TEXAS
Whenever I think of San Antonio and Fort Sam Houston, the perfume
of the wood violet which blossomed in mid-winter along the
borders of our lawn, and the delicate odor of the Cape jessamine,
seem to be wafted about me.
Fort Sam Houston is the Headquarters of the Department of Texas,
and all the Staff officers live there, in comfortable stone
houses, with broad lawns shaded by chinaberry trees. Then at the
top of the hill is a great quadrangle, with a clock tower and all
the department offices. On the other side of this quadrangle is
the post, where the line officers live.
General Stanley commanded the Department. A fine, dignified and
able man, with a great record as an Indian fighter. Jack knew him
well, as he had been with him in the first preliminary survey for
the northern Pacific Railroad, when he drove old Sitting Bull
back to the Powder River.
He was now about to reach the age of retirement; and as the day
approached, that day when a man has reached the limit of his
usefulness (in the opinion of an ever-wise Government), that day
which sounds the knell of active service, that day so dreaded and
yet so longed for, that day when an army officer is sixty-four
years old and Uncle Sam lays him upon the shelf, as that day
approached, the city of San Antonio, in fact the entire State of
Texas poured forth to bid him Godspeed; for if ever an army man
was beloved, it was General Stanley by the State of Texas.
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