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ERB LifeLines: A Chronological Biography in Hypertext |
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OB's Scrapbooks in ERBzine ~ ERBzine Archive - Illustrated Bibliography - etc. |
1865
June 22: Major George Burroughs is discharged from the Union
Army - a veteran of the American Civil War
1888:
George takes in James M. Johnson, a Confederate negro acquaintance
from the war. He is made practically one of the family.
1891
September: Ed reluctantly returns to the East and enrolls
in Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts.
1892
January 20: The school newspaper reports that Ed has been named
president of his class. Soon after, Principal Bancroft sends George Burroughs
a request for the withdrawal of his son over poor marks.
* Major Burroughs immediately enrolls his son in Michigan Military
Academy at Orchard Lake, 26 miles northwest of Detroit. (He would be here
for five years)
April 13: Ed, confined to barracks, attempts to escape the Academy
after climbing through a window but is apprehended and taken before Commandant
Charles King.
April 14: Ed makes a successful escape and leaves for home.
April 15: Ed returns home. He complains of the harsh treatment
he has received.
April 16: Major Burroughs receives a telegraph from the Academy
Commandant: "Your son deserted Thursday letter will follow."
April 18: King sends a letter detailing Ed's offenses. Soon
after Ed makes the decision to return to the Academy and take his punishment.
October 19: A letter to home suggests that he is lonely and
misses his family but he has channeled his excess energies into football.
December 14: Superintendent Rogers reports that: "Cadet Burroughs
has made excellent progress in his studies during the last three months
and is satisfactory in discipline...."
1893
January 26: One of a series of Ed's letters concerning his various
illnesses and dissatisfaction with the school. "...I am terribly
sick at my stomach today but my head and throat are better."
April 25: Ed sends a letter home describing school pranks followed
by an appeal for money to buy a fiery cavalry horse -" Captain."
April 4-6: Columbian Saddle Horse Show at the Detroit Riding
Club: Ed rides with the Orchard Lake Cadets' in exhibition drills with
and without saddle and equipment. Ed and his horse, Captain, win second
prize. The audience and newspapers are enthusiastic.
November 18: Played left halfback in a football game in which
his Michigan Military Academy team defeated Ypsilanti 36-22. (Friend Bert
Weston was right tackle).
December 11: Ed is reprimanded for participating in a hoax involving
a Springfield rifle duel to the death with another student.
December 15: Ed sends a letter home describing "the duel" episode
and his "first, last and only stage experience" as a bewhiskered actor
in the not-so-successful, cadet touring stage play, "The End of His
Tether"
December 20: The Academy reports Ed's continuing improvement
in his studies: Average 89.4%.
1894
January 30: Ed is a probable founder of
the Cadet newspaper The Military Mirror.
April 12: Ed is demoted to Cadet and is confined to reduced
limits until the 10th of June, for a "gross neglect of duty while Officer
of the Day."
April 20: A homesick and discouraged Ed indignantly explains
his side of the above offense in a letter to his father. He later climbs
back up through the ranks until he is promoted to Captain.
May 10: Document from the War Department stating that the President
has selected Ed to write a West Point entrance examination. Brothers George
and Harry apparently had sought help from Congressman Wilson to bring this
about.
1895
June: Adjutant, the academy's monthly magazine reports that
quarterback Ed Burroughs is placed on the Champion Prep School Team of
the West, 1894.
June: Ed graduates from Michigan Military Academy and gives
an address
to the 1894 Graduating Class at Michigan Military Academy, Orchard Lake,
Michigan
June 13: Ed is one of the 104 (out of the 118 candidates) who
fail the West Point exam.
July 4: Ed is offered the position of assistant commandant at
the Michigan Military Academy - an office which included the duties of
cavalry and gatling gun instructor, tactical officer, Foot-Ball/Baseball
manager and professor of geology. Knowledge picked up while teaching this
course serves him well in his future stories about prehistoric men and
monsters.
December: The Adjutant mentions again that Ed had made the championship
team of the year. Ed Burroughs is listed as: "Captain-Quarterback, Height
5-10, Weight 165, Age 20 years, 4 mos."
Fall & Winter: Lieutenant E. R. Burroughs
heads a group of 11 editors of The Adjutant
1896
April or May: Resigned from his Academy position to enlist in
the U.S. Army.
May 24: The new recruit arrives at Fort Grant, Arizona Territory
to join Troop B, 7th U.S. Cavalry - the start of many adventures separated
by long periods of boredom. He had expected to spend most of his
time chasing Apaches but much of his time is spent on guard duty and digging
ditches. He passes much of his time sketching and soaking up knowledge
about the geography and history of the area.
August: Ed, disillusioned with the life of an enlisted man at
Fort Grant, starts sending letters imploring his father to help him buy
his way out of the service.
September 1: Ed, on his 21st birthday at Duncan Arizona, receives
a picture from Emma who is vacationing in Coldwater, Michigan.
December 2: Ed writes Colonel J. Sumner Rogers at MMA - possibly
obtain help in getting a discharge or transfer, or to set up a return to
the Academy, or perhaps just to offer an apology for his past behaviour.
1897
March 19: Ed's father informs him via telegram that he has obtained
a discharge through Secretary of War Alger. Ed's having lied about his
age and a diagnosed weak heart were possible reasons for the discharge.
1898
February 22: Ed writes his former MMA commandant, Captain Smith
- now stationed at Fort Niobrara, Nebraska - to inquire about enlistment.
April 26: Seeking army employment, Ed writes Colonel Rogers
for assistance.
May 19: Teddy Roosevelt sends Ed a letter rejecting his offer
for enlistment in the Rough Riders who were preparing to drive the Spanish
out of Cuba. It is rumoured that Ed received a commission in the Nicaraguan
army but his family would not let him go.
1899
March 25: Ed wrote letters to the War Department and Congressman
Wilson in which he tried to secure an appointment in the army. The replies
were not encouraging.
July 16: Ed, now in New York, writes Colonel Rogers again
requesting help in obtaining a commission. He again meets with no success.
1906
Winter: 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.
March: Ed requests and receives many letters of recommendation
from previous contacts.
March 5: Another former commandant of MMA, Frederick F. Strong,
sends Ed a glowing recommendation for the position of Cavalry Instructor
and Tactical Officer.
March 12 & 17: Ed sends letter seeking a commission in the
Chinese Army. No positions are available.Legend has it that around this
time he was accepted in the Nicaraguan Army but his family vetoed it.
1917
April 6: US declares war against Germany.
July 19: Ed receives an appointment in the reserves: Captain,
Company A, Second Infantry.
Fall: Ed submits three patriotic, 400-word articles to newspapers:
"To
the Mother," "To the Home Girl," and "To the Woman on the
Town."
November 17-23: "The
Little Door" is written (unpublished).
1918
* Ed produces a steady stream of patriotic articles and poems,
including: "Do Boys Make Good Soldiers?" - "Patriotism
by Proxy" and "Who's Who in Oak Park" (both published
in Oak Leaves) - "Home Guarding for the Liberty Loan" (a
speech) - "A National Reserve Army Proposed" - "Go
to Pershing" - "Peace and the Militia," "Little Ol'
Buck Private" (poem), "For the Victory Loan" (poem).
April & May: Takes a business office at 1020 North Boulevard,
Oak Park which he also uses to recruit men for the reserve militia.
May: Ed starts research for a Tarzan story based upon the campaign
against the Germans in Africa.
June 14: "Home Guarding for the Liberty Loan" - a speech
delivered at Flag Day exercises, Oak Park, June 14, 1918
August 12-25: Ed joins his company in training at Camp Steever,
Geneva Lake, Illinois. He is later promoted to major and to the command
of the First Battalion, Second Infantry of the Illinois Reserves.
August 31: "A
National Reserve Army Proposal" appears in the Army-Navy Journal.
August-September: McClurg's Bulletin promotes the Tribe of
Tarzan club by reporting the rules and purposes of the club. They also
note that the Tribe is successfully selling Liberty Bonds and is working
in the Red Cross Thrift Stamp Campaign.
September 14: ERB is promoted to Major in the Illinois Militia
September 17: Ed, at 42, is too old to enter active service
and he complains to friend Bert Weston that militia work was "the only
military activity which Emma will permit me to indulge in...."
September 28: The article, "Prominent,
Popular Oak Park Man Honored", appears in The Oak Parker, Vol.
34, No. 25 - Oak Park, Illinois on the occasion of ERB's promotion to the
rank of major in the Illinois Reserve Militia. He is assigned to the command
of the First Battalion, Second Infantry.
September 28: An article about ERB: "Prominent,
Popular Oak Park Man Honored" appears in The Oak Parker
- Vol. 34, No. 25, Oak Park, Illinois.
November 16: "Peace and the Militia" is published.
* Ed starts plans for a move to California where he hopes to raise
stock and live on a farm. The Linden Avenue residence is soon put up for
sale.
December 4: Ed submits a plan to the Department of Justice in
which he proposes to alert the public to the menace of communism by writing
fiction showing what the world in the future would be like under Bolshevikism.
The plan is rejected.
December 15: "The
Little Door" is firmly rejected by Collier's and later by The
People's Home Journal.
December 30: "Local Mystery" - a fictitious foreign correspondent's
account of a visit to Paris - is printed in the Coldwater, Michigan, Daily
Reporter. (Ed's sister-in-law Leila is editor). Sometime in this period
Ed bought a country place in Coldwater. The area had been a Burroughs and
Hulbert family vacation spot for years.
1919
January 15: Feelings of guilt prompted by superpatriotism and
disappointment in his own war performance lead Ed to resign from the Military
Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.
April 30-May 21: "Under the Red Flag" is written. This
anti-communism story receives a long series of magazine rejections. Most
editors feel that fiction is not the proper place for propaganda.
September 10: "Tarzan and the Valley of Luna" is completed
at Tarzana but rejected by Red Book.
And Cosmopolitan. It appears later in All-Story in five weekly issues.
1920
March 20 - April 17: "Tarzan and the Valley of Luna"
is summarized in five parts in All-Story.
April 30: Tarzan the Untamed (The six Red Book short
stories and the 5 All-Story "Tarzan and the Valley of Luna"
episodes) is published by McClurg.
August: Hulbert and Jack enroll in the Page Military Academy
- both withdraw after a short time..
August 14 - December 16: Tarzan the Terrible is written.
Munsey's buys it for $3,000.
1921
February 12 - March 27: Tarzan the Terrible is serialized
in seven parts in Argosy All-Story Weekly.
June 20: Tarzan the Terrible is published by McClurg,
August 23: German publisher Tauchnitz requests permission to
publish Jungle Tales of Tarzan, instead of Tarzan the
Terrible which has strong anti-German content.
1922
August - September 29: Ed contemplates writing a series of articles
based on the Central American exploits of the soldier-of-fortune, General
Lee Christmas. He abandons the necessary research trip to Guatemala when
he can not obtain a guaranteed sale of the project.
1924
April 4: The article, "Out of Time's Abyss," appears
in The Urbanite, the publication of the Urban Military Academy.
Ed's two sons are attending the academy. The article is ERB's recollection
of the famous "duel."
.
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