The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-12-13
OFFICERS UNDER FIRE.
A sheaf of Illustrated Anecdotes


 A Sheaf of Illustrated Anecdotes.
 Continental army officers recently have been busy criticising the British
 battle system which ordaine that on the firing line when the men havef sought what little shelter the conformation of the ground affords the officers shall re-
 main erect and exposed. The European military critics speak of this daring
 habit of the queens officers as though the custom were confined wholly to the
 British army. Many hard-fought bat
 tie on the western frontier and the bat | ties in Cuba attest that American off
 cer is guided on the field by the same
 feeling and the same rule of conduct
 that prompts the Englshman to make
 of himself a conspicuous target for the
 Roer bullet. To one unacquainted with
 the field tactics of European armies
 the wonder IS how an officer lying prone
 behind a rock on the missile-swept fir
 ing line is able constantly to direct and
 encourage his mem as reads the tac-
 tical injunction'' to the officers of arm ies of all English-speaking people. The
 majority of the officers of the United
 States army of middle age and young Sl, w GEI TQlIleIS dllu S4NiilhAl ctppoiHLctc
 alike, received their early soldiery sus- tenance from Emory Upton's Blue
 Book. There was no paragraph in the whole volume, form the position of
 soldier" to the evolution of brigade,
 that was so thoroughly crammed into
 the brains of the cadets in the section-
 rooms at West Point as was that which
 in terse language said that for the en-, couragement and heaftening of his men it was the duty of an officer to expose himself at all times of danger. The same rule is laid down in the United States army drill regulations which have recently succeeded the old tactics of Upton.
 The position of captain on a firing line is ten paces to the rear of the cen-' ter of his meng who seek what shelter they can while the captain stands erect. An officer of the United States army was once court-martialled for coward ice, because it was said he sought the shelter of tree while his command was Skrmishing with the enemy If the | American captains and leutenants had | sought shelter during the preliminary | skirmishes before Santiago the British | attache on the field never | would have had the chance to write so | sympathetically in his report of the death of the second lieutenant of dis | cavalry who while his little command was under the shelter of the [ rocks, stood erect watching the enemy through a field glass. His men begged | him to lie down, but he stood there ut tering words of encouragement until faI, h1,f1 lat ,rex wound. Had continental firing-line been followed at Fl Clancy the same British officer attache could never have told the story of that hot corner of the field where amid the flying bull lets Colonel A. R. Chaffee, standing erect and calmly smoking a cigar, sug- gested to the non-combatant English-' man that he lie down. "A bit of advice noticed" afterward wrote the mili- tary attache, that the imperturable colonel did not deign to follow himself"
 Down in the mountainous and desert Apache county in the year 1855 Pow hatan H. Clark, rode at the head of twelve black troopers of the Tenth Cav dry into a narrow, rocky defile. There lad been no sign of an Indian. When we'll into the gorge from the rocks in 'ront, behind and above came shower ,f bullets. The enemy was invisible. With carbines unslung, the little band 'f troopers made it's way back to the ,pen. The first sergeant shot trough both thighs, dropping from his mount ust as the entrance to the defile was cached. Clark led his men at dead , un for a distance of 150 yeards. Then hey were dismounted and thrown into
 skirmish line. The trained horses lay town upon the desert sand and the men , lsed them as shelter, Clak, however, l tanding erect in the center of the line. f 'he instant that the lieutenant dis , and given the order for deploy- l ng, the men, with straining eyes, saw i'm on foot dart forward along the path yer which they had just come. He was unning like deer straight for the ateway of the gorge. His troopers as ne man started to follow him. but he laved them back to the shelter and ept on. Clarks pathway toward the ellie was marked out all the way with piteful little sand puffs as the bullets ( rom the rifles of the hidden savages l altered about him. He reached the / bjective point uninjured. Once there ! c III Ll6u HIS WUuIlued DldCk StIEbdll JO | z Is shoulder and staggered back across E 1e 150 yards of open to his command. he way back was made through per : .ct fusillade The escape from injury as a marvel. Por this deed Powhatan [. Clarke afterward wore the coveted edal of honor, and he wore it pinned n his blouse when six years afterward 9 met his death in the Northwest in le sight of the same troopers whom 3 had led in Arizona.
 General Nelson A. Miles would not be caring his medal of honor to-day if he Id followed out the plan which the of cer critics of the continental armies eclare to be the proper one for the nglish officers in South Africa. In the lrly part of May 1863, the general, len colonel of the Sixty-tirst New York { olunteers. was in command of skirm hers. A line of abattis had been built 1 Id the New Workers, with their Massa- lusetts commander, were behind it ,lding off horde of the enemy. nings were getting warm for the fed z, al force. In order to encourage his m en, Miles kept jumping on to the abat- ol ;, thus making of himself the only ,.i man mark which the enemy could e-