People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1897 — GEN. RUGER RETIRES. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GEN. RUGER RETIRES.

STORY OF A VETERAN SOLDIER’S STORMY CAREER. Graduated from the Military Academy In 1864 —Among His Classmate* Were Gen. Stuart and Gen. Lee —He Saw the First Smoke of Battle In Civil War.

s=.SSff> homas howard Ruger, majorfill general of the United States army, who was retired according to law on April 2, has been a fighting V man for fortyJ ij three years. The retirement of an army officer is al-

ways a source of gratification to other army officers, lower in rank, and General Ruger’s is not an exception to the rule. The usual promotions will follow and the effect of the retirement will be felt in military posts throughout the entire country. The general himself does not share the pleasurable feelings his exit from the service inspires in the breasts of his blue-coated, epauleted co-officers. Although he is he is by no means superannuated, literally, and would, if left to his own desires, continue in the command of the department of the east. But the law is plain. His term of office is filled and he must spend his remaining years in such pursuits as his means or inclination dictate. The prospect for him, indeed, is not over brilliant, for long custom has used

him to the regularity of army life and the rupture must necessarily be violent. His desires will be sundered and many of them will be left behind with his eagles at headquarters. General Ruger is a native of New York. He was born, as may be gathered from the date of his retirement, on April 2, in 1833. When he came out of the military academy in 1854 he stood third in a large class. That class was headed by G. W. Custis Lee, a son of Robert E. Lee, and among its members was J. E. B. Stuart, who not many years afterward earned a reputation of a dashing and able cavalry leader in the forces of the confederate army. On his graduation he was given brevet of second lieutenant of engineers, and for one year he served the army at New Orleans, This much experience did not seem to please him with his prospects, and in 1885 he resigned and turned his attention to the law as offer’ng him a wider scope for his capacities than the barracks. He returned to his home in Janesville,. Wis., and practiced law from 1856 until 1861. I In the five years he spent in civil life Lieutenant Ruger did not forget the training he had received on the Hudson. When the war came he promptly closed up his law practice and offered himself to the United States as a soldier. Men like Ruger were not to be picked up on bridges, and he was given a commission as a Ueutenantcolonel in the Third Volunteers of Wisconsin. He was in command of that regiment during the operations in Maryland and the Shenandoah Valley from 1861 until 1862. Meanwhile he had been promoted to a colonelcy. He took part in the movement to Harrisonburg; Va., in the combat of Winchester, in the retreat to Williamsport, in the advance to Little Washington, in the battle of Cedar Mountain, and the whole of the northern Virginia campaign, in the battle of Antietam and the later march to Falmouth. I All this he did as a colonel. In 1862 the army of the Potomac was wanting an efficient commander, and Colonel Ruger was made a general of the brigade in the volunteer service. He was assigned to a brigade in the Seventeenth Corps of the Army of the Potomac. He fought in the campaign of the Rappahannock, was an important figure in the battle of Chancellorsville, and commanded one of the divisions in the battle of Gettysburg. Next the general went south and had a brigade in the Twentieth corps and helped to invade Georgia. He took part in the battle of Resaca May 15, 1864, fought against Hood in Tennessee, and was mustered out on Sept. 1, 1866. During his career in the volunteer service General Ruger was a fearless commander and possessed the instinct of quick, and correct action in emergencies. In 1864 he was brevetted majorgeneral of volunteers for “gallant and meritorious services” at the battle of Franklin, and in 1867 he was ;hrevetted brigadier general of the United States army for the same sort of service he had rendered at the battle of Gettysburg. He served as provisional governor of Georgia for six months while he was at Atlanta. In 1866 he wa3 reappointed in the regular army as colonel of the Thirty-fifth

Infantry. He was in command of the district of Alabama until 1869, when he was transferred to the Seventyeighth infantry. General Ruger was superintendent of the military academy from 1871 until 1876. He was then placed in command of the department of the south, and later went west as commander of the district of Montana. In 1886, after two years as commander of the department of the Missouri, he was transferred to Dakota, where he remained until 1891, when he was given command of the military division of the Pacific ccast. The general came east from that position when General Miles succeeded to the command of the army. General Ruger has won many friends during his stay in New York. He has not as yet matured any plana for the future. It is pretty generally admitted that General Ruger’s place will be filled by Major-General Wesley Merritt, now in command of the headquarters of the Missouri at Chicago.

MAJ.-GEN. RUGER.