CAMP MILLS
September 1st, 1917
We are tenting tonight on the Hempstead Plains, where Colonel Duffy and the Old 69th encamped in 1898, when getting ready for service in the Spanish War. It is a huge regiment now—bigger, I think, than the whole Irish Brigade ever was in the Civil War.
We have received our new men transferred from the 12th, 14th, 23rd and 71st N. G. N. Y. Our band played them into Camp with the Regimental Air of “Garry Owen” mingled with the good-fellow strains of “Hail! Hail! the Gang’s All Here.”
All in all, the newcomers are a fine lot. A couple of our sister organizations have flipped the cards from the bottom of the pack in some instances and worked off on us some of their least desirables. On the other hand, all the Regiments have made up for that by allowing men anxious to come to us to change places with those who prefer to stick where they are. This gives us a large number of the men we want—those that feel their feet on their native heath in the 69th, and those that like its recruiting slogan, “If you don’t want to be amongst the first to go to France, don’t join the 69th.” For the rest, the Company Commanders and Surgeons know “Thirty-five distinct damnations,” or almost that many, by which an undesirable can be returned to civilian life to take his chances in the draft. Our recruiting office has been reëstablished at the Armory. We can get all the good men we want.
As he had put the matter in my hands Kilmer did not come over with the men from the 7th, but I had the matter of his transfer arranged after a short delay.