The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-06-13
WILL LEAD THE INVASION.
General Skaters Career Proves His
Worth as "a willing Fighter.
New York Herald

HE was only farmers boy, tough and
lean as hickory, following the scythe bare
footed in harvest to bundle up the wheat
that was to go into the shock that was to
go into the stack" 1t was an old army
comrade who was talking, and he was talk
ing of Gen: William Shafter. the man who
leads the first army of the United States
to Cuba. When these two comrades stood
near one another in the battle of Nashville
during the civil war there were behind them,
in the shape of hospital corps, men who
gathered up the slain that were left on the
field by the scythe of battle, and, added the
old comrade. 1T may be that Shafter in
those days might just as well as not have
thought OF the time when as bare-legged
boy he was, walking behind the reapers
through the harvest fields of Michigan.
HE came from what Lincoln called the
plain people, he did not go to West Point;
ne is a made soldier, if there can be
such thing. It were better to say that
ne was born soldier and that even had he
tried to alter his career he could not in
spirit at least, ever have been other than
The man who was talking was Henry C.
Corbin, adjutant general of the United
States army-Corbin, the man who was
brevetted for gallant and meritorious serv-
ices IN the battle of Decatur, Ala. again
Tor gallant and meritorious services in the
oattie OF Nashville, and who is still the
gentle soldier.
If General Corbin failed to state II. it is
still the fact that William r. Shafter
weighs three hundred pounds. That that
little lad of Kalamazoo county has not. de-
edge and courage to give battle is fact Of
Whlch men must soon know. Corbin loves
and so when l asked the adjutant general
why General Shafter was selected as the
leader OF the Cuban campaign 1 was not
surprised at the answer.
ON account Of his rank and conceded
ability. replied General Corbin, his Vigor
and good Judgment. He is one of the men
IN the army who has been able to do what
he was ordered to do; not man to find out
now things cant be done"
heavy, shaggy brows~the blue eye which is
at once kind and shrewd, with a hard CLINT,
too, at moments. He has the fighting hook
nose;" more than that it is commandingly
Roman. He has F1tz Lee chin that is at
once firm and jolly. A heavy mustache of
gray, and white hair, parted in the middle
Plenty of room for brains between the ear
line of the facial angle and the top of his
head-and this head rests with comely poise
six feet-great soldiers have rarely been
so hlgh-With comparatively short legs and
great length of trunk for breathing and
and distinguished action have been noted.
He stands heavy and Swarthy, and, one
would say, grim, were not there hint of
good humor playing underneath the COM
posture of self control
Smarter was twenty-five years old when
the civil war came. He entered the Seventh
Michigan Infantry as first lieutenant in 1861.
He served with distinction through the war
having been conSecutiVely major of the
Nineteenth Michigan Infantry, lieutenant
colonel and colonel of the United States
infantry. and was in March, 1865, brevetted
brigadier general
A brevet for colonel came for gallant and
meritorious services in the battle of Fair
Oaks, Va.
His commission as colonel of the First In
fantry was vacated May 4, 1897, by his COM
mission as brigadier general, succeeding
which he was put in command of the De-
partment of California, with headquarters
at San Francisco
With the breadth of this continent for al
most thirty years between him and the
East, it was small wonder that the people
of the East sought to know more of this
man of the hour. In these years General
Shafter had not been idle,
He had said General Corbin, Served
with distinction since the war in the Indian
campaigns of Texas, New Mexico and along
the Rio Grande as lieutenant colonel of the
TWenty-fOurth Infantry"