The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1899-11-20
ARMY OFFICERS
AND THE FIRING LINE

Edward B. Clark in Chicago Times Herald.
Continental army officers recently have
been busy criticising the British battle sys-
TEN which ordains that on the firing line
when the men have sought what little shell
ter the conformation of the ground affords
the officers shall remain erect and exposed.
The European military critics speak of this
daring habit of the queens officers as
though the custom were confined wholly 70
the British army. Many a hard-fought field
on the western frontier and the battles in
Cuba attest that the American officer is
guided on the field by the same feeling and
the same rule of conduct that prompts the
Englshman to make of himself a con-
spicuous target for the Boer bullet. To one
unacquainted with the field tactics of ELL
ropean armies the wonder is how an officer
lying prone behind a rock on the missile
swept firing line is able constantly to d.
rect and encourage his men," as reads the
tactical injunction to the officers of
armies of all English-speakinS people. The
majority of the officers of the United States
army of middle age and younger, West
Pointers and civilian appointees alike, re-
ceived their early solderly sustenanee from
Emery Upton's blue book There was no
paragraph in the whole volume from the
position of a 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 encourage
ment and heartening of his men 1t was the
duty of an officer to expose himself at all
times of danger. The rule is laid
down in the United States army drill regu-
iations which have recently succeeded tho
old tactics of Upton.
The position of captain on the firing
line is ten PAGES to the rear of the center
of his men, who seek what shelter they
while the captain stands erect. An officer
of the United States army once court
martialed for cowardice because it was said
he sought the shelter of a tree while his
command was skirmishing with the enemy.
If the American captains and lieutenants
had sought shelter during the preliminary
skirmishes before Santiago the British mill
tary attache the field never would have
had the chance to write so sympathetically
In his report of the death of the Second
lieutenant of dismounted cavalry who, while
mis- little command was under the shelter
of the rocks, stood erect watching the enc
my through a field glass His men begged
him to lie down, but he stood there uttering
words of encoura cement until Mauser
bullet gave him his death wound. Had con-
tinental firing line methods been followed
at Ell caney the same British office attache
never could have told the story of that hot
corner of the field where amid the flying
bullets A r
erect and calmly smoking cigar, suggested
ed to the noncombatant Englishman that he
lie down. "A bit of advice 1 noticed" af-
terward wrote the military attache. THAT
the imperturbable colonel did not deign to
follow himself
Down in the mountainous and desert
Apache country in the year 1885 Powhatan
IL. Clarke, Louisiana lad Just out of West
Point, rode at the head of twelve black
troopers of the Tenth cavalry into a narrow.
rocky defile. There had been no sign of an
Indian. When well into the gorge from the
rocks in front, behind and above came a
shower of bullets. The enemy was invisi-
BILE. With carbnes unslung, the little band
of troopers made it's way back to the open.
The First sergeant, shot through both
entrance to the defile was reached. Clarke
lea ms men at a dead run for distance of
$50 yards. Then they were dismounted and
thrown into skirmish line. The trained
horses lay down upon the desert sand and
the men used them shelter, Clarke how
ever, standing erect in the center OF the
line. The instant that the lieutenant had
dismounted and given the order for de-
ploying the men, with straning eyes saw
him on foot dart forward along the path
over which they had just come. He was
running like deer straight for the gate
way of the gorge. His troopers as one man
started to follow him, but he waved them
back to their shelter and kept on. Clarke's
pathway toward the defle was marked out
all the way with spiteful little sand puffs
as the bullets from the rifles of the hidden
savages battered about him He reached
the objective point uIInjured. Once there
he lifted his wounded black sergeant to his
shoulder and staggered back across the $50
yards of open to his command. The way
back was made through a perfect fusillade.
The escape from injury was marvel For
this deed Powhatan II. Clarke afterward
wore the coveted medal of honor and he
wore 1t pinned on his blouse when six years
afterward he met his death in the north
west IN the sight of the same troopers
whom he had led in Arizona.
Gen. Nelson A. Miles would not be wear
ing his medal of honor today If he had fol-
lowed out the plan which the officer critics
of the continental armies declare to be the
proper one for the English officers In South
Africa. In the early part of May, 1863, the
general, then colonel of the Sixty-first New
York volunteers, was in command of skir-
mishers. A line of abattis had been built
and the New Workers, with their Massa-
chusetts commander, were behind 1t hold
ing off horde of the enemy. Things were
getting warm for the federal force. In or
der to encourage his men Miles kept jump
ing on to the abattis, thus making of him.
self the only human mark which the enemy
could see. Miles ran along the abattis in
spring his men by his voice. He simply
was following out the instructions which
every American army officer receives
Miles fell finally, so badly wounded that