BIRD’S EYE VIEW OF FIRST REGIMENT CAMP, NINTH AND D STREETS, SACRAMENTO, CAL.
The work of raising the tents went busily forward. On account of the narrowness of the road company street formation was used, giving each company a separate street of four tents on each side; the first tents on the left of the street being occupied by the captain and lieutenants. By this means simply the road was used, the sidewalk being left open.
True it is that campaigning sharpens the wits. On every occasion that one man thought to gain an advantage over his fellows he was sure to find others carefully watching the same opportunity. Thus it was on the Capitol grounds when one tent crowd thought to carry off an old torn tent to use as a floor cloth, but found it necessary to have a rough and tumble fight with every other tent crowd on the street before they secured the coveted prize. And so it was at our new camp. We had no sooner seen the ground on which we were to camp than we knew hay would arrive to be used as beds, four bales for each company. Men from B began to lay in wait for the hay, with the laudable object in view of capturing an extra bale or so. They found men of the other companies equally alert, however. The hay soon arrived, and in spite of the efforts of Major Jansen, who tried to see even-handed justice done, the bales first from one side and then from the other walked off in the most mysterious manner. On taking stock after the scramble, it was found that B, through the agency of Flanagan, McCulloch, Murphy, and O’Brien, had become the proud possessors of six life-sized bales, which were quickly cut up and distributed in order to avoid discovery. Suspicion was also averted by sending the meek and lowly Bannan down toward the now empty wagon to “raise a kick” for more hay.
The work of building the canvas city on Ninth street was soon completed. At this place Ninth street had but one open end, at its crossing with D the railroad track built upon the levee, which is here about twelve feet above the street, cutting off the block at about C street. The tents of C company, having the left of the second battalion, were pitched close to this embankment, the others running out towards D street in the order of their positions in the battalions.
The large building mentioned before, on the grounds of which the headquarters tents had been pitched was taken possession of the hospital corps in front and the commissary department in the rear.
This house, though large and apparently well built, appeared to have been vacant for a year or two at the least; and it was not long before the irrepressible Doc Sieberst, in the course of his wanderings after adventure, learned (it is alleged from the members of the Japanese mission across the street who sang so sweetly night and morning), that this self-same house was haunted. This set his fertile brain at work, and he appeared on B street a few minutes later with the light of genius shining from his eyes, such as beams out upon us when he holds us spellbound by his wonderful rendition of that classic German poem “Schneider’s Ride.” Gathering his “heelers,” musical and otherwise, around him, he explained his discovery and the use to which it was to be put. As the dusk of evening fell o’er our quiet canvas city, marshalled forward to the fence in full view of headquarters, with outstretched arms and pointing fingers, we roared as in the Bells of Corneville,
“That house is haunt-ed,
“That house is haunt-ed,
“That house is haunt-ed, ted, ted, ted, ted, ted.