But this climate was very detrimental to the soldiers in Camp Merritt, and fatal to many.
While stationed in Camp Merritt I spent a great deal of time in the San Francisco park, which contained one thousand acres of land.
A great variety of wild animals and many different kinds of birds were there, and I found in it a great deal of interest and amusement. Crowds of people were there every night. Many people were there for the purpose of committing some crime. People were frequently being sandbagged and robbed, or sometimes boldly held up, and money and valuables secured.
I knew a great many soldiers who were robbed, sometimes they received bruised heads just by loafing in the park at night.
No reflection is intended to be cast upon the police whose duty was in the park; there were a great many of them, but they did not know all that was being done in the park, and it was necessary for a man to keep a sharp lookout for himself if he wished to escape uninjured.
The date of our departure the Red Cross gave a fine dinner for all who were going to leave the camp. This was the custom with that society when any soldiers left there for the Philippines.
All those who left while I was there partook of a splendid dinner just before leaving.
This society, in addition to the dinner given to us, had several hundred dollars worth of provisions put on board our transport, and all marked, "For enlisted men only on deck."
At three o'clock in the afternoon of the seventeenth day of October, 1898, we sailed on board the transport "Senator." The provisions put on board for us were well cared for—by the officers, who took charge of them and guarded them so well that if an enlisted man got any of them, he had to steal them from under a guard. Actually had to steal what belonged to him by gift, and if caught stealing them he was court martialed, and fined enough to buy his rations for a month, but the fine money was not appropriated in that way.
We had a rough voyage, not on account of the weather, but because the transport was so packed and crowded that a man did well to walk from one end of the ship to the other. We were crowded like a cargo of animals bound for a slaughter pen.