has receded into the vista of memory, while to the South it is a
wound not yet wholly healed.

* * * * *

There have been no great American soldiers since the Civil War--at
least, there has been no chance for them to prove their greatness, for
there is only one test of a soldier and that is the battlefield. When
George A. Custer was ambushed and his command wiped out by the Sioux in
1876, a wave of sorrow went over the land for the dashing, fair-haired
leader and his devoted men; yet the very fact that he had led his men
into a trap clouded such military reputation as he had gained during the
last years of the war.

The war with Spain was too brief to make any reputations, though it was
long enough to ruin several. The man who gained most glory in that
conflict was "Fighting Joe" Wheeler, veteran of Shiloh, of Murfreesboro,
of Chickamauga, dashing like a gnat against Sherman's flanks, and
annoying him mightily on that march to the sea; a southerner of the
southerners, and yet with a great patriotism which sent him to the front
in 1898, and a hard experience which enabled him to save the day at
Santiago, when the general in command lay in a hammock far to the rear.

Let us pause, too, for mention of Nelson A. Miles, who had volunteered
at the opening of the Civil War, fought in every battle of the Army of
the Potomac up to the surrender at Appomattox, been thrice wounded and
as many times brevetted for gallantry; the conqueror of the Cheyenne,
Comanche and Sioux Indians in the years following the war; and finally
attaining the rank of commander-in-chief of the army of the United
States; to find himself, as Winfield Scott had done, at odds politically
with the head of the War Department and with the President, and kept at
home when a war was raging. For the same reason as Scott had been,
perhaps, since some of his admirers had talked of him for the
presidency. He was released, at last, to command the expedition against
Porto Rico, which resulted in the complete and speedy subjugation of
that island. A careful and intelligent, if not a brilliant soldier, he
is, perhaps, the most eminent figure which the years since the great
rebellion have developed.

* * * * *

Looking back over the military history of the country since its
beginning, it is evident that America has produced no soldier of
commanding genius--no soldier, for instance, to rank with Napoleon,