-surrender or no surrender"
 It was about Wheeler that in a short
 time innumerabe stories began to clus-
 ter. The unusual part of it was that the
 stories always were to his credit, one
 for instance, telling how he had climbed
 tree to take an observation. and had re-
 mained there until he had finished with leisurely examination of the surrounding |
 glasses and descended, unharmed by
 sharpshooters and unafraid of them.
 He is little delicately built man, with white, beautifully fashioned hands, and. so far as the physical goes, does not an- swer at all to ones preconceived notions
 of what a general of division should be. In neither appearance nor bearing is he
 like Sheridan, and his face is rot stern and hard like that of his great antagcn- ist, Sherman to whom he was the source of so many toilsome days and sleepless nights more than a generation ago. He hasn't a suggestion in his thin, small body of the grossness of Shafter or Fitzhugh Lee, who are usually red-faced, puffing, perspiring.
 theirs, too, not hoarse and gutteral, but very mild, though precise and clean-cut in it's tones.
 Intellectually, he is alert tireless and far-seeing. As to his moral character l only know that he is a churchgoer and man who instantly convinces even su- perficial observer that he is in the pres ence of peculiarly pure-minded and cean-liviug gentleman. Hence, one did , not hear queer stories or rowdy talk around his headquarters-not because the general seemed Puritanical, for no man | Is more suave-but because visitors had an instant realization that here was a | guiltless nature and a self-respecting, dig nifed man. eII don't think the general was offered anything like complete opportunity in Gu | baI for the expression of his genius. He had won his fame and beaten his ene- | mies as a great general Of cavalry, and in Cuba he was still general of cavalry but commanding dismounted troops. Then, |, teo, he could not direct the campaign in 1 dependently. Tmmeasurably greater than | the commanding general, he yet was un- der him, and so his energies and his tal- | ents were applied in a circumscribed field. But upon the whole army he had de- | cided moral effect He was ever in the | line furtherest advanced. Men knew that between them and disaster was Wheeler, and the thought comforted them and gave them assurance.
 He should have been the man of the hour Chance, or politics, or something queer, had relegated him to the perfor- nance of the lesser work. That work he | did nobly, but there was greater work lying to his eager hand. Destiny in an amazing fit of pique held his arm.