University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII

On June 26th, 1875, Walter Reed was appointed
Assistant Surgeon in the Medical Corps of the United States
Army with the rank of first lieutenant. His oath of office
reached him a few days later in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where he was visiting
his father, who was still moving about the state on behalf of
his church as briskly as in his younger days.

“I, Walter Reed,” the oath read, “having been ap-
91.

pointed an Assistant Surgeon in the Military Service of the United
States, do solemnly swear that I have never voluntarily borne arms
against the United States since I have become a citizen thereof;
that I have voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel
or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto;
that I have neither sought nor accepted nor attempted to exercise
the functions of any office whatever, under any authority or pre-
tended authority, in hostility to the United States; that I have not
yielded a voluntary support to any pretended government, authority,
power or constitution within the United States hostile or inimical
thereto. And I do further swear that, to the best of my knowledge
and ability, I will support and defend the Constitution of the
United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I
will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this
obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of
evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties
of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

Walter Reed, a rebel, although an inactive one, a dozen
years before against the authority of the United States, unhesi-
tatingly signed the oath with his clear, bold signature. He had no
doubts about the wisdom of his choice. Then he went to Murfrees-
boro to visit the Lawrences and wait for his orders.

On July 23rd he was ordered to the Army post at Willets
Point, Long Island. Between the novelty of his new life and hap-
py musing over the future, he forgot his birthday.

“Would you, could you believe that I would allow my
twenty-fifth birthday to pass without so much as thinking of it
during the whole day,” he inquired of his fiancee. “The very day
92.

on which I wrote you last I was twenty-four years old (just think
of it), and yet I was totally ignorant of it. Of course, I felt
the weight of years more than usual on that day, but I could not
account for it. Suddenly on Tuesday the 14, it occurred to me that
I was one year older and immediately the cause of my fatigue
flashed across my mind.” Becoming serious, he asked himself what
he had to show for his years. “What good deeds have I done that
merit approbation! How negligent and wayward have I been! What
golden moments of opportunity have come and gone, all unheeded!
As I look back over my past life to-night, but few thoughts occur
to me such as cause my bosom to swell with honest pride.” Thus the
twenty-four year old doctor, who had entered his medical career at
an age then when most boys were preparing for college and who al-
ready had years of practice behind him, upbraided himself for his
squandered youth.

To him the serious side of life was always uppermost, but
his cheerful and enthusiastic disposition usually prevented him
from lapsing into melancholy. His more characteristic attitude was
resolution, as appears from a letter to his future wife about this
time on the death of her little nephew.

“Alas, while I prayed that his life might be prolonged
to many years of usefulness, he had already departed for a better
and a brighter home....little pilgrim of a few days what sad, sad
hours you have escaped!...... When I see the little lambs hastening home,
I would not call them back, for though I have scarcely begun life,
I have known what sorrow is and felt the weight of care. Do not
think that I shrink from meeting life's realities. No, no. That
93.

would display a lack of courage and a want of faith. Nowr that I
would not wish to live many years yet. It may be that God in his
all-wise Providence has some wise purpose for me, humble as I am,
to fulfil, and shall I,” questioned the minister's son, “shrink
from it?”

Had he had certain knowledge of his own future, he could
not have written more prophetically.

* * *

That future almost got off to a bad start. Just before
his wedding, which was to take place in the spring of 1876, Reed
was ordered to Arizona. He was stunned. It was unthinkable to
drag a new wife into the unknown and distant west, equally
unthinkable to postpone his marriage. His feelings toward Uncle
Sam, to whom he usually referred as “a good-natured old chap,”
must have been, for the moment at least, mixed.

The young officer conceived the idea of going to Washington
to discuss his orders with the Surgeon General. It was probably
not, he supposed, the most correct military procedure in the world,
but surely General Barnes, remote and god-like though he was, would
understand how pressing his problem was and suggest a solution.
The thought of approaching the august personage might be appalling,
but it was less appalling thatn the idea of plunging Emilie into the
wilds or of leaving her behind indefinitely. So he went to Washington.

Reed, although preoccupied with his mission, was not in-
different theto the appearance of the capital city, with which he had
already formed a slight acquaintance on several previous trips.
Since he had first passed through it half a dozen years before, as
94.

a medical graduate still in his teens, the city had changed vastly.
He observed that paved streets and sidewalks had replaced the dusty
roads. Street lights had been erected, whose flickering gas glow
made the passage along them less hazardous after dark. Sewers had
been installed, parks laid out and thousands of trees planted along
the avenues, to the mounting outcries from bleeding taxpayers against
“squandering the public funds” to convert the seat of government
from a wasteland to a suitable capital.

Congress was again discussing resumption of work on
the Washington Monument, whose abandoned base, desolate and shabby,
stood on the Mall, less a reminder of the father of his country than
of public parsimony and Congressional indifference. Even now, as
he approached the Surgeon General's office, Reed could glimpse, far-
ther along Pennsylvania Avenue beyond the White House, the partially
finished State, War and Navy Building, an extraordinary granite con-
fection adorned with a cascade of small columns that made the criti-
cal eye reel.

The short trip from the station, however, dislodged his
problem from his mind only for a few minutes. With sinking heart
he entered the old bank building on Pennsylvania Avenue opposite
the Treasury, where General Joseph K. Barnes and his small staff
had their modest offices. Smoothing his hair, straightening his
uniform jacket and hoping that his appearance would pass muster,
Reed asked for the Surgeon General. Barnes, a gruff old gentleman
with side-whiskers, who had been head of the Medical Corps since
the later years of the Civil War, glanced up from his desk as Reed
was announced.

“Sit down,” the general ordered the lieutenant without
95.

ceremony.

Reed obeyed.

“Now, sir,” he demanded abruptly, “what do you want?”

Reed was glad, since his interview was plainly to be with-
out social trimmings, that he had a faculty for concise statement.

“I should like to know, sir,” he answered, “if I can get leave
while I am stationed in the west. I am engaged to be married, and
shall want to return for my wedding.”

His throat was dry when he finished speaking, and he observed
the clouding of his chief's brow with apprehension.

“Young man, if you don't like your orders, leave the service,”
the general snapped.

Reed heard him with utter astonishment that instantly gave
way to indignation. He had asked a simple question, irregular per-
haps but innocent, and he had too keen a sense of his own rights
and dignity to lie down under this undeserved rebuff. His nervous-
ness replaced by his sense of outrage, he retorted,

“General Barnes, I did not labor with all my will for my
commission just to toss it away lightly. Neither can I be deprived
of it except for unworthy conduct!”

The older man took another look at his subordinate. He
remarked the erect military posture, the unsmiling, almost stub-
born mouth, the keen blue eyes that did not waver from his own.
Here was a man, it occurred to him, who was the kind of material
they needed in the Medical Corps. His officers were too often
treated with scant regard by the line officers, and a man who ex-
pected and could enforce respect, who could stand up for himself
with firmness and courtesy even against a superior, would be a good
96.

thing for the service. A good boy, Barnes thought approvingly.
His scowl faded.

“Have a cigar, Dr. Reed,” he suggested mildly, “and let's
talk this thing over.”

When Reed left his chief some half-hour later, he was
puzzled and thoughtful. It had again been impressed on him that
a man always had to make his important decisions for himself. Some
officer stationed in the west, the general had said, would “probably”
become insane “in a few months.” He should postpone his marriage,
go to Arizona, and take a chance on being designated to escort this
problematical poor fellow to St. Elizabeth's, the Federal asylum at
Washington. There would be the opportunity for his wedding, Barnes
had pointed out. What a prospect to offer a young man in love!
Aside from that, the idea of gambling on the misfortune of a fellow
officer repelled him. What a solution for a general to suggest! A
first lieutenant should be able to think of something better than
that. Reed did.

The next few weeks passed so rapidly, in such a blur of
happiness and haste, that it was not until he was on the train,
making the long trip from New York to the coast with the recruits
that he was escorting to California, that Reed was able to assemble
his recollections and sensations. His dominant feeling was a sol-
emn and slightly incredulous happinesst happiness: he was a Married
Man. Whatever shocks or disappointments the future could contrive
for him, he could face them with calmness now, with Emilie to share
them and encourage him. He felt steeped in well-being and confidence.

The wedding had been held rather suddenly, on April 25th,
97.

18776, at Murfreesboro. Then Reed had taken his wife to his father's
home at Harrisonburg, in the Shenandoah Valley, forand for several
happy, swift weeks they had been together. They had gone for
long walks through the countryside, just stirring with spring; and
sitting with their backs against a battle-scarred tree they had
discussed and planned the future. They had played with this half-
sister Annie, no longer the baby he had left behind when he went
to New York, but a big girl nine years old, who was disappointed
that she had missed the wedding. Reed had had his picture taken
in uniform, arms folded across his chest, a confident, grave-look-
ing young man of twenty-five, with straight eyebrows, direct glance
and slightly outthrust lower lip.

Then his leave was up, it seemed to them both, almost as
soon as it began, and he had to leave Emilie with Pa and his family
while he went to the frontier post where she would join him in the
fall, when travel was more comfortable and after he had made arrange-
ments for her comfort. As he jiggled over the endless miles of
track, he sometimes caught himself wondering if it all actually
had happened. Nothing seemed outwardly changed; inside, however,
he felt a different man, transformed by this new feeling of pride
and responsibility and happiness.

The trip from New York to San Francisco took eight days
and nights. The recruits were bored, played cards and occasionally
quarrelled, but Reed, with his unflagging enthusiasm for new ex-
periences, was delighted with every moment of it. The great
west had captured his fancy when he was a tow-headed little boy
studying his first geogtraphy lessons at Mrs. Booker's school. The
idea of seeing it had teased him ever since, becoming more insis-
98.

tent as a result of his depression with the city and the persuasions
of his friend Torney. Now he was actually penetrating into it,
rolling jouncingly along the thin gleaming rails that railroad pio-
neers had adventurously, doggedly, and in an atmosphere of resounding
financial scandal, stretched all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Beyond Omaha, where the famous Union Pacific began, the
train toiled through Nebraska and Wyoming, over whose plains the
bison, which a decade earlier had wandered by the millions, now
wandered by the thousands, and left their whitening bones as a mem-
orial to the white man's wasteful slaughter. The vast expanse of
this country astonished the young man used to the domesticated na-
ture and the shrunken distances of the settled east. Confined with
in the cramped railway carriage, covered with soot and sometimes
smothered with alkaline dust, he wrote long letters to his wife, tell-
ing her that he missed her, and that he was enthusiastic about this
wild immensity. He mailed them at the wayside stops where, in those
days before dining cars, the passengers debarked to fight with
swarms of flies for the greasy, ill-cooked food served at long tables
in public dining rooms close to the station.

Arriving tired and dirty and still enthusiastic in San Fran-
cisco, whose old frame houses and wooden sidewalks teetered on
the steeply pitched hillsides, he took the little coastwise steamer
Orizaba to San Diego, and fully appreciated, for the first time,
George Torney's preference for dry land. Probably he began to
question it, however, on the wearisome overland route across the
coastal range to Fort Yuma, where he arrived about the first of June,
in time to savor at its height the famous climate with which, accor-
ding to garrison tradition, Hell itself compared favorably.

His two months at this hottest of all Army posts, where
99.

the thermometer day after scorching day mounted to a hundred and
fifteen degrees in the blistering shade, was not enough to accus-
tom him to the routine and monotony of post life. His most vivid
recollection of this short tour of duty centered on the infantry
captain with whom he shared one of the cramped, bare quarters re-
served for the bachelor officers. This officer, whose imposing
bulk amounted to some two hundred and fifty pounds, always appeared
at dinner in his underwear for maximum relief from the heat, equipped
with a fan and a towel to wipe his face. Seated opposite his swel-
tering and fully clothed junior, he would politely serve him with
a slice or two from the substantial roast of range beef before him,
then fanning and mopping heartily he would consume the rest of
it to the last scrap, emptying a large pitcher of water between
mouthfuls. Reed's amazement at this gastronomic stunt was equalled
only by his respect for the digestive apparatus that could absorb
such punishment.

He was snatched from admiration of this wonder in early
August, 1876, by orders to proceed to Fort Lowell, near Tuscon,
near Tucson, Arizona.

100.