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Real Soldiers of Fortune
by Richard Harding Davis
MAJOR-GENERAL HENRY RONALD
DOUGLAS MACIVER
ANY sunny afternoon, on Fifth Avenue, or at night in the _table
d'hote_ restaurants of University Place, you may meet the soldier
of fortune who of all his brothers in arms now living is the most
remarkable. You may have noticed him; a stiffly erect,
distinguished-looking man, with gray hair, an imperial of the
fashion of Louis Napoleon, fierce blue eyes, and across his
forehead a sabre cut.
This is Henry Ronald Douglas MacIver, for some time in India an
ensign in the Sepoy mutiny; in Italy, lieutenant under Garibaldi; in
Spain, captain under Don Carlos; in our Civil War, major in the
Confederate army; in Mexico, lieutenant-colonel under the
Emperor Maximilian; colonel under Napoleon III, inspector of
cavalry for the Khedive of Egypt, and chief of cavalry and general
of brigade of the army of King Milan of Servia. These are only a
few of his military titles. In 1884 was published a book giving the
story of his life up to that year. It was called "Under Fourteen
Flags." If to-day General MacIver were to reprint the book, it
would be called "Under Eighteen Flags."
MacIver was born on Christmas Day, 1841, at sea, a league off the
shore of Virginia. His mother was Miss Anna Douglas of that
State; Ronald MacIver, his father, was a Scot, a Rossshire
gentleman, a younger son of the chief of the Clan MacIver. Until
he was ten years old young MacIver played in Virginia at the home
of his father. Then, in order that he might be educated, he was
shipped to Edinburgh to an uncle, General Donald Graham. After
five years his uncle obtained for him a commission as ensign in the
Honorable East India Company, and at sixteen, when other boys
are preparing for college, MacIver was in the Indian Mutiny,
fighting, not for a flag, nor a country, but as one fights a wild
animal, for his life. He was wounded in the arm, and, with a
sword, cut over the head. As a safeguard against the sun the boy
had placed inside his helmet a wet towel. This saved him to fight
another day, but even with that protection the sword sank through
the helmet, the towel, and into the skull. To-day you can see the
scar. He was left in the road for dead, and even after his wounds
had healed, was six weeks in the hospital.
This tough handling at the very start might have satisfied some
men, but in the very next war MacIver was a volunteer and wore
the red shirt of Garibaldi. He remained at the front throughout that
campaign, and until within a few years there has been no campaign
of consequence in which he has not taken part. He served in the
Ten Years' War in Cuba, in Brazil, in Argentina, in Crete, in
Greece, twice in Spain in Carlist revolutions, in Bosnia, and for
four years in our Civil War under Generals Jackson and Stuart
around Richmond. In this great war he was four times wounded.
It was after the surrender of the Confederate army, that, with other
Southern officers, he served under Maximilian in Mexico; in
Egypt, and in France. Whenever in any part of the world there was
fighting, or the rumor of fighting, the procedure of the general
invariably was the same. He would order himself to instantly
depart for the front, and on arriving there would offer to organize a
foreign legion. The command of this organization always was
given to him. But the foreign legion was merely the entering
wedge. He would soon show that he was fitted for a better
command than a band of undisciplined volunteers, and would
receive a commission in the regular army. In almost every
command in which he served that is the manner in which
promotion came. Sometimes he saw but little fighting, sometimes
he should have died several deaths, each of a nature more
unpleasant than the others. For in war the obvious danger of a
bullet is but a three hundred to one shot, while in the pack against
the combatant the jokers are innumerable. And in the career of the
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