As the head of the column turned down Twenty-sixth Street, heading to our old receiving ship the "New Hampshire," the band struck up "Home, Sweet Home." The men still marched with heads erect and eyes to the front, but many of those eyes were dimmed with a moisture that almost prevented their owners from seeing the long, homeward-bound pennant that floated from the masthead of the old frigate.
As for the greeting given by mothers and sisters and relatives of every degree and by friends assembled on the "New Hampshire," that is one experience that cannot be described; it must be felt to be appreciated. Suffice it that every member of the New York Naval Battalion felt amply repaid for the hardships endured and the sacrifices made in the service of Old Glory. And if the occasion should again arise for the calling out of the Naval Reserves of the First New York Battalion, they, together with their comrades, the Naval Reserve Battalions of other cities, will cheerfully don their "clean whites" and respond to muster.
"Pipe down!"
APPENDIX.
THE NAVAL MILITIA OF THE UNITED STATES.
The Naval Militia is a volunteer organization made up of certain patriotic citizens of the United States, who conceived the idea that the country could be served by its sons as well in the naval branch of the National Defence as in the military. The subject of a naval volunteer force had been agitated for several years, but it was not until the latter part of June, 1891, that the first enlistments were made.
Since that time the success of the organization has been continuous and most gratifying, and it has required only the recent war with Spain to prove that its value to the country at large cannot be overestimated. At the outbreak of hostilities, the strength of the Naval Militia throughout the country was 4,445 officers and enlisted men, but the rush of recruits incidental to the opening of the war vastly increased that number.
The scope of the organization is naturally limited to those States bordering on the seacoast and the Great Lakes, but the interest taken in it to-day by the people is widespread and emphatic. The existence of this interest was amply proved by the enthusiastic welcome tendered the returning crews of the "Badger," "Dixie," "Prairie," "Yosemite," and "Yankee" by the citizens of the cities more closely concerned, and by the country at large.