Trinidad, near the mine (Sopris), was one of the hot spots in the old days and many a bad man had met his “come-uppance” there and along the Picketwire or, as the original Spanish name has it, the Purgutoire River. From these men and from my practical shooting with them in various matches, I learned just about how good they and their erstwhile friends – and enemies – could really shoot, both with the pistol and the rifle. Bat Masterson, Jim Lee, Schwin Box and Nat Chapin, just to name the best of them, were all good shots, but the best of them never could hold a candle to the amazing performances of a lot of hitherto unknown “experts” who are continually bobbing up in the moving pictures and the sensational stories published in supposedly reputable magazines in the year of grace, 1930.
I should have included Brown – Three-finger Brown – in the above list. He was as good as the best of them although he had to do all his shooting left-handed: due to the fact that he had allowed his curiosity to over-ride his good sense in the matter of investigating the doings of a band of “Penitentes” one might and, as a result, lost the thumb and first finger of his right hand.
All these men had grown up in the West and had lived through the various “wars” and ructions which flared up every now and then, all the way from Texas to the Black Hills. They all bore the scars of combat but the very fact that they had survived was, to my notion, the best evidence that they were good. Those were the days of the survival of the fittest, especially in the case of men who, like all those mentioned, had occupied positions as legal guardians of the peace, all along the border.
From these men I learned many things, the most important of which was the point which they all insisted was absolutely vital: the ability to control one’s own nerves and passions – in other words, never to get excited.
I had the opportunity to see a couple of them in action during some disturbances which came up during the Fourth of July celebration and never will forget that, while armed, they never even made a motion toward a gun: they simply walked up to the belligerent and half drunken “bad men” and disarmed them and then walked them off to the calabozo to cool off. Yes, I learned a lot from those men. That they could shoot, both quickly and accurately, is unquestioned, but the thing that had enabled them to live to a ripe middle age was not so much due to that accomplishment as to the fact that they were abundantly supplied with that commodity commonly called “guts.” That was the point, above all others, that impressed me and remained with me after I had returned to the East; and, ever since, I have tried to live up to the standard of those pioneers of the shooting game.
By the time I got back, my father had been appointed to the bench of the Supreme Court and the family had removed to Indianapolis. I took up my home there and immediately joined up with Company D, of the Second Infantry – the famous old “Indianapolis Light Infantry” which, in the military tournaments from late in the Seventies, had stood at the very head of all the crack drill teams of the country. But, they could not only put on a prize-winning close order drill: they had, as officers, men who knew the value of shooting ability and, although the State and Federal authorities never appropriated a cent for the purpose, they managed to carry on target practice. Every member paid dues for the privilege of belonging to the Guard or, as it was then known, to the Indiana Legion. We bought our own uniforms and paid our own armory rent and we bought the necessary components for the ammunition which we expended on the range and which we loaded ourselves. Then we rented a part of some farmer’s pasture for a range and built our own targets. The company officers were all rifle enthusiasts; but one, above all others, kept the game moving in those early days – Major (then Lieutenant) David I. McCormick, the “Grand Old Man” of military rifle shooting in Indiana.
After a hitch in the infantry, in which I attained the rank of Sergeant, I signed up with the artillery – Battery A, First Indiana – known all over the country as “The Indianapolis Light Artillery.” You see, Indianapolis had both infantry and artillery organizations that ranked with the very best. Both of them had carried off the highest honors in many of the military tournaments which were held annually in those days. (I wonder if any of those old outfits still retain their original names – the Richmond Blues, the Washington Fencibles, the Chickasaw Guards?)
This Battery A was the 27th Indiana Battery in the Spanish-American War and the nucleus of the 150th Artillery (Rainbow Division) during the World War, and its then commander, Robert L. Tyndall, was the Colonel of that Regiment. (He’s now a Major-General – but that’s all right: he is just Bob Tyndall to his old tilicums.)
My work took me to Cincinnati and I joined Battery B of the First Ohio Artillery – Captain Hermann’s Battery. Too bad they have discontinued the practice of naming the battery after its commanding officer – (and I’ll bet that young lieutenant who was in Reilly’s Battery in China will agree with me – even though he is now a Major-General and Chief of Staff).
Now, this Battery B was peculiar in one respect – possibly unique: it was a Gatling-gun battery. With the Indianapolis outfit, I had learned about the Rodman muzzle-loading guns and, while with the 1st Illinois, had frequently seen Lieutenant Jack Clinnin playing around with a bunch of kids and some Gatling-guns, but I had never taken these contraptions very seriously. Now, however, that was all we had to do. Of course we had pistols and sabres and all such, but our real game was to learn how to use those Gatlings to the best advantage. Captain Hermann was a very practical officer and saw to it that we had all the actual outdoor shooting that the law – and the state of the exchequer – would stand. I remember that I won a can of oysters at one of those shoots and I declare that no medal or other thing I have since won by shooting ever gave me the thrill that that did. It was probably about tenth place – we had turkeys, hams and a lot of other things for prizes – donated by patriotically inclined German-American citizens from “over the Rhine” (in Cincinnati), and I think that was what first put the machine-gun bug into my head.
During the Klondike rush, I got the gold fever and went off up there and spent more than two years in northern Canada. When I came out, or, rather, on my way out, I had the opportunity to help gather up a bunch of recruits for the Strathcona Horse, just then being mobilized for service in South Africa. I had hoped to go with them but, at that time, the regulations were such that none but British subjects were eligible. That was in 1900 and I came back to Indianapolis and again hitched up with my old outfit – Company D, 2nd Infantry.
Of course I had had considerable game shooting while in the North and had kept up pretty well on my marksmanship; so, when I got back into the military game, I was not so rusty but that I could do a fairly good job of it, either in the gallery or on the range. The commanding officer of the company at that time was Robert L. Moorhead, now Colonel of the 139th Field Artillery, and I am glad of this chance to make it a matter of record that he was, in my opinion, the keenest of officers and one of the first to recognize the fact that individual proficiency with the rifle was the very highest attainment of the “doughboy.”
Under his direction, that company won higher figures of merit than any similar organization in the United States services, before or since – and I do not even except the Marine Corps, for the shooting ability of which I have the utmost respect. One year we furnished, after long and arduous competition, every member of the Regimental team of twelve men and then went on to place ten out of the twelve men on the State team. Every man in his company had to qualify as at least a marksman during his first year or get out. In the second year, if he could not make sharpshooter, he also took the gate, and after three years, if he did not rate expert, he was no longer eligible for re-enlistment. That was a real shootin’ bunch. From it came Scott Clark, who won the National Individual Match in 1910; Jim Hurt who, with his son, Jimmy, Junior, are well known to the present day generation of National Match shooters; Hump Evans – and a lot more who have made life miserable for the young fellows trying to get along at Camp Perry. I became Captain, in c
ommand of this company in the early part of 1907.
I shot along with them in all the National Matches up to and including 1911 and then my foot got to itching and I hit out again for the Northwest, where I spent something over two years, ostensibly helping to build a railroad through the Yellow Head Pass and on to Prince Rupert but really to get out somewhere so that I could shoot a rifle without having to spend a couple of months and all my money building a backstop.
Some way or another I managed to get a job that kept me out ahead of steel from a hundred and fifty to two hundred miles, so was in virgin game country all the time. Moose, caribou and bear were not only common; they were abundant. I have had moose wake me up and have to be driven away when they were rubbing their antlers on the ropes of my tent and the bears were so common around our garbage dumps that no person ever thought of harming them. Goats and sheep were easily to be found by taking a day off and going back a little way, up the mountain; in fact, I have seen bands of goats standing on a ledge of rock, not over one hundred yards above where a bunch of Swedes were putting in a blast of dynamite and have watched them scamper away when the shot was fired. Yes, I managed to keep up on my rifle practice.
Then, along in March, 1914, we heard about the disturbance down in Mexico. “Now,” says I to myself, “here’s where we get into something worth while. That means war and I’ll be double-damned if I am going to miss it.” (I did not know, at that time, nor for a long time after, what kind of an Administration we had.)
From where I was, it was 46 miles to the nearest telegraph station – back up the line. I remember now: it was St. Patrick’s day – 1914. Well, I got me a good feed and a bottle of Johnnie Walker and hit the trail. Ten hours later I sent a telegram to my father, asking for information. Did he think it meant war? He answered: “Seems like war, sure: hurry back.” Father, you see, had been a soldier and his father is still buried in the United States National Cemetery in Mexico City – (he went in with the Army of Occupation, in 1847 with the 7th U.S. Infantry, and got his at Chapultepec).
From where I then was, it was one hundred and twenty miles to the end of transportation. The steel had been laid into Ft. George, early in the winter – temporary construction, on brush and all that, in order to get in supplies for the winter – but the temporary roadbed had sloughed off until, now, no trains could come farther than “Mile 90” – and that was 120 long miles away. I made it in three days, through and over snow most of the way. That, taken with the 46 miles of the previous day, made 166 miles in four days. (The old man was not so bad at that, was he?) This Mile 90 place, by the way, is the station you will find on the maps and in the guide books named McBride.
When I got back to Indianapolis I applied for and was at once granted restoration to active duty. (I had been carried on the retired officers’ list all the time.) Being assigned to a company – Co. H, 2nd Infantry – I did my best to lick them into shape for the fight I knew was coming. We went through the annual maneuvers at Ft. Harrison and then sat around to wait for the call to go to Mexico. As is well known now, it did not come; but just about that time the big fire broke out in Europe.
When this so-called “World War” started, I was playing golf at Riverside, Indianapolis, with Harry Cooler and Willis Nusbaum. Along late in the afternoon we came up to the eighteenth hole. We were playing syndicate and I was loser to the extent of four bits. It is an easy par four hole – well, any golfer knows what that means – easy if you hit ’em right and I had the luck to get on the green with my second while both the others found the rough and took three to get home, both of them, however, being outside my ball, which was only about ten feet from the pin. Then comes Mr. Cooler and rams down a thirty foot putt. As though that were not enough, Nusbaum, the robber, proceeds to do the same from about twenty-five feet. Still, the case was not hopeless. All I had to do was to make my putt to be even on the match. But just then a boy came running out from the Club House, waving an armful of papers and shouting: “WAR IN EUROPE: EXTRA! EXTRA! BIG WAR IN EUROPE.” I do not know, to this day, whether or not I even tried to make that putt. I suppose I paid up – I don’t know – but from that minute, golf was not for me. There was a war on and I did not intend to miss it.
I am sorry I cannot say that those early stories of German atrocities, or the news of Belgium’s invasion impelled me to start for Canada to enlist and offer my life in the cause of humanity. Not at all, it was just that I wanted to find out what a “real war” was like. It looked as if there was going to be a real scrap at last, and I didn’t intend to miss it this time. I had “lost out” on two wars already; the Spanish-American and Boer War and now the opportunity was at hand I wanted to have a front seat. I got what I was looking for all right.
Being at that time a Captain in command of a company of the Indiana National Guard, it took some time to turn in property and get the proper clearances and to have my resignation accepted but, as soon as all this could be accomplished, I was on my way to Canada where General Sam Hughes, Minister of Militia and Defense, immediately granted me a commission as Captain, Musketry Instructor, and I was assigned (or gazetted, as they say there) to the Thirty-eighth Battalion. However, as this battalion had not yet been mobilized, I was instructed to go to Kingston and work with the Twenty-first Battalion which was in training there. The commanding officer of this (21st) Battalion was Lieutenant-Colonel William St. Pierre Hughes, brother of the Minister of Militia and Defense. He was not only a graduate of the Royal Military College but a veteran of the Northwest Rebellion of 1885. He attracted me from the start, as a real soldier. Later I was destined to know him as one of the broadest-minded and most generous men I have ever met.
Chapter 2. Canada
I SPENT a couple of months with the Twenty-first Battalion and then, returning to Ottawa to join my own outfit, I soon learned that they, the Thirty-eighth, were slated to go to Bermuda to relieve the Royal Canadian Regiment which was doing garrison duty. That was not so good. I had come over to get into a real war, and garrison duty in Bermuda did not appeal to me a bit. Had I known then, as we all know now, that the Thirty-eighth would get to France soon enough to get into all the fighting any man could ask for, I suppose it would have been different, but at that time my chief worry was that the war would be over before I could get there.
I was mad; yes, crazy mad. I went out and tried to drink all the whiskey in Ottawa and made such an ass of myself that the higher-ups were glad to get rid of me. Prior to this, however, I had wired to Colonel Hughes, at Kingston, asking if he would accept me as a private in his battalion, and he had answered: ‘Yes, glad to have you.” My resignation was quickly accepted and I took the train for Kingston where I was sworn in next day as a private and assigned to the Machine Gun Section (The Emma Gees).
Well, there I was, a machine gunner, but machine gunners in those days also carried rifles. That was enough for me. I was with an outfit that was sure to get into the war and that was enough. We trained at Kingston all winter. There was the usual routine of physical exercises, close order drill, (very little of this, however), bayonet exercises and occasional small maneuvers that would come under the head of “Minor Tactics.” But the best thing we did was to march and shoot – march and shoot. There was no especial training for trench warfare – that came later, in England. Here, in Canada, the program, which was certainly laid out by an officer who knew his business (I suspect it was Colonel Hughes, himself), was one calculated to do just two things: to put the men in physical condition to endure long marches and to thoroughly train them in the use of their weapons. In the latter years of the war, I had occasion to compare this system with that laid down in hard and fast schedules for the training of the United States Armies and the more I saw of our (U.S.) system, the better I liked the Canadian.
We had route marches in all kinds of weather, and winter in Ontario is real winter. On one occasion, we marched from Kingston to Gananoque, through snow a foot deep and came back the next day – twenty-two miles each way. A
nother march took us to Odessa – about the same distance there and back, this time with full packs. But on one or two days of each week we went out to the Barriefield rifle range for target practice. Sometimes when we were out there shooting, one could have skated all over the place on the ice. But we surely were learning a lot and getting seasoned for the bitter days to come. Toward the latter part of this training, we had rifle competitions every week, between picked teams from the different companies and detachments. In these matches the Machine Gunners always managed to give a good account of themselves.
In the Battalion were many of the best riflemen in Canada, including Major Elmitt, (member of the Canadian Palma team of 1907), Sergeant-Major Edwards, Sergeant Williams, (of the Machine Gun Section) and many others whose names have now escaped me. The Colonel, himself, took part in the firing as did all the other officers. I particularly remember how enthusiastic Major Bennett was about this training. He was Second in Command. I just mention these things to show how it was that this particular battalion developed into a real aggregation of riflemen. In the months and years that followed, that accomplishment, on numerous occasions, saved them from disaster such as overwhelmed certain other outfits not similarly prepared. All the patriotism, courage and determination in the world can never compensate for the lack of thorough instruction in the use of the arm with which the soldier is equipped.
A Rifleman Went to War Page 2