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Volume 1268
GENERAL CHARLES KING TRIBUTE SITE
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ERB / Charles King Connection

Edgar Rice Burroughs Mentor. . . and Fan

GENERAL CHARLES KING “Circumstances, chiefly. I wasn’t long in finding out that keeping a family on retired captain’s pay is a beggar’s business. I had to go to work, so I took to writing.”

EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS “My son, Hulbert, had just been born. I had no job, and no money. I had to pawn Mrs, Burroughs’ jewelry and my watch in order to buy food.  I started to write my first story.”  .

 

GENERAL CHARLES KING (October 12, 1844: Albany, NY ~ March 17, 1933: Milwaukee, Wisconsin) Soldier King, who was credited with seventy years of active military service, was the only soldier in American history to serve in five American wars: The Civil War, Indian Wars, Spanish-American War, Philippine Insurrection and World War I. Novelist Author of over 60 books and hundreds of articles and short stories Historian His novels, although they all follow virtually the same plot, draw from personal experience and are exciting narratives full of accurate, detailed descriptions of army life and Indian wars in the American West.

King came from a military background. Both his father and grandfather had served in the military. His grandfather, Charles King, was also president of Columbia College, and his great grandfather, Rufus King, was Minister of England and served 20 years as a U.S. Senator.

His military career began during the Civil War when, as a teenager, he served as a mounted orderly for the Iron Brigade under his father, Brigadier General Rufus King of the Wisconsin Volunteers. He was appointed to West Point by President Abraham Lincoln. After graduating with a U.S. Army commission in 1866 he stayed on as instructor of military tactics.

By 1871 Lieutenant King was serving under General George Crook in the 5th Cavalry across Arizona and the northern states. During this time he became friends with the unit's scout -- William "Buffalo Bill" Cody. King was short in stature – standing just over 5 feet – but had plenty of courage to make up for his diminutive size. In an 1874 skirmish during the Indian Wars campaign he found himself pinned down by renegade Indians. He was shot in the arm, nearly severing it at the shoulder, and if not for the bravery of a fellow soldier, Sergeant Bernard Taylor, would have not survived. The injury plagued him, however, for the rest of his life.

While stationed in New Orleans he married Adelaide Lavender Yorke who bore him three daughters and a son. Upon returning to duty in the West he witnessed Cody's legendary duel with the Cheyenne warrior, Yellow Hand and served in the Nez Perce Indian Campaign of 1877. Still plagued by his arm injury, Captain King retired from active cavalry service in 1879 and went on to teach military science and tactics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. It was at this time that he started writing a series of newspaper articles based on his experiences in the Sioux Campaign of 1876. These writings evolved into his first and probably most enduring book, Campaigning With Crook."  In 1882, he was appointed colonel in the Wisconsin National Guard but his duties permitted him a home life and time to write more stories based upon his experiences in the Army. In May of 1886 his leadership of the Milwaukee Light Horse Troop was instrumental in the quelling of the Milwaukee labour riots. This event is also notable as being one of the first instances where the newly invented telephone was used to direct troop movements.

In 1892 King retired with the rank of colonel from his command of Wisconsin's Fourth Regiment of Infantry to take a position of commandant and military instructor at the Michigan Military Academy at Orchard Lake. Under his instruction his corps of cadets won national honours in competitive drill and riding. He spent only a brief time at the academy, but his influence on young cadet Burroughs would last a lifetime.

Regarding King, Burroughs wrote: “Charles King, writer of the best army stories ever were written; a man who has been an inspiration to me all my life because of his outstanding qualities as a soldier, a cavalry man and a friend.” Burroughs felt he was forever in King's debt due to the way the Commandant handled young Ed's ill-conceived "desertion" from the Academy in April of 1892: “I crept fearfully through the woods, for all the time I heard the cavalry pursuing me... In Pontiac I hung around the railroad yards waiting for the Chicago train. Every man I saw was a detective searching for me and when the train pulled in and the inspectors passed along it with their flares, I knew they were looking for me, but I hid out between two freight cars until the train started.”

On April 16th, King  sent a telegram to the boy's father: "Your son deserted Thursday. Letter will follow." An excerpt from the follow-up letter read: “Cadet Burroughs’ offenses have been most serious, but not irretrievably so. He has been reckless; not vicious. He has found friends here including the Commandant, who best knew the boy in the Cavalry squad and on drill, and it is not impossible for him to return and wipe out his past.”

MMA Year Book Dedication

Burroughs later looked back on the incident: “I think it was the word ‘deserted’ in the telegram that got me, and the next day I was back at Orchard Lake walking punishment. But walking punishment has its compensations, one of which was that the old boys could not subject us to any of the refined and unrefined torture of hazing, which was carried on to an exaggerated extent at Orchard Lake at that time.” Burroughs went on to excel in drill, riding, football and in writing assignments for Academy publications.

Upon graduation Burroughs was asked to stay on as assistant commandant and instructor. He wrote: “...I loved everything military. This little United States Infantry Drill Regulations was my bible and I took great pride in the military correctness and precision of my every act and word when on duty.” Burroughs love of horses grew from the time he spent at his brothers ranch in Idaho, and from his respect of Charles King. He wrote: I used to try to emulate him (King). In the riding ring I rode my fool head off and nearly killed myself a couple of times in my anxiety to live up to what he expected of me as a horseman…”

Unfortunately King's fortunes had a sudden turnaround in 1893. His substantial royalties came to a sudden end when the Authors' Guild collapsed and the bank in which he had deposited most of his money also failed. His wife was confined to bed as a result of a serious leg fracture. To top it all off, most of his books and valuable papers were destroyed in a warehouse fire. He returned to Milwaukee to spend more time writing and to try to recoup his fortunes. He also resumed his series of military reappointments and retirements until he was re-commissioned as Brigadier General of Volunteers during the Spanish American War in 1898. In 1899 he led regiments in the Spanish surrender of the Philippines and the ensuing Insurrection. He was made Brigadier General of the Wisconsin National Guard in 1904 and later helped train troops to fight in World War I.

King's extraordinary military experiences of 70 years spawned an enormously long and successful writing career during which he penned over 60 books and hundreds of short stories and articles. He is recognized as being one of the first writers to establish the genre of the Western novel and perhaps more than almost any other author he based these stories on true life experiences. Although he portrayed Native Americans as being a savage and barbaric people, he showed great sympathy for their valiant resistance against the white invaders of their lands and the lifestyle that was being forced upon them. He was also a harsh critic of the many corrupt government officials who cheated the Indians by breaking so many broken and treaties.

King, as well as being one of the first great "Western" writers, also has the unique distinction of being the first person to author books by dictating into a sound-recording machine. In 1890, Sunset Pass was the first book published using this technique. King spoke into an Edison phonograph to create recordings on wax cylinder records that were later transcribed by his stenographer, Lucille Rhoades. Charles King was active in his writing career for decades, and it even afforded him a chance to once again work with his old friend Buffalo Bill in helping to write the screenplay for Cody's silent motion picture series: the "Indian War Pictures." In the mid-1920s -- the golden years of silent film -- at least five of King's stories were adapted to film: Fort Frayne  ~ Under Fire ~ A Daughter of the Sioux ~ Tonio, Son of the Sierras ~ Warrior
 
 

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Ed Burroughs and Charles King corresponded until King's death. A few examples follow:

Winter 1906: Ed writes to General King, now superintendent of St. John's Military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin, requesting advice about obtaining a position as a cavalry instructor.
January 8, 1920: Ed writes that he is sorry to hear of King's broken leg after being hit by an automobile and laments that the drivers in California are just as bad. He describes his Tarzana Ranch of 540 acres overlooking the San Fernando Valley and situated a half-mile back from Ventura.  He can see the lights of seven villages across the valley at night. He has good riding horses and the three children have Shetland ponies on which they rides regularly on the many trails across the ranch. He tells of there being coyotes and mountain lions on the property. Ed laments that his desire to sign up for the Great War caused much disruption in the family. He eventually had to settle with a role in which he trained recruits and that he had received excellent reports for his work.
October 23, 1928: Continuing his longtime correspondence with General Charles King, Ed sends him 84th birthday congratulations
January 31, 1937: General King's son, Rufus - a retired U. S. Navy commander, writes that he has come across many Burroughs items in his late father's cherished possessions. He would like to see ERB's ranch and horses. Ed replies admitting hero worship for General King but laments that he has sold his horses and subdivided Tarzana Ranch.

On March 15, 1933, Charles King tripped over a rug in his home and fractured his shoulder. Two days later in the company of Lucille Rhoades and his nurse Leila Spade, he experienced a severe chill and died within minutes. He was buried with full military honours at Milwaukee.

General Charles King
1844-1933

Charles King, 1844-1933
"His books are not art; they are photography." Thus, Don Russell sums up the irony that while Charles King wrote over fifty novels, many of them of great popularity, none of his admirers -- nor even King himself -- ever thought of his writing as great literature. That narrative is a form of explanation -- bringing facts into a cause-effect relationship -- often accounts for a novel's validity and acceptance. But it is often the facts themselves, recounted to be recast in the narrative of memory, fantasy or history that gives a writer wide appeal. This may account for the fact that King's novels are regarded today as primary documents for any full understanding of frontier army life. For example, in describing his own book, Life and Manners in the Frontier Army, Oliver Knight, writes, "The real author is Captain Charles King, Fifth United States Cavalry, Ret., whose many popular novels of the day provide a qualitative dimension of social history that is not available anywhere else."

King's novels reflect the full gamut of military experience during the second half of the 19th century. The Iron Brigade draws on his early Civil War duties, Cadet Days, A Story of West Point, From School to Battlefield, A Story of the War Days, and others follow. Campaigning with Crook is probably King's most famous book because of its "vividness, stirring narrative, description of campaign hardshipsand attention to detail" as the author described the Fifth Cavalry during the Sioux War of 1876. Several novels grew out of King's experiences in the Philippines. Of special note in the University of Arizona Special Collections Library are his Arizona novels: An Apache Princess, Sunset Pass, A Wounded Name, Marion's Faith, Captain Blake, The Colonel's Daughter (King's first novel), Foes in Ambush, Starlight Ranch, and Tonio, Son of the Sierras.

Reference: University of Arizona Special Collections Brochure prepared by Louis A. Hieb - Head Librarian

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