My Captain, Captain Ernest Hinds, joined the Battery soon after our arrival and commanded the Battery throughout my stay at Fort Riley. He was perhaps the most brilliant, and certainly the most unassuming officer that I ever served under. I was his Reconnaissance Officer for more than two years, and during the period of four or five hours each day that I spent with him at drill or at target practice I received most valuable training and instruction in Field Artillery technique -- such as I could not have gotten anywhere else.
I recall one incident that occurred during this period. The Regiment (with its six Batteries), with a Wagon Train of Army and Escort wagons fully loaded with hay and oats, had set out for a week's Field Exercise. The Kaw River ran along one side of the Fort Riley Reservation and there is a natural contour of "rim rock" parallel to the river and perhaps 200 feet above it. The debris resulting from erosion forms a steep slope from the rim rock down to the level of the river. The first day of the Exercise included some exercises conducted on the Reservation, above the rim rock. Near the end of the day the Regimental Commander sent for me, stated that he was going to move the regiment, by road, to a camp for the night in 4-mile Canyon. This camp site was practically in sight of our position at the time, but to reach it by road required about a ten mile trip. He directed me to take charge of the Wagon Train (perhaps 15 Army or Escort wagons) and bring them in to camp. Had I followed the regiment (as he expected me to do) I would not have gotten into camp until late that night. Captain Hinds had trained our Battery, the guns and caissons of which were equipped with positive and powerful brakes, in moving up and down across the rim rock. At our position there was a vertical drop of about six feet from the edge of the rim rock, and then began a steep slope (of perhaps 35 degrees), several hundred feet long down to the level of the road in the bottom of the canyon in which the camp was to be located. I decided to take the wagon train down over the rim rock. I dismounted the drivers, had them pile some rocks over the edge of the rim rock to eliminate the six foot drop, and prepared to send down the first wagon, which was top heavy with a big load of baled hay. The terrain was such that a wagon, on getting over the rim rock had to move down a steep slope, generally parallel to the rim rock, for about 75 yards, and then make a sharp, right angle turn and go down the long slope to the road below. It was necessary to make this right angle turn because otherwise it would go over the edge of a ravine, with a sheer drop of perhaps 50 feet. I instructed the driver and the assistant driver to keep the foot brake of the wagon applied hard, and started them off. The wagon gained speed rapidly, the mules began to gallop, both drivers fell off the seat and were being dragged along the ground while holding precariously to the wagon tongue, the brakes were off entirely, and the six mule team was headed, at a run, for the 50 foot drop into the ravine. There was no earthly power that could have prevented the mules, with the wagon and the two drivers, from catapulting over the edge of the ravine. The drivers of the other wagons and I held our breaths and watched them helplessly. The lashings of the top heavy load of hay loosened and the hay scattered along the route of the bouncing wagon, the drivers maintaining their holds onto the wagon tongue.
Just at the moment when we were expecting to see them all disappear over the edge, the linch pin of the right front wheel came out, the wheel came off, and the axle dug into the ground, bringing the wagon to a halt with the noses of the lead mules about three feet from the edge. We reassembled and reloaded the wagon, and it was in as good condition as ever (a tribute to the capacity to the old Army -- or Escort -- wagons to take punishment.) We turned it at a right angle, turned all four wheels so they could not turn, tied the brakes on, had a man run along beside each wheel with a chock to throw under the wheel to prevent it from sliding, and started it down the long slope. In spite of all our precautions to slow up the wagon its speed increased so that the mules went down at a run. However it reached the bottom safely and each of the other wagons in turn followed and also made the descent safely. We arrived at the camp safely ahead of the regiment. The Regimental Commander was incredulous when I told him, in as casual a way as possible, that we had come down over the rim rock, and he and his staff later rode out to satisfy themselves, I suppose, from the wagon tracks that we had actually done so.
This incident served to enhance my reputation as an efficient young officer and the Regimental Commander thereafter generally put me in charge of the train during the frequent Exercises that we participated in.
I mention this incident for this reason: Had Providence not intervened, the mules, wagons and drivers would undoubtedly have been destroyed, and I feel sure that the Investigating Board could not have found otherwise than that, due to my poor judgement and inefficiency, the accident had resulted, with the result that my whole future as an an officer would have been seriously impaired. Actually, as matters worked out, the incident redounded considerably to my credit. I know of no better example of how delicate is the balance, on the scales of Fate, between success and failure, that may exist many times in the Career of any officer (or, for that matter, of any civilian).
I may add that I never found it necessary or expedient to recount the details of the descent of the first wagon.
The School of Application for Cavalry and Field Artillery was located at Fort Riley. The first year I was there it was conducted as a Post School, and most of the Lieutenants, including me, attended it. The next year it was changed to a War Department School and, in order to get credit for attendance, it was necessary to be detailed by War Department orders to attend the school again. There was much competition among the Lieutenants for this detail, and I was very glad that, due doubtless to Captain Hind's recommendation, I was among those detailed. The course included about four hours a day in Equitation and in highschooling young horses in the Riding Hall, under Captain Walter Short (a former jockey). We also took the course in the new Cooks and Bakers school. We made all the bread for about 6000 visiting troops during an Exercise, and we made out the menus, drew the rations, and cooked the meals for the prisoners in the Post Guardhouse. (Fortunately no one objected that this was unconstitutional as being a cruel and unusual punishment.) While taking a high jump on a new horse, he shied at the hurdle and threw me up on his withers. He then began bucking and at each buck I slipped farther down his neck towards his ears. I was in a position of very unstable equilibrium. The gallery (of Post femmes) seemed to think this was very amusing. I did not share entirely their belief and I decided to end their suspense by throwing myself off the horse onto the tanbark. I landed on my right hand and injured the metacarpal bones of that wrist so that I had to keep my forearm in a plaster cast for about three months. When the cast was removed, apparently adhesions had formed which made it quite painful to try to hold anything in my right hand. During this three month's period the class had taken the Horse Shoeing course, each student being required to shoe 25 horses. In order to graduate I had to make up this work during the summer, and the necessity of using my hand, regardless of the pain involved, probably served to restore the use of the hand to the point that I was not retired for Physical disability until I was retired for age at 64.
Lieut. J. DeB. W. Gardner, Cavalry, Class of 1905, was stationed at Fort Riley. We frequently got our mail mixed up. While I was there he received orders to report to the U.S.M.A. for duty as an Instructor in History and Law. Several years later I learned that his name, through a clerical error, had been submitted to the War Department instead of mine -- an error I never regretted.
In the spring of 1907 my Battalion was sent on a trip to northern Kansas to participate in the dedication of a monument just erected to the memory of the discoverer's of Pike's Peak, and a young Captain, named S. D. Embick, an assistant to the Chief of Artillery, was sent out to accompany us on the trip. I was much attracted to him and we rode along many miles together. He talked to me at length about the courses at the Artillery School (where he had been an Instructor) and about the future of the Coast Artillery.
At that time the Artillery Corps was composed of Field Artillery units and Coast Artillery units, and an officer might be detailed in either. Major General Arthur Murray had been made Chief of Artillery and was pushing legislation to separate the Coast Artillery from the Field Artillery. I had had a most interesting and profitable tour of duty for three years with the Field Artillery, was a graduate of the school for Field Artillery officers and, due to the training I had received from Captain Hinds, my prospects for advancement in the Field Artillery were about as excellent as I could have wished. At that time the average Field Artilleryman considered that the Field Artillery should man all Horsedrawn artillery and that the Coast Artillery should man all other artillery (of which there was practically none in existence) -- and that never the twain should meet. The opportunities for specializing, in the Coast Artillery, in work of an Electrical Engineering character, as portrayed by Captain Embick, greatly appealed to me and I decided (against the recommendations of most of my friends), upon the separation of the Field and Coast Artillery, to apply for transfer to the Coast Artillery Corps, with preference for assignment to a newly organized Submarine Mine company (where it would be necessary to install their new Casemate apparatus).
I was eventually assigned to the Coast Artillery and received orders to proceed to Fort Adams, Rhode Island, for assignment to the newly organized 129th (Mine) Company.
All Artillery officers had received, some time before, a copy of the Submarine Mine Manual. I recall that I took my copy on the train with me (I had never previously looked in it) with the idea of studying it while on route to Fort Adams. After I had gotten comfortably settled, I took it out and read the first few pages, which seemed to be quite easily understood. Then reference was made, without explanation, to Plate I, showing the wiring diagram for the Power Panel, the Operating Boards and the other Casemate apparatus. I examined it carefully. It consisted of a multitude of lines, so involved that I couldn't trace any circuit in it. I began to wonder if I hadn't made a mistake in transferring to the Coast Artillery. I had never realized before how impracticable my course in Electricity had been at West Point. I did not learn to read the diagram until I went to the Coast Artillery School, about two years later.