This post at that time was about seven hundred miles from the railroad. I doubt if there is a place in the United States today outside of Alaska or our insular possession where one could go and be seven hundred miles from a railroad.
Along in the first part of May of that year I received orders from the chief medical officer of the district to exchange places with Dr. Seguin, post surgeon at Fort Craig. General Grover was the commanding officer at Fort Craig and was considered a good deal of a Martinet. As explained to me by Doctor Seguin, it seems that Mrs. Grover wanted something from the hospital which the doctor declined to send her and General Grover thereupon ordered it sent. The doctor disobeyed the order and the matter was carried to district headquarters and probably higher up for it involved the question of military discipline and also the rights of medical officers under army regulations. It is well enough here to say that the medical corps is a corps to itself, distinct from any other branch of the service, and orders come through the medical officers from the surgeon general down to the divisions; departments and districts, and yet at the military post the commanding officer is supposed to be "monarch of all he surveys" as you see there was a chance for controversy. Any way it was settled by Doctor Seguin being ordered to Fort Selden to take my place and I to his place at Fort Craig.
General Grover was a severe looking man past middle age, and had seen service on the frontier before the Civil War. He was a strict disciplinarian and held himself aloof from everything around. I have seen him walking down the line of officers' quarters straight as an arrow, maybe with hands clasped behind his back and an orderly walking the proper distance behind. He never entered an officer's quarters but if he wanted anything he would send his orderly to the officer with "the General's compliments and would like to see you." The officer then walked out to where the general was standing and at the proper distance stopped, stood at attention and saluted and waited for such communications as the general would make. He then saluted again and returned to his quarters and the general went on his way.