By Dennis McCaslin - Owner and Editor of Today in Fort Smith
A career military man born in Charleston in 1861 who achieved the rank of Major General in 1918 and spawned a legacy of a son and grandson who also served our country, reportedly died a bitter man in California in 1924.
Additionally, if you trace the lineage of Major General DeRosey Caroll Cabell to his ancestral roots in England, you will find a strange and unique connection to an important character in a story written by Arthur Conan Doyle in his Sherlock Holmes collection.
DeRosey Cabell was born July 7 1861 in Charleston (although some biographers erroneously list his birthplace as Fort Smith) the son of Major Algernon Sydney Cabell, a native of Virginia, and Mary Angela Caroll Cabell, who was born in Mississippi in 1843.
His father and mother had moved to Arkansas in 1853 and, just like Aalgernon, six of his seven siblings served in the Civil War. Algernon was also the brother of William L. Cabell, another highly decorated and memorialized Rebel soldier.
In the five generations that preceded him in his direct line, all but one of his grandfathers and great-grandfathers were involved in the military for the United States stretching back to the mid 1700s. Going back even further, we can trace his line all back to Richard Cabell II, who was born in the late 1500s.
While someone could, should, and possibly might write a book about the Cabell family, in this piece we're going to concentrate on DeRosey and his achievements.
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At the age of 19, DeRosey was accepted at the United States Military Academy, graduating with the class of 1884. He was one of thirteen men out of the class of 1884 that reached the rank of General.
He received a commission as a Second Lieutenant coming out of West Point on June 14, 1884. During his initial stages of frontier duty, he participated in the Geronimo campaign and was wounded.
In 1888 DeRosey married Mary 'Marie' Boggs Otis, the daughter of his first commanding officer. Tragically, Marie died eleven months later on November 22, 1888 from illness following the birth of their daughter. She was buried in the Fort Meade National Cemetery (South Dakota) where he was stationed at the time , and DeRosey later married her younger, widowed sister Martha a few years later.
Remaining in the military, DeRosey was a soldier in the great Sioux War of 1890 and 1891 and the China Relief Expedition of 1900. DeRosey also served a two-year stint in the Philippines from 1900 to 1902.
Highly trusted as a military leader, he advanced in rank quickly. After a stellar 13-year career, he was named Brigadier General on December 17, 1917 and he was promoted to Major General less than a year later in October, 1918.
During the Pancho Villa Expedition (also known as the Mexican Expedition and the Punitive Expedition of the US Army) he served as chief of staff during the entire campaign.
At the end of World War I, the United States, reeling from the massive financial deficits the war had created and looking for ways to cut costs, reduced DeRosey's rank to Colonel, a serious step back he considered condescending,
Although he resented his rank being lowered he stayed in the military for another two years, commanding the Mexican Border Command until his retirement in 1920.
Upon retirement, DeRosey was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his work on the American/Mexican border , but he was bitterly angry over what he felt was a slight when he became a victim of the reduction in force implemented by Congress. The action drew complaints and anger from a large number of military officers at the time
In 1930, Congress changed the law to allow soldiers to retire at the highest rank honorably held. Unfortunately for DeRosey that accommodation came six years too late as he died in 1924 at his home in Mission Hills, California at the age of 62.
The rank on his headstone is listed as "Colonel", a mistake that was never corrected, although a number of other soldiers who retired or mustered out during the aforementioned 10-year period did get their proper rank listed on their headstones.
DeRosey's fifth-great grandfather Richard Cabell II, who was born in the early 1600s, is thought to have been the inspiration for the character of the wicked Hugo Baskerville from Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Squire Richard Cabell II, in his day, was described as a monstrously evil man. He was chastised for immorality and having sold his soul to the devil and there was also a rumor he had murdered his first wife in the parish of Ugborough, Devon, England.
He was such a monstrosity and embarrassment to his family that when he died he was buried under a heavy stone in a "penthouse" mausoleum with iron railings on it to prevent his "coming up and haunting the neighborhood".
Supposedly, a phantom pack of hounds, led across the moor by Richard Cabell, returns to the graveyard. howling and striking. every year on the anniversary of the death.
Arthur Conan Doyle never confirmed that Cabell was the inspiration for his character, and in 1907 he wrote "my story was really based on nothing save a remark of a friend that there was a legend about a dog on the more connected with some old family".
