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When a person has lived to the age of 95, it is highly unlikely that any old friends will be at hand to furnish those intimate details of the aged individual’s life which tend to throw real light on his character and achievements.</p>
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In the case of a retired officer who dies at the age of 95, there is naturally the record in the Adjutant General’s office to furnish historical data. Perhaps a recital based on that record would be more a skeleton than a living picture. All things considered, the person best qualified in such a case to sketch the life of such an officer is his nearest living relative.</p>
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With this apology, if such it be, as the oldest of <em>Wilber E. Wilder</em>’s children, I shall try to sketch his life and character as I have gleaned from his and from my own recollections.</p>
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There is little material contributed by himself because of his reluctance to discuss his experiences in any way that seemed to reflect glory or credit upon himself.</p>
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One of my earliest recollections as a boy about a cavalry post is of the affection which the men of my father’s troop held for him and of his reputation for exemplary fairness, though at the same time a strict disciplinarian. The men of his troop presented him with a sabre when he left them for staff duty. This was “H” Troop, 4th Cavalry, of which my father was Captain in 1895.</p>
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Skipping many years, to illustrate again his feeling for his men—in his last illness, when at times in the hospital his imagination placed him once more in command of his troop out on the plains, his first interest was in issuing orders for the comfort and protection of his men and his horses. One of his nurses asked him when he was again entirely himself what his chief concern was, and he answered promptly and in his usual emphatic military way “The first things I always thought of were my men and my horses”.</p>
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One more incident on the day of his funeral speaks of his character as a soldier. An aged veteran of the 14th New York “Volunteers”, which he commanded as Colonel in the Spanish-American war told me how my father rode into the regimental camp and saw an open drain which he ordered closed up as his very first act. His second act was to order all water to be boiled. His third, they said, was to requisition Washington by telegram for water filters which arrived in short order, and got the bully beef which they were using condemned, and there was bacon substituted for it. This old veteran said “Your father saved the lives of the whole regiment”.</p>
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My father once told me with pride that when he took the 5th Cavalry, of which he was Colonel, into Mexico with General Pershing, he didn’t lose a single horse on the long ride down and back.</p>
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A former officer of this regiment has written of his own experience when my father was in command at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. He wrote that my father was very strict in demanding of each officer his best efforts, but that practically always any officer disciplined was more than ready to admit the Justice of the discipline, and as I have heard from many other sources, too, no past offense was ever held against an offender. This officer also recalled how the Colonel was always ready to have a drink at the mess with Doak or Hanson or others of the young officers who had just joined after graduation from West Point.</p>
<p>
Wilber Elliott Wilder graduated from West Point in June, 1877, when he was just short of 21 years old. His age at graduation is accounted for by the fact that, due to an error, he was just under 17 when he entered the Military Academy in June of 1873. He and his classmates did not join their respective regiments until December of that year because the Army had no funds for their pay and maintenance. Imagine, if you can, Congress not making appropriations to cover the then extremely tenuous military establishment consisting of not over 25,000 troops, including, as I understand, all the supply and staff departments.</p>
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Young Wilder’s inactivity during this first brief period of his military career was the prelude to very considerable activity extending over many years. Having been assigned to the 4th Cavalry, which was then engaged in frequent campaigns against the Indians, he was never absent from his command during any of the 10 or 15 years on any occasion when they were in the field. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and brevet captaincy while he was still a First Lieutenant commanding a troop of the 4th Cavalry. He carried off a wounded soldier who had been left between the Indians and the troops during a forced retreat which the troops had made.</p>
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To my mind, however, his greatest single exploit was his ride into Geronimo’s camp at the end of a year’s pursuit by General Nelson A. Miles. No one knew whether the Indians would surrender, or whether anyone venturing into their camp to find out would ever return. For this service General Miles was always a devoted friend.</p>
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These are incidents of the old frontier days I have learned from other sources than my father, who hardly ever mentioned anything to his personal credit. I have confirmation of my father’s ride into the Indian camp by no less a person than the late General Leonard Wood, who wrote a letter in which he referred directly to this achievement.</p>
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With the old days of the frontier well in the past, my father was stationed at West Point as Adjutant of the Military Academy in 1895. In 1898, in the Spanish-American war he commanded the 14th New York “Volunteers”. After in the Philippine insurrection he was Lieutenant Colonel of new “Volunteers”, but never served with his regiment because he was assigned by General Arthur MacArthur first to organize and command the Maccabebe Scouts, and after nearly capturing Aguinaldo, he was detailed to the staff of General Arthur MacArthur in Manila. As Colonel of the 5th Cavalry, he was second in command in General Pershing’s Expeditionary Force into Mexico.</p>
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His efficiency as a line officer was abundantly recognized by important assignments to field duty, but his record in time of peace was hardly less distinguished. He was detailed to staff duty as adjutant general and as inspector general of departments, into which the continental U.S. was formerly divided. As Colonel of the 5th Cavalry he received the special commendation of General Leonard Wood, then Chief of Staff, for the regiment’s extraordinarily fine showing. As soon as practicable after his inspection of the regiment, General Wood had it moved from Fort Huachuca to Fort Myer, where my father was in command until World War I.</p>
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The early promise of great military rewards, which his career abounded in, was not fruitful in his latest years in the Army, although he was three times recommended, by General Arthur MacArthur, General Greeley and General Wood, respectively, for the rank of Brigadier General. It seems he was much too outspoken to retain the favor of the powers that then held the reins in Washington, and he finally retired in 1920 as a Colonel. It was not until after his retirement that, by Special Act of Congress, he and four other retired Colonels were promoted to the grade of Brigadier General, which rank he had held temporarily during World War I.</p>
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General Wilder died in the Post Hospital at Fort Jay, Governors Island, N.Y., on January 30, 1952. He was accorded an eleven gun salute at noon of the day of his funeral, which was with full military honors. He was buried in Ridgefield, Connecticut, his home for 25 years. The ceremonies at the cemetery were honored by the presence of a representative of Governor Lodge of Connecticut, and by a detail from the Veterans of Foreign Wars.</p>
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Some seven years after his graduation, the gallant young Lieutenant of Cavalry won the heart of the lovely sister of a brother officer with whom he had campaigned against the Indians. The officer was Captain John W. Martin of the 4th Cavalry, and his sister was Violet Blair Martin. Lieutenant Wilder and Miss Martin were married at the bride’s ancestral home—Willowbrook—Owasco Lake, about four miles from Auburn, N.Y.</p>
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Over the following years children were born to them—Throop Martin Wilder, the late Mrs. Alvary Gascoigne (nee Sylvia Wilder), Wilber E. Wilder, Jr., Cornelia Martin Wilder, and Violet Blair Wilder.</p>
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<em>—Throop Wilder</em></p>
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