Company E, of the Eighth New York Regiment, has started on an important military expedition.
It is the desire of the commanders to find out just what the practical value of a bicycle would be in time of war.
To demonstrate this, Company E, which is the bicycle company of the regiment, received orders to make a week's trip on Long Island, instead of going to the state camp as usual.
It is the intention to have the command cover a distance of five hundred miles during the week, each man carrying with him the regulation kit of a soldier on the march.
This outfit consists of the canteen or water-bottle, knife, fork, spoon, and combination frying-pan and plate, a blanket to sleep in, and of course a rifle, bayonet, and cartridge-box.
With the bicycle command, all these articles had to be stowed away so that the hands should be free to control the wheel.
The blanket was therefore strapped on the handle-bars, the musket slung under the saddle, the cartridge-box and bayonet hung from the soldier's belt, and slung across the shoulders were the canteen and a haversack containing all the other articles.
With all these articles the bicycle will be heavily loaded, and one of the points which the authorities especially wish to prove is whether it is possible for men to make any distance on wheels when they are so heavily weighted.