The Old Army: Memories, 1872-1918

Parker was one of those highly competent indiviuals who sometimes gets overlooked even though he was highly successful at whatever he did. He was noted as a brilliant trainer and organizer and was highly disappointed when the division he organized was sent to France without him. He began his career in the West and fought in the Phillipines, served in Cuba in 1906, and on the border in 1916. He was noted for innovation in the use of trucks for transporting infantry. Finally making general, he retired soon after the Great War.

"Galloping Jim" Parker was one of the Old Army's (1865-1914) top soldiers. A graduate of West Point, he began his frontier service at the time when Custer and the 7th Cavalry were riding to their deaths at the Little Big Horn - and ended it only when denied service at the front in France in World War I. In the interval period, Parker fought alongside Ranald Mackenzie in the cavalry battles with the Kickapoo, the Kiowa and Cheyenne; he saw the last Buffalo herds, went with Mackenzie to put down the Ute uprising in Colorado, and then rode south to join Crook and Miles in their campaigns against Geronimo. Parker's life was a rich one - and he ended up a Major General in the Army. But it was one, if he is to be believed, of missed opportunities. For example in the campaign against Geronimo Parker writes that it was his troop that actually tracked Geronimo down - but allowed Lieutenant Gatewood the honor of cornering him and effecting his surrender. Gatewood of course received the credit, not Parker. Parker's second greatest missed opportunity was in choosing not to serve in the Rough Riders due to an antipathy towards Leonard Wood, the commander of the unit. Wood actually asked Parker to help him form the regiment - and he would have been the ranking Army officer next to Wood in the regiment - or as he put it, Theodore Roosevelt never forgot a friend or someone who served alongside him in Cuba. Because of this decision Parker ended up training troops at Chickamauga camp until the Spanish-American war was over - and then briefly went to Cuba, and from there to the Philippines. Indeed it is the chapters on Frontier service against the Indians and the savage fighting in the Philippines that covers most of Parker's book - along with vignettes of his personal life and those whom he served with - he is flattering towards Mackenzie and Lawton - less so towards Wood and Pershing. At the end, due to age and some unfortunate remarks about "chasing greasers" during the Villa Expedition, Parker was denied service in France when America went to war against Imperial Germany, although he briefly went over to the trenches to observe the fighting. Full of self-promotion, though honest, Parker bitterly concludes that although he was in excellent health, he was forcibly retired from the army at the beginning of 1918 after 45 years of service. Despite Parker's occasional self-indulgent tone, his work is a classic tale of old army life. "The Old Army" is a worthy choice for the Custeriana buffs - even though Custer is only mentioned in passing, and for those who enjoyed works like "40 Miles a Day on Beans and Hay".