In the recent war with Spain, coaches were provided for the men; and for the sick, sleeping cars and dining cars, all of which was perfectly right. Between Washington and any portion of the eastern and Middle states, no soldier, during the War of the Rebellion, should have been obliged to ride in a car built for cattle, particularly after the war had progressed for over one year.
At Baltimore the namby-pamby feature of the excursion ceased, Enfield rifles were dealt out to the companies, together with accoutrements, the cartridge box, belts, etc. That seemed like war. No cartridges were issued; those came on Arlington Hights.
The city of Baltimore had shown, to some extent, an inclination in favor of secession. Many of its young men had gone to the Confederate lines and a strong feeling against federal interference with secession was very noticeable among a certain class of the citizens. Troops were stationed there to preserve order.
The regiment was marched into an open street with guards stationed to prevent the men from wandering about the city. Co. G remained strictly passive within bounds and found no opportunity for doing otherwise. They were exemplary fellows when under guard.
An unusual place for a dining hall was that at Baltimore—on an upper floor near the depot. Very good food was supplied, particularly the coffee.
Co. G were very fond of coffee; although at that early day it had not become so necessary to those heroes in embryo as it was a few years later. The experience of soldiers generally in that war, favored the use of coffee. It was food as well as drink. When a fellow was nearly fagged, on a severe march, the mention of coffee appeared to brace him, and a hand would slip into the haversack for a pinch, only to tide him along. A spoonful of coffee in a canteen of water lifted one comfortably over many a weary mile. To abolish the whisky ration was wise. To have taken away the coffee would have endangered the cause.
Coffee and the letters from home were two important auxiliary supports of the nation. Those letters were a power. Nothing went just right when the mail was delayed. Anticipation is a great word and the soldiers worked it for all it is worth; on all the various grades of the psychic thermometer from zero to fever heat. Ah, when fever heat was struck, the indication was reliably certain that she had "gone back on" her soldier lad.
Clean cattle cars were supplied at Philadelphia, but the sort in which Co. G traveled from Baltimore to Washington were fragrant of stable odors. The distance was little over forty miles, yet the entire night was consumed. That scheme of traveling nights and loafing around half dead during the daytime, was never explained. Some of the men had a suspicion that Col. Brown was fearful that he might lose some of his men if he changed cars in the night time, and so corralled them the same as other stock. However that might have been, in his regiment the most remarkable desertions were among the officers.
Co. G did not enlist to become deserters and the few of them who did desert were scarcely missed; and a halo of glory which hung over the heroic Co. G at the close of the war obscured, if it did not eliminate, all weak points. Orators and newspapers accorded them glory, the popular cry glorified them. Why not place the laurel crown right here?
September 30th was a beautiful day, but warm in Washington. Co. G jumped down from their cattle cars and were marched to cattle barracks near the capitol. There was plenty of space for camping, but no tents had been issued to them. Those barracks terraced up the hill, resembled barns, rough boarded and whitewashed. The lawmakers over in the huge marble building nearby, reclined upon soft cushions. The sons of their constituents, who had come down to settle a serious difference stirred up in that building, were marched into foul-smelling barracks because they were soldiers. It was too bad to treat American troops that way.