Noah is credited with being the only man who ever saw it rain for forty days and forty nights, but the City Troopers ran him a close race in the month that followed. The intervals between showers were almost too brief to be noticed, and it became a popular jest that the weather man was trying to break the men in for a campaign in Cuba during the rainy season. The worst storm of the lot was reserved for the Sunday following the muster-in of the Troopers. In regular cloud-bursts the floods descended upon Camp Hastings. The camp of the Troopers was surrounded by hills on three sides, and down these hills came innumerable streams, all headed for the Troop street. Visitors in large numbers had come out from the city on the long excursion trains, and many were half ferried, half driven to camp in an old wagon which seemed especially designed to do service as a boat. Bad as was the Troopers' lot, it was almost nothing compared to what the Philadelphia infantrymen were compelled to endure. The foot soldiers in the first place had not taken the same precautions as the Troopers in raising their mattresses from the ground, and in some cases they actually found their beds under water by nightfall. Mud in the streets of every camp in the First Brigade was six inches deep, and so sticky that to attempt to walk through it, invariably meant the loss of a boot.
On Monday morning, drills were resumed by the Troopers, and upon Tuesday they were called to bid farewell to the men of Battery A, who had been ordered to Newport News for guard duty.
Although the rain spoiled all attempts at systematic drill, captains throughout the camp were gradually getting their men in better shape, and the work of mustering-in had proceeded uninterruptedly. On Friday, the 13th, the last of the Pennsylvania Troops had entered the volunteer army. There were at that time 10,860 in all, and a grand review by the Governor was planned for the next afternoon. As if to compensate for past sins and sins to come, the weather for that day was perfect, and by three o'clock on Saturday afternoon the various troops and regiments throughout the camp began wending their way from the tents to the parade ground. The Troopers took up their stand on a little hill near their camp, but the rising ground prevented their seeing the miles of blue ranks, glittering with steel, that stretched away just beyond.
The Governor and his staff rode at full gallop along the lines, while a little band, the only one in camp, kept blowing out the strains of "Hail to the Chief." The lack of proper music was the only drawback to this occasion. Then the order to march came; the many commands swung past the reviewing party, and the finest display ever made by Pennsylvania troops since the Civil War was at an end.
The second command of Philadelphia soldiers to leave Camp Hastings was the Third Regiment. Colonel Ralston received his orders the Sunday following the review, and attempted to get off that afternoon, but railroad facilities were wanting and it was not until Monday evening that the boys of the Third got away. Tampa was their destination.
The next day Captain Groome received an order to report to General Merritt, of the Department of the East, and this order gave the reporters of the various papers material for many scare stories, as it became known the next day that General Merritt had been ordered to take command of the expedition to the Philippines, and it was supposed by some that he would take the Troopers with him. This rumor was in a measure substantiated by the orders which came for the Tenth Regiment to prepare to take a journey to the islands. For, like the Troopers, the Tenth had just previously been ordered to report to General Merritt, and when the orders came regarding the Philippines, the men of the Tenth had struck tents preparatory to going to meet General Merritt in New York. On this same Tuesday the First Regiment, made up of Philadelphia men, left Mt. Gretna for Camp Thomas, Chickamauga, and the Ninth Regiment started for the same camp.
From the movement of the infantry regiments it seemed probable that they would soon be required for active service, but the cavalry troops were detained at Mt. Gretna waiting for the issue of arms and equipments from the Government. As the City Troop was fully armed with the carbine, saber and pistol, uniformed, equipped and mounted, and owned all their equipments and horses, Captain Groome offered to Governor Hastings, and through him to the Secretary of War, to transfer immediately all the horses and troop property of every description to the United States, to be settled for at any time and price satisfactory to the Government. The Troopers hoped by this offer to be enabled to take the field at once, but unfortunately this was not accepted, although the spirit which prompted it was warmly commended in the return message from the War Department. After this there was nothing to do but wait for the Government to provide new horses and equipments.
On the afternoon of Wednesday, the 19th, Captain Groome was called to Washington and Lieutenant Browning remained in charge of the City Troopers camp. He put the men through a long dismounted drill and followed it up with another the next day. While the captain was away, a report came from Washington, through the Associated Press despatches, that the Pennsylvania Cavalry were to be ordered at once to Hempstead, L. I., to camp there until wanted. Saturday noon Captain Groome returned. He borrowed thirty horses belonging to the Sheridan Troop and took one-half of the City Troopers out for drill. When they returned Lieutenant Browning took out the other squad. In the evening there came an inquiry from the War Department as to how many horses were needed by the City Troop. This did not arouse any enthusiasm, however, as the same request had been made two weeks before and nothing had come of it.
Sunday was a pleasant day, for a change, and the Troopers spent it quietly. There were not many visitors on the grounds, as all the regiments had departed except the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Eighteenth. Most of these men came from distant parts of the State. In the afternoon Sergeant Glendinning tried some experiments in kite flying that were watched with interest, and others of the Troopers planned to go into the kite manufacturing business to be ready for sport on the next clear day.
There was a novelty in the way of drill in store for thirty of the Troopers, on Monday, as they were sent out in search of tramps who had settled in a nearby mountain, and were said to be moonshiners on a small scale. The exercise was splendid, but no tramps were found. That night a baby cyclone struck the camp. The wind got in its fine work about one o'clock in the morning, and the Troopers had to jump out of bed and hold their tents down. Some of the tents were sent flying before the alarm was given, and as rain immediately followed the blow, there were many men who passed an uncomfortable night.