It was eight o'clock when the train bearing the City Troopers, every man ready and fit for duty, came puffing into the Broad Street Station. Outside the building and along Broad, Chestnut and Market Streets, the route over which it had been planned to have the cavalrymen march, dense throngs packed the sidewalks, and were only kept from the streets by ropes in charge of hundreds of policemen.
SERGEANT'S CLUB AT GUAYAMA.
Captain Groome was the first man to alight from the cars, and he was at once requested by General Morrell and Director Riter to permit a street parade of the command before going to Horticultural Hall, where a banquet had been prepared. The Captain said his men would be pleased to do anything the Reception Committee wished, and the line was immediately formed for parade. Police horses had been secured and were on hand for the Troopers.
The procession was led by a file of mounted policemen and carriages containing the Citizen's Reception Committee, which had gone to New York to meet the Troop. Following them came the Third Regiment Band and the Second City Troop. Last of all came the veterans in their Khaiki uniforms, and cheer after cheer went up everywhere as they came into view, mingled with enthusiastic shouts of "Here comes the Rough Riders!"
Up Broad Street, through an endless multitude, the procession moved, through brilliant displays of fireworks and past brightly illuminated residences. On Chestnut Street the scene was repeated with the added effect of booming cannon from the roof of the Union Republican Club. Down Chestnut to Eighth, and up Eighth to Market, and thence to the City Hall, the Troop passed, and when Horticultural Hall was reached the riders had the satisfaction of knowing that they had participated in the greatest parade ever given by the Troop in its century and a quarter of existence.
As the Troop drew up in front of the hall, amid wild cheering, the men dismounted and turned the horses over to the mounted police. The men then filed into the banquet room between lines of the Battery A men, who stood at "Present arms." While standing at their designated seats Mayor Warwick addressed the Troopers as follows:
"Welcome home! We are here to-night to greet you with all our hearts. God bless you, and God keep you. The Republic is proud of you, and the city thrown open to you."
While the cavalrymen were eating, their relations and friends crowded in upon them. There was much laughing and much hand-shaking. The men had all been granted a sixty-day furlough, and they took their time about punishing the good things, leaving the hall at a late hour in groups of two's and three's—home at last.
Within a short time after their return, and before their muster-out, the Troopers participated in a number of interesting events. Several receptions and dinners were given in their honor by individuals and clubs, and the one hundred and twenty-fourth anniversary of the Troop's organization was celebrated. The cavalrymen took a leading part in the military parade, on the second day of the Jubilee Celebration, October 27th. President McKinley reviewed the parade, and as the tradition of the Troop required that its members should act as the President's escort while in the city, the following Honorary members of the Troop were appointed to act in that capacity: Captain General E. Burd Grubb, Captain Joseph Lapsley Wilson, Captain Edmund H. McCullough, First Lieutenant James Rawle, Second Lieutenant Major J. Edward Carpenter, Second Lieutenant Frank E. Patterson, Second Lieutenant Edward K. Bispham, Cornet Charles E. Kelly, Cornet Richard Tilghman, Surgeon J. William White, Surgeon John B. Shober, Surgeon Charles H. Frazier, Quartermaster Hugh Craig, Jr.