“I realized, sir, that the combination does not belong in Nature’s plan, any more than mixing politics with the United States Army.”
“Ha, ha!” went the General. “Ha, ha! Not in Nature’s plan!” And he proceeded to drop the necessary lemon-juice upon the Secretary’s luckless raw oyster.
To poor Leonidas’s original letter was now added a third duly dated indorsement: “Respectfully returned to the commanding officer, Fort Chiricahua, A. T. The Commanding General approves of your action in this case. The provoking speech of Priv’t Leonidas Bateau, Troop I, 4th Cav’y, on the occasion of his visiting the quarters of his troop commander being considered sufficient grounds for the harsh treatment administered.” This, with the signature of the Assistant Adjutant-General, arrived at Fort Chiricahua, and was followed by a fourth indorsement dated there and signed by the Post Adjutant: “Respectfully returned to the commanding officer, Troop I, 4th Cav’y, inviting attention to the 2d and 3d indorsements hereon, the contents of which will be communicated to Pvt. Leonidas Bateau, Troop I, 4th Cav. By order of,” etc.
The wheels of redress had turned, all the wheels, and ground out nothing. His troop commander sent for Leonidas and read him the indorsements. Leonidas, being instructed by a “guard-house lawyer,” demanded his papers, which were delivered to him, as was his right. These now went with his appeal to Washington. For Leonidas had written home to Sistah Smith, who had written to a Congressman, who had replied that he was ever for justice. Thus, with a long new letter from Leonidas to the Secretary of War (whose silence still remained unaccountable), did official tidings of the outrage to American manhood at length, through the Adjutant General’s Department, come to the man of the “portofolee—O.”
Buttons were pressed and clerks despatched with messages; and there ensued a conference between the Congressman, the Adjutant-General, the Secretary of War, and the Lieutenant-General himself. The Congressman stated the case; the Secretary was quite uneasy, and talked a great deal, taking care not to express a single idea; but the Lieutenant-General was quite easy and talked only thus much:
“Called her his sister? Got kicked? I should think so!”
“General, this is good in you to help us,” said the Secretary, with symptoms of relief. “I did not wish to reach this conclusion without your corroboration.”
Thus ended the conference. The original letter of Leonidas with its four indorsements pasted on it, and making quite a budget, now started its return course bearing a fifth indorsement containing the Secretary of War’s opinion signed by one of the Assistant Adjutants-General. It travelled through the back channels that you know, passing Whipple Barracks and reaching the hungry, unsated Leonidas many weeks after all traces had vanished from his trousers. During these weeks his life had been made a sorry thing by that song about the blister. Not even the sympathy of Cousin Xerxes could sweeten his embittered days. They were wholesome for him, to be sure; they began to cure him of being a watermelon; they even gave him gradually a just estimate of the Secretary’s speech at McPherson, and he grew into a strapping young trooper with many of the trooper’s habits in moderation. The only profane language that he used was in connection with the Secretary of War, whose tricky official language in his indorsement had utterly dodged his promise to stand behind him. But Leonidas could not comfortably live in a place where everybody remembered how he had (as Jones put it) “run around showing his pants.” He took his discharge at the first opportunity, and became an eminent cow-boy in the neighborhood, with a man’s full strength in his sinews, and a man’s anger silent in his heart. The hour for him to smile had not yet come.
IV. The Energy is Once Again Transmitted
You will doubtless have perceived the flaw in the Secretary’s conduct before I can point it out to you. He should have written a letter to poor Leonidas with his own hand. It might not have been the easiest kind of letter for you or for me to compose; but for a statesman of the Secretary’s ripeness it ought to have been the affair of five minutes. A few words of deep sympathy, a few words of hot indignation, a few words of sincere regret that he had not yet had time to remove all the obstructions which a despotic tradition set between him and the enlisted man—and, best of all, a few words of promise to see Leonidas on his coming tour through the Southwest—such a letter as this would have made Leonidas proud and happy, and comforted forever the tingling sensations that pierced him whenever he thought of his final choir practice. But as Leonidas seemed no longer of any possible use to the Secretary, the Secretary forgot all about him!