The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-11-22
b|)uER'S WAR RECORD
Made in Campaigns 10 Three
Quarters of Africa.
HIS SUCCESS UNBROKEN
Beers Called Upon TO Face a
Second Cromwell.

London, Nov. T.-Devonshire, the coun-
ty of cream, has well been called the
cream of counties from the number of IL
lustrious men and histor-makers it has
produced; and it is still as prolific of sail
ors and soldiers as it was in the time of
country paladins of the good Queen Bess.
But none of the living sons of illustrious
Devonshire have attained to greater dis
tinction than the subject of this article,
who has been intrusted with the com
mand of the army, the largest which ever
left our Shores for establishing the para
mountcy OF Queen Victoria over all South
Africa. For this purpose no better man
could possibly have been selected than
General Sir Redvers Butler, man whose
experience of soldering in all its branch
es, whose proved qualities of courage, cool
ness, energy, insight, organizing and ad-
minstrative power, whose force of char
acter and special knowledge of South At
rican warfare mark him clearly out, as
the holder of such a high, honorable and
responsible command, 10 be the right man
in the right place if ever there was per-
feet accordancy Of means to end.
The scion of very old Devonshire fam
lily, Redvers Butler, in his 18th year, pro-
cured a commission in the Sixteenth
Rifles, Second Battalion, and soon there
after he was fortunate enough to receive
his baptismi of fire az the taking of the
Taku forts-a campaign from which he
returned home with a medal and two
n Rnt T1yac l..
that he had another opportunity of show
ing the stuff of which he was made, and
Of stumbling on the high road of fame.
AS good luck would have it, his battalion
was included in the Red River expedition.
and the fine soldierly qualities of Captain
Butler attracted the particular attention
of Colonel Wolseley. its commander, who
has ever had a keen and unerring eye for
the men who could best serve him. WOlse-
ley has often been accused of having a
ring or set of personal favorites TO
whom he ever gave the plums OF service
under himself; but the claims of those
favorites to his preference have always
been based on pre-eminent military merit.
In the case of Butler, the favor of his
chief must have been all the more i'm
partial, as the personal characteristics of
the two men. who had been cast in to-
tally different moulds. were almost an
tagonistic Wellesley is of slight but com
pact and elegant build. vivacious, soci-
able sparkling, swift-darting, polished,
courtier-like, suggestive more of CELEBRITY
than of strength-a soldier of the physical
and even intellectual mould of Frederick
the Great; while Butler has decidedly
something of the Cromwell in him, being
tall, big-boned and ponderous, with
touch of ungainliness even in his figure;
severe almost sullen in his aspect; curt
of speech and abrupt in manner; taking
no pains to glove his iron hand in velvet;
sharp and Straightforward, averse to all
show and self-advertisement, an intense
hater Of shaz5 and humbug; a man calcu-
lated to inspire fear and respect more than
affection in his subordinates, but withal
a man of great honesty and purpose and
force of character. to be trusted implicit
ly by his friends and dreaded by his foes
Wolseley is more the French type of SOL
der dashing yet thorough, albeit fond Of
form and appearance. and even an occa-
sional glance at the gallery; while Butler
reminds one of the solid, stolid, heavy
handed, heavy-treading German. serious.
single-minded and calmly masterful in all
his ways.
Such then was the man whom Wolseley,
in many respects his antithesis, happily
discovered during his Red River cam
paign, and appointed to be his chief intel
ligence officers during his subsequent cam
paign in Ashantee Here Butler was at
once the eyes and ears, the pioneer, so to
speak, of the force which penetrated from
Cape Coast Castle through a horrible re-
gion of Destilence and countless other
perils of the skull-studded capital of King
Koffee KalkaH. and though a bullet once
smashed the compass at his side, and he
was slightly wounded at the battle of Or
dahsu, as well as stricken down with fe
yer. his courage and will-power carried
him on to take part in the five days fierce
bush fighting which preceded the fall Of
Coomassie-when he returned home with
the rank of major as well as with the
high compliments which had been paid
him in the dispatches Of his grateful
chief
His next service in the field was Of a
very different kind. for your true soldier
can turn his hand TO any kind Of fighting.
South Africa now became the scene OF
chronic trouble with the native races, and
IN the campaign against the Gaikas and
Galekas. as well as in the subsequent
smashing up of the Zulu power Major