Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 128, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1911 — STORIES OF CAMP AND WAR [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

STORIES OF CAMP AND WAR

CARTER IS A FIGHTING MAN lA. Boy in cr.ll War. Am* Com•hander Won Recognition for CarX% *>!•*• Message Under Fire. - .. The official army record of Mai. l Gen. William H. Carter, who was picked by President Taft to command the army division'assembled at Fort Sam Houston, Tex., gives him the unique distinction among the major" generals of the army of never having served as a volunteer. That record does General Carter an injustice, how* ever, for before he was thirteen years old he joined the Army of the Cumberland as a volunteer and won recognition for gallantry in action by carrying a message across the front of the line of fire. The recognition for that hazardous undertaking came to him in 1868, when he was old enough to take it, In the form of an appointment to West Point. But because he was only a schoolboy and not enlisted in the army, General Carter is denied official record of his service in the Civil war. -A General Carter was bom in Tennessee and lived there until he joined the army. When the opportunity came to see a little of war, young Carter slipped out of school one day and marched off with the Army of the Cumberland. He was too young for a soldier, but he did, the best he could by carrying messages for the officers and grabbing a musket whenever he could and peppering away at the Confederates. f ■ ■ rr-=-' ■ The taste of fighting that he had there gave him a desire to follow a military life and when his gallantry in action was brought to the notice of the war department he immediately was offered an appointment to West Point. He was graduated in 1873, served for a time in the Eighth infantry and then transferred to the

;cavalry, which was more to his liking. He joined the Sixth, which was {then stationed In Arizona. There he had plenty of opportunity to show that fearlessness which had won him a commission, and that he was fully equal to the occaSlon Is attested by the fact that he wears a medal of honor bestowed by congress for a heroic exploit in the Apache campaign, where Gen. Leonard Wood, then a young army surgeon, won similar recognition. In a light on CiMou creek the soldiers, leaving several badly wounded men on the ground behind them, had been driven along to a place of shelter by the Apaches. No sooner were the troops safely lodged than voluif tears were called to bring In the wounded men. Lieutenant Carter was one of those who volunteered, and In the face of a galling fire from the Indians, who were protected behind the rocks on the hillside, he went forth with two companions, and one by one brought in the wounded. Not long after the Cl bleu creek light the White Mountain Apaches, who were supposedly friendly, left the reservation and took to the warpath. Fort Apache, an Isolated post, was out off by ths Indians, and for a week the members of the garrison, of whom Carter was one, fought heroically to hold off the swarming foe. Death was the least thing feared. There were women in the garrison, and this leaves nothing to be said in further explanation of the horrors that would follow capture. During ths siege Lieutenant Carter bore hli share of the vigil and the' lighting. For a week the command managed to hold off the Apaehes, and then aid came and the troops .were relieved. The arduous service which. Captain Carter had gone through In the field brought him a staff appointment In 1897, when hte jvaa appointed major and assistant adjutant general. He served In the adjutant general's department until 1908, when he Was appointed a brigadier general In the regular army. Two years before that he had been appointed a brigadier general of volunteers and tn the Philippine insurrection he saw his share of the fighting hi the field. Since then he has served on command of various departments of the army.

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