Gallant and daring conduct; was first to scale the wall of the city

It is summer 1900, and young Army bugler Calvin Titus is marching toward Peking in scorching heat as part of an international military rescue. Their task: to free a desperate legation of trapped foreigners.

Titus had been stationed with the 14th Infantry in the Philippines when the Boxer Rebellion escalated as a violent reaction to exploitive “spheres of influence” established in China by colonial powers. Foreign business and diplomatic communities found themselves in peril and joined Chinese Christians in barricading themselves and pleading to the outside world for help. The U.S. Minister to China, Edwin Conger of Iowa, and his family are trapped in Peking. Two other Iowans, newlyweds Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover, are trapped in Tientsin.

The international relief force of 14,000 troops liberates Tientsin, and now is marching to Peking. As they approach the besieged compound, they come face-to-face with a 30-foot wall. Colonel Daggett gazes up and wonders aloud if it is possible to climb the it. Titus utters his now-famous reply, “I’ll try, Sir.” Daggett looks at his 5-foot-7, 120-pound bugler and replies, “Well, if you think you can make it, go ahead and try.”

Daggett later writes: “With what interest did the officers and men watch every step as he placed his feet carefully in the cavities and clung with his fingers to the projecting bricks! The first fifteen feet were passed over without serious difficulty, but there was a space of fifteen feet above him. Slowly he reaches the twenty-foot point. Still more carefully does he try his hold on those bricks to see if they are firm. His feet are now twenty-five feet from the ground. His head is near the bottom of the embrasure. All below is breathless silence. The strain is intense. Will that embrasure blaze with fire as he attempts to enter it? Or will the butts of rifles crush his skull? Cautiously he looks through, and sees and hears nothing. He enters, and as good fortune would have it, no Chinese soldiers are there.”

Titus, the first U.S. soldier to scale the wall, inspires others to follow his bold lead. “I’ll try, Sir” becomes the motto of the 14th Infantry.

The Allied troops lift the siege, the Boxer Rebellion is quelled, and the 14th Infantry is ordered home. Titus is a hero.

Citation
“Gallant and daring conduct in the presence of his colonel and other officers and enlisted men of his regiment; was first to scale the wall of the city.” Date and place: August 14, 1900, Boxer Rebellion, Peking, China. Issued: March 11, 1902. In honor of his heroism, President McKinley granted Titus a West Point appointment. In 1902 this first-year plebe attended a ceremony marking the academy’s centennial and received a shock when he was called in front of the entire assembly. The commandant and McKinley’s successor, President Theodore Roosevelt, walked over to Titus and pinned the medal on Titus’ coat, saying, “Now don’t let this give you the big head!” After the group was dismissed, a second-year classman named Douglas MacArthur approached Titus, looked at his medal, and said, “Mister, that’s something!”

Biography
Vinton native Calvin Titus (1879-1966) left Iowa at age 11, when his mother died, and spent the remainder of his childhood with his aunt and uncle in Oklahoma and Kansas. Self-taught on cornet and violin, he accompanied his Uncle Bill, a traveling Salvation Army preacher.

In 1898 news that the battleship Maine sank and that the Vermont National Guard sought recruits prompted Titus to enlist on the spot. “When they discovered that I played the cornet, I was in,” he wrote. However, Titus caught malaria during training and his unit never left the States, so he made his way back to the Midwest. Soon he learned that troops were needed in the Philippines. He reenlisted and was shipped to Manila.

Titus returned from Peking a war hero, and organizers of Vinton’s Fourth of July celebration in 1901 made him their guest of honor. He led the parade and was greeted by his cousin, Des Moines civic leader Lafayette Young, who delivered the keynote address. A local merchant sold 10-cent souvenirs of the event: miniature American flags with pins of Titus’ image. Resident Myrtle Sisler composed “Marching to Peking” in his honor.

Young Titus’ Medal of Honor feat lasted a few hours, but his military career spanned 32 years. Graduating from West Point as a lieutenant, he left the Army to undertake religious evangelical work, but reenlisted in 1908 with the 14th Infantry, still stationed in the Philippines. Typical of military careers, Titus’ assignments took him to innumerable locations, including fighting forest fires in Montana. By the time the U.S. entered World War I, Titus was a major, and was promoted to lieutenant colonel before Armistice Day. He performed administrative duties in the States and did not go overseas until after the war. He returned to Iowa to run the ROTC program at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for six years, retiring about 1930.

In 1999, the U.S. Army inaugurated a container ship, the MV Lt. Col. Calvin P. Titus, that remains at sea at all times, ready for any contingency in which troops need supplies.