Captain Michael Kelly is an old soldier, though not an old man. He can wear military medals on dress-suit occasions which puzzle even the experts. A County Clare man by birth, he was drawn by fighting instincts as a youth into the British Army, since there was no Irish Army organized, and fought through the Boer War and Burmese campaigns. In New York he is second in command of the aqueduct police and a Captain of the 69th, succeeding Captain P. J. Maguire, who gave up his beloved Company F with satisfaction only because it fell to his trusted Lieutenant. Captain Kelly is a soldier first, last and all the time. His spear knoweth no brother. He visits infractions of military discipline with sternness and vigor. His Company stands in awe of him, and boasts of him to others. They are well looked after. If I have anything to distribute I have to keep an eye on him and Anderson, the two tyrants amongst Company Commanders. Give them their way and everything would go to Companies E and F, with a humorous growl between the two as to who gets the most of the spoils.
The Irish-American A. C. gave us Captain James Archer, as it and kindred organizations have given us many of our best soldiers. There are few young fellows around New York who have not heard of Jimmy Archer, and many a one has watched with delight his fleet limbs carrying his graceful figure and shining head around the track to victory. He has the cleanness and fineness of the amateur track athlete—very distinctly a man and a gentleman. He has won his way through every step upward in the Regiment and has fairly won his race to the Captain’s bars.
Captain James G. Finn of Company H is a Spanish War veteran, though he looks so young that he has to carry around his service record and the family Bible to prove it. Not that anybody would call Jim a liar. Not after taking one look at him. He is a broad-shouldered, big-chested fellow, one that the eye will pick out of a crowd, even in a congested crowd, for he stands above the heads of ordinary mortals. A football player, of course—Dartmouth College. A big honest manly man and a devoted soldier. Jim Finn thinks that Company H is the best bunch of fighting men that ever shouldered a rifle, and Company H knows that their big Captain is the finest man in the American Army. There are two hundred and fifty of them, and the Captain has thews like the son of Anak, so I don’t intend to start anything by contradicting either of them. Anyway, I more than half agree with them.
Captain Richard J. Ryan of Company I is a new comer and, like a boy in a new town, he has his way to make. If I be not “mistook in my jedgments” he will make it. He hails from Watertown, New York, and from the 1st New York Infantry, but that does not complete his military history. He fought in the Boer War, I suspect from the same reason that prompted Kelly—because that was the only war there was, and a man must do the best with the opportunities he has. He is all wrapped up in his Company. He does not seem to care a hang what anybody higher up is thinking about him. He has his job and he wants to see it done right. That is a good sign. A soldier by natural instinct and preference, a Captain devoted to his men—that goes with the 69th. I am for him.
Captain John Patrick Hurley of Company K, is an argument for the continued existence of the Irish as a people. He has everything that everybody loves in the Irish, as found even the reluctant tributes of their hereditary foes. He has a lean, clean handsome face and figure, and a spirit that responds to ideals patriotic, religious, racial, human, as eagerly and naturally as a bird soaring into its native air. He is perfectly willing to die for what he believes in. He would find that much easier than to live in a world of the cheap and commonplace. He always reminds me of the Easter-week patriots of Dublin, Patrick Pearse and Plunkett and MacDonagh. Like myself, and I may say all of us, he is in this war as a volunteer because he feels that it is a war against the tyranny of the strong, and a fight for the oppressed peoples of the earth. He is an able, practical man withal; an engineer, graduate of Cornell. He rules his company as their military commander, and the tribute of affection and loyalty they pay him is not lessened by the knowledge they have that breaches of discipline will meet with no mercy.
Captain Merle-Smith of Company L came to us on the Border from Squadron A, and the intervening year of intimacy has not changed the judgment I uttered the first time I saw him: “If I had to pick out one man to spend a year with me on a voyage to Central Africa, there is the man I would select.” A big fellow—he and Reilly and Finn are our prize specimens—and big, like them, all the way through; and with the astonishing simplicity—in the old theological sense of the word as contrasted with duplicity—that one so often finds in big men. A college athlete (Princeton) and a lawyer, the contests of the campus and the bar have only whetted his appetite for more intense battles. From the time he joined us he has felt that the best opening for real soldier work is in this regiment. He is a 69th man by conviction, and he is as fond of his valiant Kerrymen in Company L as they are of him. I found no one in the recruiting period more zealous in increasing the numbers of the regiment and maintaining at the same time its characteristic flavor than Captain Van Santvoordt Merle-Smith.
Captain William Doyle commanded Company M when we were called out, but since Captain Powers took the Headquarters Company he has been made Adjutant. It was a good choice. Captain Doyle is a college man (St. Francis Xavier) and an engineer by profession, and has been a National Guardsman for more years than one would guess. His training fits him for his new job. His mind is quick on the trigger, though the speed and accuracy with which it shoots a retort is rendered deceptive by his slightly humorous drawl in delivery. He is not one of the big fellows, but the big fellows think twice before taking him on.
Martin Meaney, Captain of Company M, was a Sergeant of Company G when we were in Texas. I wanted Colonel Haskell to make him a Second Lieutenant, but Martin hadn’t left the County Clare soon enough to satisfy the technicality of having his final citizen papers. He could fight for the United States, but he could not be an officer. He came of age as a citizen during the summer and went to Plattsburg, and the people in charge there made him not a Second Lieutenant but a Captain. Colonel Haskell, who is Adjutant at Camp Upton, found the chance to send him back to us as a Captain, and we were very glad to get him. For we know Martin Meaney; and everyone who knows Martin Meaney likes him and trusts him. He is a fine, manly upstanding young Irishman devoted to high ideals, practical and efficient withal. Granted the justice of my cause there is no man in the world I would so much rely on to stick to me to the end as Martin Meaney. It makes us all feel better to have him along with us in our adventure of war.
The vacancy in the Machine Gun Company was filled by the appointment of Captain Kenneth Seibert, an old guardsman of the Iowa National Guard. He has the position of Johnny-come-lately with us yet, but he knows the game and he will be a veteran of ours by the time we get to our first battle. His whole organization is practically new, but he is very keen about it, and is an excellent manager, so we feel that he will soon have it in shape.
Captain John Mangan of the Supply Company is the salt of the earth. I like Jack Mangan so much that I always talk that way about him, and incidentally I waste his time and mine by holding him for a chat whenever we meet. He came to us before we went to the Border. His friends were in another regiment, but all that was nice and Irish about him made him want to be with the 69th. He is a Columbia man and a contractor. Colonel Haskell got his eye on him, when, as a Second Lieutenant, he was put in charge of a detail of offenders who had to do some special work. Under Mangan their work was not mere pottering around. They did things. While we were on the big hike Mangan was left behind with a detail of cripples to build mess shacks. They were built, created is a better word, but we were doomed never to use them, as we got orders during the hike to proceed to another station. I said to Haskell: “Don’t forget to compliment Lieutenant Mangan on his work, for he has done wonders, and it looks now to have been all in vain.” Haskell answered with assumed grimness: “Lieutenant Mangan will not be Lieutenant Mangan long.” He was Captain Mangan, R. S. O. (Regimental Supply Officer) as soon as the formalities could be arranged; and in a short time he was the best supply officer on the Border, as his training as a contractor gave him experience in handling men and materials.