USA > California > Addresses delivered before the California Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, 1913 > Part 5
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hood, and that in the "Profusion and recklessness of her lies" she probably stood without a peer not only in her own immediate realm, but in the whole world as well. We have long since relegated the hatchet story of the venerable father of his country to the junk heap of exploded myths, and as to his having never told a lie, we now know, that no man can make love to four women at the same time and not lie.
With absolute confidence, gentlemen, in the heritage that has been given us, I beg you to indulge me while I shall attempt to enunciate some of its more basic characteristics. And first of all we need to recognize that our age in contradistinction to all other times, may be designated as a scientific age. Now as never before in the whole sweep of history the things that have lain hidden from the minds of men from the foundation of the world are understood. Vivi- section, against which there is such hue and cry in medical matters, is but partial illustration of that severe diagnosis that is laying every conceivable thing under tribute to itself.
Why, incredible as it may seem, up to four hundred years ago men held to the idea that the earth was flat. If at that time you had interrogated the brightest high school pupil as to the foundation of the earth, he would have told you that it rested upon a rock. And if dissatisfied with the answer, you had inquired of him upon what that rock rested, he would have told you that "it was rock all the way down."
As late as 1665, when John Lightfoot was arch-chancellor of the university of Cambridge, he taught that the creation of the world took place on the 23d day of October, 4004 before Christ, at nine o'clock in the morning, while today we know, since the secrets of the great glacial age have been revealed, when the New England states were covered with ice of Alpine thickness and Greenland's icy mount- ains extended as far south as Cincinnati and St. Louis, that in order to grow a great red-wood tree of California a longer period is re- quired than our earth is old according to the old-the mistaken- chronology, and that the creation of the world actually took place at a period so remote from the present, that compared to our earth, Eugene Sue's wandering jew, were he here tonight with the mantle of nineteen centuries over his shoulders, he would be but a babe in arms.
Until two or three hundred years ago, man had no knowledge of himself or his relation to all other forms of life. The circulation of the blood was unknown until the middle of the seventeenth century. They took four quarts of blood from George Washington on his death-
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bed. Any man would have been on his death-bed under similar circumstances.
Men used to die when they got sick. Today, if they possess the services of a good doctor and a trained nurse it is next to impossible to die.
There is a story told of a certain locality that boasted among its objects of pride a citizen who had attained to the ripe old age of one hudred and four years. The fame of this centenarian, so it seems, had gone abroad so that on one occasion he was approached by a manager of a curio collection as to whether he would consider at any price lending the sanction of his presence and prestige to the already celebrated group of star attractions that he managed, and accompany him for a short trip at least through the adjacent territory. To all of which the old man replied :
"I couldn't decide such a matter hastily; I think I should like to ask father about it."
"Your father" replied the astute manager, "You don't mean to tell me that your father is still living?"
"Oh, yes," said the old man, "Father is in good health, he is up- stairs now, putting grand-father to bed."
So it is, in consequence of a more intimate acquaintance with the laws that make for longevity, men are attaining more and more unto a robust old age.
In contradistinction, furthermore, to other ages of history in which muscular power has been mainly relied upon, our age is an age of machinery.
All hay and grain were harvested by hand until the invention of the McCormick reaper in 1831. All garments were "home-made" and hand made and poorly made until the invention of the sewing- machine by Howe in 1847. Matches were unknown until 1834. Daguerre gave the world its first photograph in 1839. Ancient kings knew no better method of journeying about from province to province than the ox-cart. In 1828 Stevenson and Arkwright completed their invention of a steam locomotive which would travel six miles an hour; and for its marvelous speed, it was named the "Rocket." Think of calling anything that has a capacity of only six miles an hour, "The Rocket," today.
As an illustration of modern methods of transportation there is a story of a gentleman who lived midway between Buffalo and Albany, New York. One day he boarded the Empire Express and wired his wife that he would be on the express on his way to Buffalo, and that while the flyer didn't stop at the station near which they lived, that if she would come to the station he would be glad to
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see her at least as the train passed through. She received his mes- sage and stood upon the platform awaiting him. As the train whistled sighting the station, he stood on the steps of the rear coach from which he leaned over to kiss his wife who was standing on the platform, and kissed a cow two miles and a half further down the road.
And then there is that other story that sheds something of light on this subject of rapid transit. It seems as though a guest was shot and killed somewhere in a hotel. The negro porter who heard the shooting was a witness at the trial.
"How many shots did you hear?" asked the lawyer.
"Two shots, sah," he replied.
"How far apart were they ?"
"Bout like dis way," explained the negro, clapping his hands with an interval of about a second between them.
"Where were you when the first shot was fired ?"
"Shinin' a gemmen's shoes in de basement ob de hotel, suh."
"Where were you when the second shot was fired ?"
"Ah was passin' de Big Fo' depot."
And so it is, everything goes today, even the "dagos." We are born in a hurry, we live fast lives and die by electricity.
Manila is nearer Washington than New Orleans was when Jef- ferson purchased Louisiana.
"But the most wonderful craze of these wonderful days Is to carry an X-ray around in your pocket.
And then if you fear there's a bug in your ear, You can turn on the X-ray and so certainly knock it.
"If about to propose, the X-ray will disclose If the lady possess heart that is true.
'Twill also you'll find illumine her mind And allow her to know if she's suited to you.
"And if by mistake you chance to partake Of a liquor that makes men delightfully frisky, You can turn on the X-ray, and so they all say, It will knock the jim-jams clear out of the whisky."
And, gentlemen, as it is with reference to knowledge and machinery so it is with every other phase of our multiform life.
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For among the laws that may be said to be basic in the history of our planet, is one that in some way sees to it, that when one thing changes, all other things must change to keep it company.
Thus, when our forebears lived in log cabins in the edge of the forests, they had never so much as heard of marble doorsteps and brass door-knobs. All they knew anything about in these particulars, all they cared to know about was a puncheon slab and a leather latch- string hanging out. But by-and-by, when the sons and daughters that had been born to them had grown in stature and refinement; when the verb began to agree with the nominative case and the nose began to be used more as an organ of respiration and less as an organ of speech; when the daughters with roses blooming in their cheeks, more winsome far than those that bloomed each spring in the clearing about the cabin home, began to sigh, and long for a larger and a better house, the old log house was doomed. And when the newer-the bigger and the better house came along it called for a better door step-a lime-stone slab, and a brass door-knob, and so the leather latch-string was laid away. But it had lived an honored life. Abraham Lincoln and General Grant had pulled it.
So it is with human progress, when one thing changes all other things that live in the same era of unfoldment must change also.
Instead of the oldtime tooth and nail tactics that arrayed every man against his fellows, the prevalent spirit of our times is the spirit of co-operation. In other ages of the world when men were widely separated from each other, in consequence of which they felt little the need of each other, the ideas that were to the fore were, "Every man for himself and the devil take the hindermost." Now, however, men are coming to recognize that they were made for each other; that they ought to pull together in the development of a common life and destiny toward which all ought to contribute and in which all ought to share.
Fifty years ago China and India might have torn each other into tatters, and the peace of the world would have been little more dis- turbed than when two storms meet in the midst of the Atlantic. Today, however, let a most inconsequential little squall occur among two outlying tribes on the far frontier of the world, and the pacific equanimity of the world's secret council chambers is disturbed with confusion like that which would be occasioned by the striking of a match in a powder magazine.
The taking of snuff on the part of one nation is the signal to sneeze to all the rest of mankind.
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In neighborliness, and brotherliness, and in all the gentler and more refining virtues, no less than in the more strenuous and determined ways of life, our age steps grandly in the fore-front of all the ages that have been. Why, the most prejudiced Protestant no longer deems it expedient to carry a pistol in his hip-pocket and to be on the constant lookout for poison in his coffee when dining out with his Catholic friends. Indeed narrowness and bigotry; religious and social intolerance are becoming rare birds in the land when seventy- five millions of the most enlightened and progressive people upon whom the sun shines bow in humble acknowledgment of the sentiments of two such songs as "Lead Kindly Light" and "Nearer My God to Thee" as they did at the death-bed of the martyred Mckinley, writ- ten as these songs were, one by a Unitarian woman, and the other by a Catholic priest.
Again, while the final word has not yet been uttered relative to the rights of labor, as the case now stands, the condition of the working-man is so far removed from what it was in other times that there are hardly any parallels by means of which comparison can be made. Indeed, it is a far cry from the days of Bobbie Burns, whose chief article of diet was oatmeal, to the modern farmer whose daily bill of fare comprises porterhouse steak smothered in onions with braized halibut and oysters a la poulette on the side.
Still again, with an intensity of meaning hitherto unheard of in all the world, the rights of womankind are being emphasized today. From the very dawn of history it would seem that all law, all ed- ucation, all emolument had been for man; the plums that have rip- ened in the sunshine that has glinted and gleamed along the way, have ripened for him alone. With a masculine sense of superiority men the world over have been wont to cherish with unction the idea that, "A wise son maketh a glad father but a foolish son is just like his mother." The statutes of forty states however, have undergone a change in this regard since the days of Washington and Jefferson. The old saying to the effect that "God made man and then rested, and that afterwards, he made woman, since which time neither God nor man has rested," has given way to the other saying, that, "God made man and looking upon his handiwork said, "I know I can beat that," and so made woman.
And finally gentlemen, when burdened and appalled by the din and dissonance of a great city's streets where traffic holds its sway, I tear myself from the distractions of it all; when I invade the quiet of the country places with their interminable stretches of restfulness and repose. When I climb in fancy at least to the summits of the hills-
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those primeval trysting places where men have communed with the Almighty; when my ears, hurt by the ceaseless clangor of the streets are filled with sweet snatches of the songs that are to be, in a word, when I saturate my soul in the spirit of the times as I see and know it, the spirit of gentleness and helpfulness; the spirit of physical and moral cleanliness that is blowing over the world, I feel that to us who live today, it is given to look out upon the world's true Golden Age, compared to which all the other golden ages of history are luster- less and dim indeed.
To be sure, there remaineth very much land yet to be possessed. There are still many down-trodden nations. Greed still stalks wan- tonly in the world's market places, making gleeful merchandise of the light that shines from the eyes of dying babes. A new adjust- ment of relations is long overdue between the coal baron and the coal digger, the capitalist and the chimney sweep. The world of society is still a world of hypocrisy and sham. Even in religion there is a vast surplusage of loud sounding and clamorous cant that serves only to retard and entrammel the soul in its approach to God, And yet withal, the tendency of the world is an upward tendency. It cannot be otherwise. Think you that he who has assured us in His holy word that "Not even a sparrow falleth to the ground with- out the Father's notice" has allowed the countless lives to come to naught that have been flung away in the interest of gentleness and justice and love and truth ? I tell you no.
"They never fail to fight in a great cause.
The block may soak their gore, Their heads may sodden in the sun.
Their limbs to be hung to cities' gates and castles' walls. Their spirits stalk abroad.
They augment the deep and sweeping thoughts That overpower all others, and that guide The world to freedom."
" "Tis weary watching wave by wave, And yet the tide heaves onward; We climb like corals, grave by grave, But pave a pathway sunward. We're beaten back by many a fray, But newer strength we borrow, And where the vanguard camps today, The rear shall camp tomorrow."
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As it is with the ocean, so it is with men and nations-their thoughts, and purposes, and processes of life, widen, and deepen, and strengthen with the processes of the suns.
Let us open our hearts and lives to this great truth and go out from this happy and hospitable occasion here tonight more ready to render yoeman service in transmitting to on-coming generations the unsoiled heritage that has been given us to possess.
"New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good un- couth.
We must upward still and onward, if we keep abreast with truth." "Let us then be up and doing, with a heart for any fate,
Still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and to wait."
THE SIOUX CAMPAIGN OF 1876, AND THE LAST BATTLE OF GENERAL CUSTER
By General Charles A. Woodruff, U. S. A. retired, at San Francisco, January 25, 1911.
Your president is responsible for the subject, I for the statement of facts and the few theories advanced.
While my talk is about Indian warfare, I desire most earnestly to impress upon you the fact that the soldier does not desire war and that our army was no more responsible for this war than the church for the sins against which it battles or the surgeon for the disease which he cures with the knife. I will go further and say that our army and navy have neither caused nor been responsible for bringing on a single one of our great wars, though they brought every one of them to a successful conclusion.
The army had no part in making or breaking the long list of treaties ; was not responsible for the constant crowding of the Indian by the onward march of the settler and miner, nor can the oppression of the weaker race by the stronger be charged against the army.
The soldier was the buffer between the hostile forces and was only called in to preserve peace and protect all parties after the civil au- thorities had admitted their absolute helplessness. The campaign I shall discuss originated in a request by the Interior Department for the Army to force certain bands upon reservations that were ob- jectionable to them.
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In his annual report for 1877, General Sheridan said :
"During the last two years the ratio of loss of officers and men in proportion to the number engaged in this Division in the Indian Wars, has been equal to or greater than the ratio of loss on either side in the present Russo-Turkish campaign or in the late Civil War in this country. I take pleasure in saying that both officers and men throughout the Division have shown a thorough and commendable devotion to duty, and deserve the approbation of the country."
During these two years, years of "profound peace" as our Thanks- giving proclamation puts it, while part of the Army was engaged in quelling one of the most widespread series of railroad strikes this country had ever seen, another portion was looking after the dis- turbances incident to the Hayes-Tilden election and also while there was Indian fighting by the troops under Generals Pope, Ord and Kaurz; the number of soldiers killed in the Departments commanded by Generals Terry, Crook and Howard was greater than the number killed in the Philippines, from May 1, 1898, to September 30, 1899, and nearly twice the number of soldiers and sailors, regulars and volunteers, killed in Cuba and Porto Rico during the same period.
I am going to talk about some of our troubles with the Sioux, a tribe that has always been hostile to the United States. They assisted the British in 1812; they were the scourge of the overland route from its inception until after the Union Pacific was built; they committed the most horrible outrages in Minnesota in 1862, five hundred were tried by Military Commission and 321 were convicted of having been present at one or more of the murders or outragings and sentenced to death, but humanitarian sentiment prevailed and only 39 were actually hanged. They massacred Major Fetterman's command of 84 in 1866, and generally deserved no sympathy. The only peaceable Sioux were dead ones.
In February 1876 the Interior Department asked that Sitting Bull's band of 30 or 40 lodges not exceeding 70 warriors, and Crazy Horse's band not exceeding 120 lodges with about 200 warriors, be forced upon their reservation. It it well to remember that the In- terior Department estimated the hostile warriors at about 270-before the end came the troops faced more than 4,000 warriors.
General Crook took the field from Fort Fetterman with 600 men; General Gibbon from Fort Shaw, Montana, with 200 men and a week later joined by 200 men form Fort Ellis, Montana; Terry with the 7th Cavalry and the 6th Infantry about 1000, from Fort Abraham Lincoln, North Dakota. The country included between these four
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points and the British line is 200,000 square miles, greater than the combined area of New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, and New York, with, absolutely no settlement; no roads, no traces of civilization.
General Gibbon's command, to which I belonged, left Fort Shaw, March 17th 1876, at noon, with the thermometer twenty degrees below zero; that night and the succeeding night it fell to forty degrees below; while on the Rosebud, in August the thermometer reg- istered one hundred and eleven degrees in the shade; in other words, we experienced a variation of one hundred and fifty-one degrees, with no change of outer clothing. In warm weather we went in our shirt sleeves, in cold weather put on our overcoats. You could tell the kind of flour we used by reading the brand on the sacks used for reseating our trousers; and I have seen a general officer wash his underclothes in the Yellowstone and sit on the bank, wrapped in meditation, while they were drying.
We were absent until October 6th and for five months of this time we never saw a house or building of any kind, and during this period we had no fresh meat except a few buffalo and deer and very few vegetables ; during the summer's operations the column marched about 1,700 miles.
March 1st Crook sent a command from Fort Fetterman which struck Crazy Horse's village, destroyed 105 lodges, killed several Indians and captured the immense herd of horses. The herd was run off the next day, the command suffered terribly and the expedition was not a success. May 17th Terry with the Seventh Cavalry, three gatling guns and six companies of Infantry, about 1000 in all, left Fort Lin- coln and established a supply camp at the mouth of Powder River.
May 29th Crook left Fort Fetterman with fifteen companies of Cavalry and five companies of Infantry and on the 17th of June, on the Rosebud, was attacked by the Indians, and while he drove them off it was a barren victory but it showed distinctly that the hostile force had been augmented by large numbers of the young warriors from the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies in Nebraska and from the agencies along the Missouri and Milk rivers. Let me digress a moment : In May Sheridan asked that the military be given au- thority to exercise supervisory control over the Agencies but his re- quest was ignored. On July 18th he renewed this request and it was granted, but it was too late.
He says: "A careful count was made by September 1st, and it was found that those at Red Cloud numbered 4,760, nearly one-half less than had been reported by the agent. The count at Spotted Tail's
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agency was less than 5,000 whereas nearly double that number was alleged to be present at that agency and were issued to. Troops were also sent to occupy the Missouri River agencies, Standing Rock, Chey- enne, Lower Brule and Fort Peck, to accomplish the same purposes and the number of Indians found present was less from one-half to one-third than was reported present and issued to by the agents. It was then easy to see where the small bands, originally out and on whom war was made, got their strength from, as well as their supplies."
It is said that it is cheaper to feed Indians than to fight them, but in this case we were doing both.
From April 15th to June 21st, General Gibbon's command moved up and down the Yellowstone to keep the Indians south of that stream.
June 9th Major Reno with six companies of the 7th Cavalry was directed to scout up the Powder River and over to Tongue. June 19th he reported that he had struck the Indian's Trail going up the Rosebud. On the 21st of June Terry, Custer and Reno were at the mouth of the Rosebud with Gibbon on the other side of the river and a conference was held on the steamer Far West between Terry, Gibbon and Custer. The result of that conference was embodied in a letter to Custer as follows :
Headquarters Department of Dakota, (In the Field,) Camp at mouth of Rosebud River, Montana, June 22, 1876.
Colonel :
The brigadier-general commanding directs that as soon as your regiment can be made ready for the march, you proceed up the Rosebud in pursuit of the Indians whose trail was discovered by Major Reno a few days ago. It is, of course, impossible to give you any definite instructions in regard to this movement; and were it not impossible to do so, the Department Commander places too much confidence in your zeal, energy and ability to wish to impose upon you precise orders, which might hamper your action when nearly in contact with the enemy. He will, however, indicate to you his own views of what your actions should be and he desires that you should conform to them unless you shall see sufficient reason for departing from them. He thinks that you should proceed up the Rosebud until you ascertain definitely the direction in which the trail above spoken of leads. Should it be found (as it appears to be almost certain that it will be found) to turn toward the Little Horn, he thinks that you should still proceed southward, perhaps as far as the headwaters of the Tongue, and then turn toward the Little Horn, feeling constantly
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however, to your left, so as to preclude the possibility of the escape of the Indians to the south or southeast by passing around your left flank
The column of Colonel Gibbon is now in motion for the mouth of the Big Horn. As soon as it reaches that point it will cross the Yellowstone and move up at least as far as the forks of the Little and Big Horns. Of course its future movements must be controlled by circumstances as they arise; but it is hoped that the Indians, if upon the Little Horn, may be so nearly enclosed by the two columns that their escape will be impossible. The department commander desires that on your way up the Rosebud you should thoroughly examine the upper part of Tullock's Creek; and that you should endeavor to send a scout through to Colonel Gibbon's column with information of the result of your examination. The lower part of this creek will be examined by a detachment from Colonel Gibbon's command.
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