CHAPTER II.

THE TROOP AT MT. GRETNA.

Had the Troopers not known from experience that Mt. Gretna was an ideal spot for a camp, their impressions of the place, gained from observations taken the morning after their arrival, would have been disagreeable beyond expression. In the words of "Longfeller," as one Trooper expressed it, in a letter to the Press,

"We saw the tents of the others,
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness came o'er us,
That our hearts could not resist."

For, to the disgust of the Troopers, daylight brought no news of the missing canvas, and visions of another night in the mess tents of the Battery and Sheridan Troop began to disturb the men. Captain Groome and his lieutenants had planned plenty of work for the men, however, and as soon as their minds were once occupied they began to feel better. Details were sent to relieve the guard that had been placed over the baggage car, to secure wagons to haul the luggage to the camp grounds and to do regular sentry duty.

While the spot selected for a camp by Captain Groome had its disadvantages in rainy weather, it proved to be on the whole, the most desirable spot on the entire grounds; one of its greatest advantages being the nearness of Lake Conawago, where later in the season the men enjoyed a daily bath. The Philadelphia infantry commands had been assigned the worst quarters at Mt. Gretna. They occupied a deep basin, fully a mile and a half from the station and telegraph office, and during the entire time the First, Second, Third Regiments and Battalion of State Fencibles remained there, the valley was a sea of red mud. Every other regiment was encamped on rising ground, where the sandy soil was well drained and kept comparatively dry despite the long continued rains which set in.

In the afternoon the Troopers tents arrived, and went up with astonishing rapidity. The men worked hard arranging wooden supports for their straw-filled canvas bags, so they would not be obliged to sleep on the wet turf. The horses had been well sheltered in the woods near the camp, but men and beasts alike were glad when they saw the bright sun on Saturday morning. These weather conditions quickly wrought a great change throughout the miles of tented streets. Soldiers faces brightened and the Troopers, who had kept up their pluck splendidly under a stress of unfortunate circumstances such as no other organization had been obliged to face, could not help showing their pleasure at the improved prospects.

Sunday was spent for the most part in straightening up the camp. In the afternoon there were a number of visitors on hand from Philadelphia, although rainy weather had set in again. All kind of rumors were current as to what would be done with the State organizations, and many feared that the Troop would not be allowed to enlist as a whole, but that the men would be called upon to enter the volunteer service as individuals. These rumors soon died away, however, and on Monday when the men were lined up and asked if they were willing to enter the service of the United States there was but a single dissenting voice. One private refused to volunteer, and he at once resigned from the Troop. As there was no provision in the call for volunteers for an assistant surgeon, with a troop of cavalry, Dr. Charles H. Frazier could not be mustered in.

After the privates and non-commissioned officers had expressed their willingness to volunteer, Colonel Morrell addressed the officers as follows: "Is it your desire that I should request the Governor of Pennsylvania to issue to you a commission for the same places you now hold in the volunteer army of the United States?"

Captain Groome and Lieutenants Browning and McFadden signified their desire to serve, and Governor Hastings at once responded that it would give him great pleasure to have the commissions made out as requested.

After this inspection the men settled down to camp life with zest. On the day they had signified their willingness to enlist, the great news had come of Commodore Dewey's victory in the harbor of Manila. The destruction of the entire Spanish fleet in the East, gave a new turn to the war, and it was soon whispered that it would not be long before some of the men encamped at Mt. Gretna would be on their way to these distant islands in the Pacific. Daily drills were taken up with added interest. Wednesday and Thursday were rainy. The brigade surgeons were being examined, and all was put in readiness for the physical examination of the soldiers, preliminary to their being mustered into the volunteer service. Friday the City Troopers were examined and four men were rejected by the surgeons, chiefly for defects in eyesight. Two of these were afterward reinstated by direct orders from Washington.

Saturday, April 28th, the Troopers were marched down to division headquarters to be mustered in. A heavy Scotch mist hung over the camp, and objects at a short distance were invisible. The men were lined up before a long wooden platform upon which stood Major William A. Thompson, of the First U. S. Cavalry, the officer detailed by the War Department to muster the Pennsylvania National Guard troops into the Volunteer service of the United States; Governor Hastings and his staff, and hundreds of spectators. As the roll was called, each Trooper stepped forward and answered to his name. Then the mustering officer told the men and officers to raise their right hand. Up went the hands and the spectators removed their hats while Major Thompson repeated this oath:

"Do you solemnly swear that you will bear true faith and allegiance to the United States of America, and will serve them faithfully against all their enemies whomsoever, and that you will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of officers appointed over you, according to the rules and articles of war?"

"I do!" shouted each man in the same breath, and as the hearty response went up, the spectators applauded and the Third Regiment Band, sheltered in a building near at hand, struck up "The Star Spangled Banner." The officers' commissions were then filled in by the Governor and handed to their owners. Back to their camp marched the Troopers, no longer their own masters but servants of Uncle Sam, and as they filed past the mustering stand, a company of infantrymen stepped up to go through the same ceremony.

Noah is credited with being the only man who ever saw it rain for forty days and forty nights, but the City Troopers ran him a close race in the month that followed. The intervals between showers were almost too brief to be noticed, and it became a popular jest that the weather man was trying to break the men in for a campaign in Cuba during the rainy season. The worst storm of the lot was reserved for the Sunday following the muster-in of the Troopers. In regular cloud-bursts the floods descended upon Camp Hastings. The camp of the Troopers was surrounded by hills on three sides, and down these hills came innumerable streams, all headed for the Troop street. Visitors in large numbers had come out from the city on the long excursion trains, and many were half ferried, half driven to camp in an old wagon which seemed especially designed to do service as a boat. Bad as was the Troopers' lot, it was almost nothing compared to what the Philadelphia infantrymen were compelled to endure. The foot soldiers in the first place had not taken the same precautions as the Troopers in raising their mattresses from the ground, and in some cases they actually found their beds under water by nightfall. Mud in the streets of every camp in the First Brigade was six inches deep, and so sticky that to attempt to walk through it, invariably meant the loss of a boot.

On Monday morning, drills were resumed by the Troopers, and upon Tuesday they were called to bid farewell to the men of Battery A, who had been ordered to Newport News for guard duty.

Although the rain spoiled all attempts at systematic drill, captains throughout the camp were gradually getting their men in better shape, and the work of mustering-in had proceeded uninterruptedly. On Friday, the 13th, the last of the Pennsylvania Troops had entered the volunteer army. There were at that time 10,860 in all, and a grand review by the Governor was planned for the next afternoon. As if to compensate for past sins and sins to come, the weather for that day was perfect, and by three o'clock on Saturday afternoon the various troops and regiments throughout the camp began wending their way from the tents to the parade ground. The Troopers took up their stand on a little hill near their camp, but the rising ground prevented their seeing the miles of blue ranks, glittering with steel, that stretched away just beyond.

The Governor and his staff rode at full gallop along the lines, while a little band, the only one in camp, kept blowing out the strains of "Hail to the Chief." The lack of proper music was the only drawback to this occasion. Then the order to march came; the many commands swung past the reviewing party, and the finest display ever made by Pennsylvania troops since the Civil War was at an end.

The second command of Philadelphia soldiers to leave Camp Hastings was the Third Regiment. Colonel Ralston received his orders the Sunday following the review, and attempted to get off that afternoon, but railroad facilities were wanting and it was not until Monday evening that the boys of the Third got away. Tampa was their destination.

The next day Captain Groome received an order to report to General Merritt, of the Department of the East, and this order gave the reporters of the various papers material for many scare stories, as it became known the next day that General Merritt had been ordered to take command of the expedition to the Philippines, and it was supposed by some that he would take the Troopers with him. This rumor was in a measure substantiated by the orders which came for the Tenth Regiment to prepare to take a journey to the islands. For, like the Troopers, the Tenth had just previously been ordered to report to General Merritt, and when the orders came regarding the Philippines, the men of the Tenth had struck tents preparatory to going to meet General Merritt in New York. On this same Tuesday the First Regiment, made up of Philadelphia men, left Mt. Gretna for Camp Thomas, Chickamauga, and the Ninth Regiment started for the same camp.

From the movement of the infantry regiments it seemed probable that they would soon be required for active service, but the cavalry troops were detained at Mt. Gretna waiting for the issue of arms and equipments from the Government. As the City Troop was fully armed with the carbine, saber and pistol, uniformed, equipped and mounted, and owned all their equipments and horses, Captain Groome offered to Governor Hastings, and through him to the Secretary of War, to transfer immediately all the horses and troop property of every description to the United States, to be settled for at any time and price satisfactory to the Government. The Troopers hoped by this offer to be enabled to take the field at once, but unfortunately this was not accepted, although the spirit which prompted it was warmly commended in the return message from the War Department. After this there was nothing to do but wait for the Government to provide new horses and equipments.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, the 19th, Captain Groome was called to Washington and Lieutenant Browning remained in charge of the City Troopers camp. He put the men through a long dismounted drill and followed it up with another the next day. While the captain was away, a report came from Washington, through the Associated Press despatches, that the Pennsylvania Cavalry were to be ordered at once to Hempstead, L. I., to camp there until wanted. Saturday noon Captain Groome returned. He borrowed thirty horses belonging to the Sheridan Troop and took one-half of the City Troopers out for drill. When they returned Lieutenant Browning took out the other squad. In the evening there came an inquiry from the War Department as to how many horses were needed by the City Troop. This did not arouse any enthusiasm, however, as the same request had been made two weeks before and nothing had come of it.

Sunday was a pleasant day, for a change, and the Troopers spent it quietly. There were not many visitors on the grounds, as all the regiments had departed except the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Eighteenth. Most of these men came from distant parts of the State. In the afternoon Sergeant Glendinning tried some experiments in kite flying that were watched with interest, and others of the Troopers planned to go into the kite manufacturing business to be ready for sport on the next clear day.

There was a novelty in the way of drill in store for thirty of the Troopers, on Monday, as they were sent out in search of tramps who had settled in a nearby mountain, and were said to be moonshiners on a small scale. The exercise was splendid, but no tramps were found. That night a baby cyclone struck the camp. The wind got in its fine work about one o'clock in the morning, and the Troopers had to jump out of bed and hold their tents down. Some of the tents were sent flying before the alarm was given, and as rain immediately followed the blow, there were many men who passed an uncomfortable night.

At this time the order of the day, in camp, was as follows:

5.55 a. m.First call.
6 a. m.Reveille roll call.
6.05 a. m.Setting up exercises.
6.20 a. m.Mess.
7 a. m.Police camp.
8 a. m.Guard mount.
8.30 a. m.Drill.
11.30 a. m.Inspection of quarters.
12 m.Mess.
3 p. m.Drill.
6.15 p. m.Mess.
7 p. m.Retreat roll call.
9.30 p. m.Tattoo.
10 p. m.Taps.

All the men contributed to the mess from their pay, so that the meals did not consist solely of salt pork and hard tack. In the mornings the drill covered the manual of carbine or saber drills, and pistol practice by squad or troop, also dismounted drill by the Troop; this drill lasted as a rule two hours. The afternoon drill as a rule extended over three hours, and was chiefly in outpost and skirmish work. One platoon would start, under the command of an officer, telling the general direction it would take, and having gone a certain distance would establish outposts of an imaginary camp, twenty minutes later a second platoon would start on a march through the country, throwing out flankers and advance guard. The men of the two platoons wearing different colors on their hats so as to distinguish them. Up hill and down dale the men would crawl their way until the crack of the pistols would show that one platoon had been unmasked. Then it was left to the officers to decide which side had the best of the manœuvres. While two platoons were thus engaged a third was always left in charge of camp. Each morning half the Troop would be taken over to the rifle range for pistol and carbine practice.

One piece of work had been done by the Troopers, during the early days of their stay at Camp Hastings, that has not been referred to. It was a squad of City Troopers that went over the triple muster rolls of the entire quota of Pennsylvania volunteers, for Major Thompson, and their quick, accurate work helped greatly in the rapid mustering-in of the men. When he discharged these Troopers from further duty, Major Thompson wrote a cordial letter to Captain Groome, giving the Troopers high praise.

And so the days passed on. Sometimes the Troopers felt that their peaceful camp life was pretty slow, but as the drills became harder day by day they realized that it was not only a great school of experience, but that each day's drill was part of a general plan of their officers, that would gradually improve their physical condition and bring them to a high state of efficiency as a Troop when they were needed for active service. And so each night, when at the last note of "retreat" the guidon was taken in, they felt they had not only earned a good night's rest, but that they had learned something during the day.

PISTOL PRACTICE AT CAMP HASTINGS.

On May 25th, President McKinley issued his second call for troops, and it was announced that the men thus called for would be added to the organizations already in the field. The City Troop was to be recruited up to a complete war footing of one hundred men, and arrangements were made to notify the men upon the waiting list of the opportunity that would be thus offered. Two days later the Paymaster reached camp for the first time. Three members of the Troop were sent to Harrisburg to secure the cash, and that night the men had their first look at Government money; for in their previous campaigns, as a troop, their pay had come from the State. A Board was appointed, consisting of Major W. A. Thompson, First U. S. Cavalry, and Captain Paxton, Sixth Infantry, U. S. A., to purchase horses for the three troops of cavalry, and the last day of May Captain Groome left camp to join them in New Castle, Pa.