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Updated: June 28, 2025
These incidents determined me to remain where I was till the return of a staff-officer whom I had sent over to demand an explanation from the group of Confederates for which I had been heading. He came back in a few minutes with apologies for what had occurred, and informed me that General Gordon and General Wilcox were the superior officers in the group.
Our car stopped with startling abruptness in response to the upraised hand of a giant in khaki whose high-crowned sombrero and the brass letters on his shoulder-straps showed that he was a trooper of the Alberta Horse. On his arm was a red brassard bearing the magic letters M. P. Military Police. "Better not go any farther, sir," he said, addressing the staff-officer who was my companion.
General Wood has been so severely criticised for his obedience to this fatal order that perhaps I should add this further explanation, contained in the letter from which I have quoted above: "After the battle was over, and it was apparent that Rosecrans's ill-considered order had led to a disaster, he offered as an explanation of it the statement that some staff-officer had reported to him that Brannan was out of line, and that he intended I should close to the left on Reynolds, and that I overlooked this direction to close to the left on Reynolds.
It was when a staff-officer of ours, rather the worse for wine, had been making a scene with the head waiter, bullying him in a strident voice. "Some English gentlemen are swine," said the young waiter. "But all German gentlemen are swine." Some of our officers and men billeted in houses outside Cologne or across the Rhine endeavored to stand on distant terms with the "Huns."
After he got his troop, he became Brigade-Major to Sir Baker Russell's Cavalry Brigade at Meerut Camp of Exercise, and was appointed Station Staff-Officer and Cantonment Magistrate at Muttra. With all these duties he found time for sketching and writing, publishing Reconnaissance and Scouting, and sending many interesting sketches to the Graphic.
There was a low, semicircular seat with a man in it behind a large steering wheel, a seat so slanted that its occupant was practically recumbent. He had ear-flaps and monstrous goggles. I had a momentary mental picture of him as some Roman staff-officer rushing back to the base in his chariot. He had an imperious air as he glared at me and backed his machine with one hand to straighten it.
For to arrive officially at Simla they have had to climb in more ways than one...It is all so hilarious, so high-spirited, so young and yet, my word! what a cult of official dignity underlying! I saw a staff-officer in full uniform, red and white feathers and all, going to the birthday dinner at the Viceroy's the other evening in a perambulator rickshaw, you know, such as they have in Japan.
But there was no help for it, so after reflecting on the matter a little I concluded to make the best of the situation. As in Virginia I should be operating in a field with which I was wholly unfamiliar, and among so many who were strangers, it seemed to me that it would be advisable to have, as a chief staff-officer, one who had had service in the East, if an available man could be found.
"With our glasses we'll be able to watch the infantry go in." "Yes, very well." "We're all used to how it feels, now we'll see how it looks at a distance," piped one of the soldiers. Not until he had shouted to them did they notice a division staff-officer who had come up from the road. He had a piece of astounding news to impart before he mentioned official business.
He summoned the parties in this public unbosoming before him. Major Turner said that Major John J. Key, staff-officer to General McClellan, was asked why the Unionists had not bagged the rebel army soon after the battle of Sharpsburg, whereupon he replied: "That was not the game!
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