Again in Command in the West
According to the understanding expressed in my correspondence with General Sherman of May 3, 1881, I returned from Europe at the end of a year, and reported for duty. But in the meantime President Garfield had been assassinated, and the bill then pending in Congress providing for the retirement of officers at a fixed age was amended so as to make that age sixty-four years instead of sixty-two. Hence I continued to wait without protest until the retirement of my junior in rank, the next autumn, for the fulfilment of General Sherman’s assurance conveyed in his despatch of May 25, 1876: “If any hitch occurs at any future time, you can resume your present or some command due your rank.” Although this long suspension from command was very annoying, I had the satisfaction of knowing that none of my brother officers had been disturbed on my account.
In the fall of 1882, I was again assigned to the command of the Division of the Pacific, awaiting the time of General Sherman’s retirement under the law and the succession of General Sheridan to the command of the army. Nothing of special interest occurred in that interval. In 1883 I succeeded to the command of the Division of the Missouri, with my headquarters in Chicago. One of the first and most important subjects which impressed themselves upon my attention after the generous reception and banquet given by the citizens of that hospitable city, was the necessity for a military post near that place. The location of Chicago makes it the most important strategical center of the entire northern frontier. It is also the most important center of interstate commerce and transportation anywhere in the country. Yet in 1883 there were no troops nearer than St. Paul, Omaha, and Leavenworth. At the time of the railroad strikes in 1877, troops had been brought there in time to render the necessary service, but no thought appears to have been given to the necessity of better provision for the future.