Arizona republican., 1906-11-07
WENT 10 WEST POINT
 10 BECOME LAWYER
General sehofieId Directed Along MiIi- tary Lines Against His Will Until He Became Head of the Army.

Washington, D. c. Nov. 1.-CSpecial correspondence of The Republican)- Some dozen or more years ago. while the late General Schofield was com mander in chief of the army. I was in the habit of spending much of my leis- ure time with him in his room at the war department. One day he was in more than a usually taIkative mood and told me many "reminiscences of how he got into the army, and how he was kept there when he wanted to get out, and had never intended or expect ed to remain. l was so much interest ed what he was saying that I jotted down his story as he told it. Much of what he said I have never seen in print, and none of it just as he told it 10 me. In his case the truth of the old saying that very often destiny in terferes and makes man what he had no thought of being was verified. Be fore l tell his story as he told it to me. let me give my impressions of his per sonality. He was one of the most ap proachable of men in the public ser vice, and was always ready to gossip pleasantly and we'll in regard to th2 past He was as full of hearty laugh ter and fun as any young subaItern.
 While he talked freely about ms ser- vices during the civil war, and of his career after the close of the war. r,,--e was nothing Of the braggart about him. He was a prominent actor in some of rhc great events of the war, and play ed a really great part, and he would describe the scenes through which he had passed, the battles he had been in hardly referring to his own part He was wholly without envy or jealousy and there was ppf orr,,, an his disposition even against those who had perpetrated against him a great wrong in Missouri and for a While prevented his we'll earned pro- motion. l remember that l was urusn struck with the abse-ce of all form about his headquarters. and it was no trouble even Tor strangers to get ad- mlttance to him. In personal appear ance he was very unlike the ideal sol dier of the story books, and if mel in crowd no one would ever have picked < him out as having been a great miU- lary leader, one who had commanded armies and had fought one of the bIoodiest battles ever fought on the American continent
 Before our great civil war the Amer lean mind had been impressed with four ideal soldiers, and all others had to measure up to one of these stand ards or he would not be accented as In the category of warriors The four were George Washington and Israel Putnam of the Revolution, Winfield scott and Zachar=- Taylor, of the was with Mexico. I leave out of this list Andrew Jackson, for he so impressed himself as man of the people. a chief executive Of such determined will and force that we lose sight of him almost wholly as a warrior except when the Sth day of January comes around. In no way did John M. Scho- heId resemble either of those I have mentioned. Washington was tall. se- were and dignifed; Taylor was rough and ready, a fighter by nature and in stlnct; Scott, great as a soldier. was the apotheosis of personal vanity. and our Ideas of Putnam are made up more rom the pictures of him as he left his blow in the field after Concord and or his walking along the rude defenses of Bunker Hill than from any real qualities as a commander
 Schoheld was unlike all of these snort and round in figure. his face always beamed with good humor and 'Jollity. yet SchofieId commanded in a battle flat puts in the shade all those fought by either Taylor. Scott or Washington. for the numbers engaged the slaughter of human life and it's decisive character His recollections ol the old army reached back to the tine when Scott. Albert Sydney. John stone. Robert F. Lee and Hardee were the central CCres, and in the conver- sation to which I have referred he gave me his imlrl ssions of each of thas7 distinguished n en. As to his entrance. into the amy, he said:
 T never intended to be a soldier. Fate, and not intention, first put me in the army and then kept me there.