While the futile dollars were being flung to the Government for new armies, the army that was already in the field was counting its small-arms and artillery ammunition, knowing that it did not possess enough for two days’ battle.[66]
From ocean to ocean men with naked hands were crowding to enlist. The generous Nation that never yet had denied a need when the need was made apparent, was as generous with its lives as with its dollars. For two and three blocks around the recruiting stations of regular army and militia the streets were packed with men. They had come from work and pleasure. They had come home from far places. They had dropped shovels and tennis-rackets, pens and picks. They stood shoulder to shoulder, in fine stuffs and in rags, made equal by one loyal purpose. And they were as futile as the dollars.
One million men, it was computed afterward, had offered themselves in America in that one day. But there were no weapons for them. There were not enough rifles. There were no uniforms. There were no tents. There were no shoes.
Keen-eyed men of trails and wilderness offered themselves for the signal corps. There were no signal corps supplies. Telegraphers were there, but all the field telegraph outfits that the country had were with the army. Teamsters volunteered, but there was no reserve of army wagons. Men trained in bridge building and engineering were turned away, because there was no equipment to fit out sorely needed companies of miners and sappers.[67]
Cavalry was needed, urgently; and men who could ride tried to enlist. But there were no mounts for them. Army officers in Texas and New Mexico and Oklahoma were buying, at unheard-of prices, rough horses wild from the range, while in Connecticut were regiments of regular cavalry whose troops were only three-quarters filled with either men or horses.[68]
Money, money, money! Men, men, men! It was too late.
Newport’s Palaces Occupied by Enemy Officers
The bulletins still were displaying the news of the loss of Narragansett’s defenses when the mine-sweepers of the enemy, unhampered now, completed their work in the channels of the great harbor and signaled to their fleet that it was safe to enter.
The big liners crowded in—ships that hitherto never had entered an American harbor except New York or Boston. Followed by horse-transports and vessels laden with artillery, they passed in a gigantic parade past Newport.
Only destroyers and light-draught gun-boats preceded them. There was no further need of cruisers with shotted guns to protect them. The enemy flag was flying over Forts Adam, Wetherill, Greble, Getty, and Philip Kearney. The American guns which the garrison had not been able to destroy now looked down the harbor to hold it for the invader against American attack.