A Civilian in Lawton's 1899 Philippine Campaign: The Letters of Robert D. Carter

Epilogue

157 Epilogue Carter’s correspondence abruptly stops with a letter to his father dated September 28, 1899, just as General Lawton was preparing for his second campaign into Central and Northern Luzon. While he could not have known it at that time, the subsequent death of Lt. Col. Howard and the wounding of his civilian clerk on October 22, 1899, near Arayat during that expedition, followed by the death of Carter’s patron, Henry Lawton, at San Mateo on December 19,1 must have removed any remaining luster from a job that was becoming increasingly unrewarding. Despite his troubles, he would finally tell his parents that he intended to“stick it out,”provided his health remained good. Stay he did, and on January 1, 1900, he accepted a commission as a second lieutenant in the 12th Infantry Regiment and continued his service in the Philippines.2 Afterward, he made the Army his career, and, in retirement from active duty, he served as Professor of Military Science and Tactics at the Bingham Military School in Asheville, North Carolina.3 At the time of his death, he had attained the rank of lieutenant colonel. Carter died on January 22, 1926, and he is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Helen Wright Carter survived him by many years, and after her death on September 16, 1961, she, too, was buried in Arlington at his side.4 158 | A Civilian in Lawton’s 1899 Philippine Campaign Robert Goldthwaite Carter, aged 90, would survive his son by a decade, dying on January 4, 1936, at Washington, D.C.5 In addition to the Medal of Honor , which he received on January 23, 1900, the senior Carter went on to write about his days as a soldier, his most well known books being Four Brothers in Blue (1913)6 and On the Border with Mackenzie (1935).7 Young Carter’s mother died in 1923. Both she and his father are also buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Nothing is known of what became of Carter’s sister Mell, although there is a good chance that she may well have saved her brother’s correspondence , and it is through her that his writings actually see the light of day. It would be nice to think so. Henry Ware Lawton died a hero’s death, and the nation mourned along with Mamie and the children. The fallen soldier’s final journey home was, fittingly , aboard the U.S. Army Transport Thomas.8 His body lay in state, first in his former hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and later in Indianapolis , where fellow Hoosier James Whitcomb Riley eulogized him with a poem called the “Home Voyage.”“Bear with us, O Great Captain, if our pride show equal measure with our grief’s excess. . . . ,” Riley wrote.9 Lawton was given a large funeral in the Nation’s Capital, followed by burial at Arlington National Cemetery with much pomp and pageantry.10 Soon after, the public erected statues to him in both Fort Wayne and Indianapolis, Indiana, and later in Lawton, Oklahoma, as well. In a Memorial Day ceremony at Indianapolis in 1907, his statue was dedicated by his old comrade in arms from their “crowded hour”together at Kettle Hill and El Caney, President Theodore Roosevelt.11 Mamie Lawton and the children came home. Ordinary citizens were so moved that they contributed $100,000 to a fund for their benefit.12 Lawton’s adjutant, Lt. Col. Clarence Edwards (later major general and commander of the 26th Division in the First World War) remained close throughout his long, successful career. As a boy, Manley served for a time as an aide to General Grant in the Philippines; however, outside of his father’s long, protective shadow, Manley Lawton would live a quiet life outside of the limelight. He died at Washington, D.C., on January 11, 1960. One can only speculate if things would have been different had Lawton survived. Would he have succeeded the cautious Otis? While he definitely took the fight to the enemy, he also recognized the value of President McKinley’s policy of benevolent assimilation . In the short time Lawton was in the Philippines, at Baliuag he oversaw the election of the first native Filipino as a mayor13 and distributed foodstuffs to hungry Filipinos.14 Mary Craig Lawton would follow her husband in death on January 5, 1934, and she is also buried at Arlington.15 Lawton’s death paved the way for Maj. Gen. Arthur MacArthur, who would...