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<em>George True Bartlett</em>, Major General, U.S. Army, Retired, was born at Wolfeboro on the shores of Lake Winnepesaukee in southern New Hampshire on April 29, 1856, and died near the end of “my 93rd journey around the Sun” in San Antonio, Texas, on March 11, 1949.</p>
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He came of early colonial Norman French and Anglo Saxon British stock, his forebears having immigrated from England in 1635 to Newbury, Mass. Thence they went as pioneers to the then frontier of New Hampshire as land owners and agents of the Lords Proprietors. The Bartlett stock was characterized by sturdy independence and self-reliance and unusual physical and mental vigor. At least two of the great, and one of the great great, grandfathers of George T. Bartlett were officers of New Hampshire regiments of the line in the Revolutionary War, and served throughout that struggle,—were at Valley Forge and Yorktown.</p>
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He was brought up with six brothers and sisters under precepts of necessary thrift, industry, but withal intelligence, simple culture and even erudition, his father having been both school teacher and minister, and during the Civil War, principal of Proctor Academy at Andover, New Hampshire, a Dartmouth preparatory school. Immediately after the Civil War the family moved west to Indiana and then overland by covered wagon to the frontier of southeastern Kansas. There the boy grew up on a farm on the banks of the Neosho River in the outskirts of the County seat of Iola, attended the local public schools, became at home thoroughly versed in the classics of English literature, listened to the tales of adventure of the trail drivers who frequently camped with their droves on the farm river bottoms, herded cattle for an uncle on the open range prairies of south Kansas as far west as the site of what is now the City of Wichita, and attended for one year the newly created University of Kansas, in pursuance of an ambition to become a physician.</p>
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Then came a new opportunity arising from the thoroughness and dependability which the young man had so early displayed. The local Congressman was in despair because so many of his appointees to West Point had failed to go through. A mutual friend told him “appoint young Bartlett, he will not fail you”, So in June 1877 he passed his entrance examinations and became a cadet at the United States Military Academy, to graduate 10th in a class of fifty-three in 1881.</p>
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Of his cadet days it may be of interest to record that coming to the Point with his straight black hair, Roman nose, and a deep tan from his outdoor life on the Southwestern plains, the year after the Custer massacre, it was almost Inevitable that his nickname should have been “Sitting Bull”. General H. C. Hodges, Jr., one of his few remaining classmates, writes of the respect in which he was held as being among the older members of the class and because of his earnestness. That he was not only respected but held in affectionate regard by his fellows may be gathered from the following quotation from “<em>Reminiscences of West Point</em>” written for the class, 50 years after their cadet days, by the late Williston Fish.</p>
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“Here is Bartlett, the tried and true, George True Bartlett: most fitting name. He was always the same and always true.</p>
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Trials, tests and troubles could not affect him. As the poet says: ‘They pass by him as the idle wind which he regards not.’ Bartlett was unchanged and unchangeable in everything.</p>
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“Our never-to-be-forgotten Bartlett; I like to dwell on his firmness, fixity, stability, his unchangeableness. His mind must have worn gyroscopes. I have not seen him since graduation, and I can put aside and scorn the idea that even Time, the traitor to youth and betrayer of hope, has wrought any change in him.</p>
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“Bartlett was never loose and lavish in his protestations of altruism: and yet toward the end of a settlement, when we were besieged by time and a tobacco famine was upon us, Bartlett made us free and welcome to his gorgeous casket of Richmond Gem, and turned over to our prodigality the riches earned by his abstemiousness. When we began at his box it was almost full; and I think now that he put tobacco on his requisition not for himself but for us in our time of need and desperation.</p>
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“When we say that Bartlett did not change, we except, of course, that he grew softer and gentler and mellower. And maybe even in this he did not change, and it was only that as time went on we knew him better.”</p>
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Organized athletics were unknown in those days but he was an outstanding horseman and fencer.</p>
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On graduation Bartlett was commissioned in the 3rd Artillery and after about a year of coastal garrison duty was assigned to one of the light batteries of the regiment stationed at the relatively new Fort Sam Houston, Texas, where he served for three years, and where he met and in September 1884, was married to Cornelia Terrell, daughter of the late Brigadier General Charles M. Terrell, of the old pay department, and mother of the writer of this memorial. Shortly after reassignment to a coast defense command at Mount Vernon Barracks, Alabama, he was detailed for three years at the Pennsylvania Military Academy, Chester, Pa., where he was commandant and Instructor In mathematics. While there tragedy struck in the loss of his wife following birth of his second son. From 1888 to 1890 he attended and graduated from the Coast Artillery School at Fort Monroe, Va., returning thereafter to a field battery at Fort Sam Houston for a three year tour. There he lost his younger son and in 1893 he was married again in the same room at Col. Terrell’s quarters, by the same minister, to Helen Walton of San Antonio, who was a real mother to Ills boy and an ideal helpmate for nearly half a century.</p>
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After short tours at Key West and Fort McPherson he was appointed in 1894 Commandant at the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College where he served nearly four years, until the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. The enrollment at Texas A.&M. then was a little over 300, and the duties involved not only instruction In things military, but direct personal charge of disciplinary matters. His career there was distinguished by his tactful relations with an exclusively southern faculty and by his unusual ability in handling young men with fairness but under a strict and effective military regime. Among several able West Pointers who have served at the A.&M. College of Texas, he was not the least responsible for establishment and maintenance of a disciplined military tradition which has made it outstanding among the military colleges of the country, and has enabled that institution to produce thousands of distinguished officer for the Army in two World Wars.</p>
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In April 1898 Lieut. Bartlett rejoined his regiment at the Presidio, but was shortly commissioned a Major of Subsistence at San Francisco and his assignment as Commissary at Santiago, Cuba, was requested by General Lawton, then in command there, where he served several months and then at Havana. While at Santiago he contracted yellow fever, from which he recovered without subsequent ill effects. At Havana his initiative and courage in taking responsibility to cut through red tape enabled him to save thousands of starving Cubans by unauthorized issuance of rations. The financial responsibility so taken was later removed by special act of Congress.</p>
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He returned to duty in San Francisco harbor as a Captain of Artillery in the fall of 1899 and in June, 1900, went with his company to the Coast Artillery School at Fort Monroe for a six-year tour at the post and as Adjutant. While there he was one of the leaders in developing rapid fire and improved methods of range finding of moving targets, serving on various boards which developed the first modern improved fire control.</p>
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As a Major and Lieutenant Colonel he commanded coast artillery posts on the Columbia River and Puget Sound from 1906 to 1910, and was then detailed to the General Staff, serving first at Atlanta and then at Chicago. While Chief of Staff at the former the Vera Cruz incident occurred and under his staff direction the command left by rail at 6 A.M. on unanticipated telegraphic orders received from Washington about midnight for a brigade mobilization at Galveston.</p>
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As a Colonel he commanded Coast Artillery districts at Sandy Hook, Lower New York Harbor, Portland, Maine, and on Puget Sound. In 1916 he was again detailed to the General Staff, serving as Chief of Staff of the Eastern Department under General Leonard Wood at Governors Island until promoted to Brigadier General in June 1917.</p>
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Soon after the outbreak of the first World War he was ordered to Fort Adams, Newport, R. I., to command, mobilize, equip and train a special brigade of Coast Artillery to take 10 inch coast rifles to France for remounting as railway artillery. This was a crack organization entirely of regular coast artillery where the percentage of re-enlistments was high, with all field officers selected regulars and all company officers newly commissioned veteran regular non-commissioned men. This brigade embarked for Europe in August 1917, the next organization, after Pershing and the First Division, to reach France via England.</p>
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Just as the Brigade embarked Bartlett was promoted out of its command to Major General, National Army. He was on duty at Chaumont, visiting the front, and serving on an artillery board, and in October 1917 was placed in command of General Pershing’s Base 3 in the British Isles, with headquarters in London. The duties of this position involved installation of air fields and rest camps in the British Isles, matters of coordination with our Navy and with the British; but the base was principally a huge purchasing agency for the American Army in France, requiring, for handling the manifold duties, the selection and organization of a staff of over 700 officers. In April 1918, following a serious attack of Influenza, Bartlett was relieved from these onerous duties and ordered to Athens as Attaché and as the United States Representative on the three man Commission which was training the Greek Army and Navy. This service involved cooperation in respect to the Balkan Front and contact with General Franchet d’Esperey, its Commander, and several trips to his headquarters and over that front from the Adriatic to the Dardenelles. The complete collapse of this front under the final attack of the combined French-British-Serb-Greek army, in September 1918, resulted in the immediate unconditional surrender of Bulgaria, and left an exposed German-Austrian flank which could not be defended in the face of the American Army’s attack in France, and thus presaged the final Victory.</p>
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Bartlett was placed on retired status in November 1918, at his own request, after 41 years of service. He settled at San Antonio, where his only son was established, and where his wife was raised and her family lived. He built his own home there in 1919, in which he was destined to live for nearly 30 years. Shortly after his retirement he declined the honor of appointment as Editor of the <em>Coast Artillery Journal</em>, which would have necessitated his moving to Fort Monroe. His later years were saddened by the death in 1926 of his only grandchild, his beloved 15 year old granddaughter, and in 1940 by the loss of his wife who had been his devoted companion for over 47 years. During his long period of retirement he was actively interested in many things,—visiting with his many old friends in San Antonio, corresponding with those away, and with his sisters and numerous nephews and nieces and their children, in his summer home at Fort Davis in West Texas, in his trees and shrubbery, his modest investments, and extensive reading— the latter particularly during the second World War. He was possessed of his mental alertness and all his physical facilities to the last, and his carriage remained as erect as the day he left West Point. He had the true thrift of his New England ancestry, which never extended to penuriousness but which gave him the means to quietly lend a helping hand to many deserving needs and persons.</p>
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He was extremely loyal to the Army and in particular to his West Point associations. He nearly always attended the annual West Point dinners In San Antonio; the last in 1948, after the passage of years and the grim reaper had left him as the Academy’s oldest living graduate. His last thoughts were of West Point, and on the morning before his death he dictated to his son messages of regret at his inability to attend the local and the New York annual alumni dinners, with greetings and best wishes to those assembled.</p>
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Bartlett had great mental capacity, practical ability and strength of character. He was known throughout the service for his common sense. He possessed unusual tact and ability to understand and handle people of all kinds and conditions. Reports from his professional files by inspectors of his post and district commands are replete with compliments on the efficiency found, and nearly always had comments on the unusually harmonious conditions which prevailed among the personnel under him.</p>
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His particular gift for handling and inspiring young men has been mentioned. It is illustrated by a letter sent him in 1948 from the assembled Class of 1898, A.&M. College of Texas, on the occasion of Its 50th graduation anniversary, and expressing the feeling of Indebtedness the members of the Class retained for his example and training when they were boys, and their deep affection after so long a time.</p>
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Here was a man four square with all the world and all within it. A life which had more than its share of sorrow remained cheerful and interested in the things of today and tomorrow. Nor in all that long and full life was there an unkind nor an unworthy thought, nor word, nor act. Few men are given to attain so nearly to the ideals of a true Christian and of a true man.</p>
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<em>—Terrell Bartlett</em></p>
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