Fighting and soldiering in those days were done in rough and ready fashion under conditions that called for courage and endurance, when pluck and dash and personal prowess were the prime essentials of a soldier; and in such a school an Irish daredevil like Whistler easily made his mark. In that disastrous battle on the Miami in 1791, where the forces of St. Clair were surprised and routed by the vengeful tribesmen under Blue Jacket and the renegade, Simon Girty, young Whistler was wounded, but his gallant conduct in the battle and on the retreat earned him his shoulder-straps, and gave him a position that his birth, breeding and education enabled him to fill with honor to himself and credit to the republic. It gave him an assured position in the calling he loved best, and for which his talents and taste fitted him. As the years rolled by, he served in many a hard-fought campaign against the enemies of his adopted country, earning promotion and fighting the soldiers of King George with as much enthusiasm as in other days he had served that fat-witted monarch. His devoted wife followed his fortune, traveling in the military train, and living at lonely frontier forts with as much content as she would had fortune strewn their paths with brighter flowers. This heroic woman had much to do in forming the character of the children born to their marriage, and her brave and gentle personality made a lasting impression on them. The Whistlers were good fighting stock, and when his sturdy boys were old enough, the fighting old major placed a sword in their hands and gave them to the land he loved, and true, loyal soldiers they were in every emergency. When age, disease and wounds stiffened the old warrior, and rendered him unfit for active service in the field, the government appointed him storekeeper at the military post at Newport, Ky., and later transferred him to Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis, Mo., where he died in 1829, at the age of seventy-three. The splendid old soldier had served the land of his adoption bravely, faithfully and loyally, and, dying, he bequeathed to his sons an unsullied reputation, and to the republic children who never failed her in the hour of need.