presents
Volume 1170
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AND THE MASTER OF ADVENTURE By Brian Bohnett Adapted from a PowerPoint presentation given by Mr. Bohnett at Madonna University in 2003 |
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.” - Charles King
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EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS - Edgar Rice Burroughs
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| THE SOLDIER AUTHOR: CHARLES KING |
 
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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. In 1862, at the
age of 17, King received an appointment to West Point from President Lincoln.
After graduation from the academy in 1866, he stayed on as instructor of
military tactics.
In his lifetime, King wrote 62 books and a slew of short stories and
articles. He spent only a brief time at the academy, but his influence
on young cadet Burroughs would last a lifetime. Regarding King, Burroughs
wrote:
- Edgar Rice Burroughs
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| THE MASTER OF ADVENTURE: EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS |
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“When I got home from Andover my father felt that a military school might be a good place for me and so he took me to Orchard Lake, where the old Michigan Military Academy was located and where I spent the next five years.” - Edgar Rice Burroughs
“Students expelled from other schools need not apply; and, in no case,
will applicants be received from other institutions without proper testimonials
of good moral character.”
~ MMA 1892 School Catalog
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 Edgar Rice Burroughs (Circa 1892) |
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Burroughs also came from a military family. His father, George Tyler Burroughs, was a major in the northern army during the Civil War. While King was anxious to go to West Point, the younger Burroughs was less than enthused about being sent to a military school in Orchard Lake. |
| APRIL 1892: ENTER KING |
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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 surely perished. |
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“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.”
- Edgar Rice Burroughs
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April 16, 1892 Telegram
“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.” - Edgar Rice Burroughs |
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“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.” - Charles King
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| FLYING STRAIGHT |
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“...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.”
- Edgar Rice Burroughs
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…” |
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“I was a member of the cavalry troop all the time I was there and received
instruction from a number of army officers that has proved extremely helpful
to me since, especially after I had enlisted in the regular army. We did
a great deal of trick riding in those days... bareback, Cossack, Graeco-Roman
and all the rest of it. It was known as ‘monkey drill,’ and if a man did
not lose his nerve and quit, he had to become a good horseman.” - Edgar
Rice Burroughs
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“The exhibition drill by the Orchard Lake cadets, with saddles and
full equipment, was one of the features of the evening. More daring, dashing
troopers never lived than are these young men and boys, and their drilling
was good…
“The drill wound up in the manner of the wild west show. Drawing their revolvers the cadets dashed madly around the ring, firing in all directions, and then rallied in the center, after which they left the ring.” - Detroit Free Press, April 1893
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| ERB WITH THE MMA CADETS AT THE CHICAGO COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION 1883 |
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“One hundred and twenty-five cadets from the Michigan Military Academy at Orchard Lake, Mich., under the command of Col. J. Sumner Rogers, arrived at the world’s fair grounds today and went into camp on the Midway Plaisance. With their new gray uniforms, their patent leather shoes, their highly-burnished rifles and their soldierly bearing, they turned the heads of half the pretty girls who saw them.” |
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