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In 1879 when Second Lieutenant <em>Frederick S. Foltz</em> graduated from the Military Academy, he joined his regiment, the 1st Cavalry, on the frontiers. The grass had hardly covered the shallow graves of the cavalrymen who died in the Battle of the Little Big Horn.</p>
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In 1952 when Brigadier General Frederick S. Foltz, then the oldest living graduate of the Military Academy, died in Walter Reed Hospital our frontiers had passed the plains and the mountains and leapt two oceans. More recent graduates were pushing their patrols forward in Korea and masses of American armor were maneuvering in Germany.</p>
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It was his constant awareness of the importance of the present, his eagerness to anticipate the future and his refusal to live in the past which, perhaps, chiefly distinguished General Foltz. Or perhaps it was his insistence on forceful action. “Make up your mind and then do if! Mistakes are forgiveable. Inaction never!” Coupled with these qualities was a supreme contempt for what he called “Red Tape”, for the person who lived by the book, for the fellow-officer who waited for “authority” before he did what it was evident must be done.</p>
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These qualities made him a fine officer and especially a fine cavalry officer in the days when walkie-talkies were unknown and decisions of life and death had to be made without reference to “higher authority”. But when such trouble developed he shrugged it off. On one such occasion he said to me, “My friends and the good officers in the Army will know I was right—the others don’t matter.”</p>
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And his friends were legion. While still a lieutenant he attracted the attention of General Nelson Miles. So General Miles sent him into Cuba as his personal observer and he took part in the landing at Siboney. During the First and Second Occupations of Cuba he was Captain of the Port of Havana, organized and headed the Cuban Constabulary and was Governor of the Province of Havana.</p>
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Once a breathless officer reported to the Governor that a riot had broken out in a provincial town. “Don’t worry,” said the Governor, “Foltz and his Constabulary will be there in half-an-hour.” He was, and the riot was over. Recruited from the pick of Garcia’s guerillas, with no uniforms but an insignia pinned on their straw hats, almost unarmed except for their machetes and mounted on their own horses, his Constabulary boasted a high morale with the rallying cry of “Arriba, arriba a machete!” They succeeded in establishing a rule of law and order which went far toward making possible the first peaceful elections in Cuba.</p>
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In the Philippines he met the Moros, whom he admired and respected as fine fighting men. He always respected the fighting man. I have heard him say that the Indians were nearly always right and that he disliked being ordered out to fight both the Sioux and the Apache. In his own words the Sioux were the “finest light cavalry the world has ever known” And then he chuckled and said “Except perhaps Casey’s Scouts of the First Cavalry. And they were Blackfoot”.</p>
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General Foltz always had a keen interest in finding better weapons, better equipment and better mounts.</p>
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His interest in better cavalry horses led to his selection as the officer in charge of the Army Teams sent to the Coronation Horse Show in London in 1911 and to the Olympic Games in Stockholm in 1912. Generals Patton, Henry and Lear rode on those teams as lieutenants.</p>
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But his love for the horse did not blind him to the changes which were taking place in weapons and other materiel. As a boy I can remember him discussing with other cavalry officers the need for more and better automatic weapons. This was in 1912.</p>
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With the development of armor he was quick to realize that the horse was becoming obsolescent for many purposes, and I know that he took great pride in the fact that both General Chaffee and General Patton, who commanded our first armored divisions, were old cavalrymen and had served as his subalterns.</p>
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Along with this was the very human side of General Foltz—his great consideration for others and his unfailing courtesy to both his seniors and juniors. With the help of his wife, May, he showed special consideration to the wives and families of his command. Mrs. Foltz, born and bred in the Army, had shared the rough days on the frontier with him. She had ridden her mare with the wagon train across the Rocky Mountains when the regiment was changing station. She had waved a laughing goodbye when he led his troop to the Wounded Knee campaign, or to hunt the Apache, or to embark for Cuba. “He has never seen me cry” was her boast to the younger wives when they waved goodbye to the 91st Division, embarking for France in 1918. Brave men deserve brave wives, and many a young Army wife learned that lesson from Fred and May Foltz and shared the devotion of her soldier husband for them both.</p>
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He was a good disciplinarian, but he was fair and kind. He reprimanded a sentry and then sent all of his own mince pies to the soldier when he came off post, because it was Christmas Eve. He led his squadron on a fifty-mile forced march to “let them know they were troopers” and then gave the whole outfit, except the duty roster, extra passes “so they could go in town and boast about it”.</p>
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He lived by the rule that loyalty must work from the top down as well as from the bottom up. Throughout his career he made himself a buffer between the higher command and his unit, whether a troop in Montana or a brigade in France. He defended and accepted responsibility, not only for his own decisions and actions, but also for those of his junior officers when he believed they were right and reasonable. He never equivocated, he never tried to shift responsibility. He feared no man.</p>
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His friends in the Army spanned three generations, from General Nelson Miles through General Leonard Wood to General Jonathan Wainwright. Friends, too, were Walter Reed, Buffalo Bill and Frederic Remington, who illustrated an article which Lieutenant Foltz wrote for <em>Harpers Weekly</em>. He met King Gustav of Sweden and George V of England. Sioux Chiefs gave him gun-cases and riding quirts. Old trumpeters and stable sergeants came to see him years after he had retired. So did Colonels who had served under him and Generals who had been his Lieutenants and Captains. He never knew why but they did. It was because, in the words of Colonel E. Alexander Powell in dedicating his book “Slanting Lines of Steel”, General Foltz was “a gallant soldier and a great gentleman”.</p>
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<em>—Frederick S. Foltz, Colonel, A.G.D. Reserve</em></p>
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